Thankfully, the laptop camera was angled away from where he’d passed.
“No,” I said, clearing my throat. “Just ignore her. Or give her a professional ‘Mr. Maris is out of the office’ type response. Believe me, she knows we’re not in a relationship. She’s just not happy about it.”
Which was an understatement. The woman had blown up my phone before I’d finally blocked her number.
Minnie looked a little too gleeful. “Professional disdain. Got it. What else?”
“Will you please order Celeste lunch from Soletti’s? If she already has plans, she’ll eat it tonight.”
She looked up from her tablet. “I thought Celeste was headed to the Caymans with her friends?”
“Shit. Right. Okay, can you find out where she’s staying and send some flowers and a bottle of Dom to her room, please?”
She nodded. “I’d ask what you did to piss her off, but apparently, I’m not to involve myself in your personal?—”
“Jesus, Min,” I snapped. “Fine, okay? I hired the guy because…” A million words came to mind.He challenges me. He’s hot. He makes me insatiably curious. He gives incredible head. He’s kind. He cares. He’s a terrible liar. He’s fucking beautiful.
I want him.
Jett chose that moment to come back out of the room, this time dressed in stylish but simple twill shorts, a solid-color T-shirt, and leather flip-flops. Clothes Minnie had arranged.
He moved quietly past me and out the door to the suite, once again ignoring me or giving me space and privacy for my call.
“Because there’s just something about him, Min,” I finally said in a low voice. “And I need to figure out what it is.”
I focused back on her after trailing him with my eyes. The look on her face was one of surprise but also affection and understanding. “Oh,” she said.
I blew out a breath. “It’s not a thing.”
“Mmhm.”
“Don’t do that. I’m serious. You know how I feel about relationships. And Locke Maris is hardly going to come out as… what? Bisexual? Give me a break.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
I closed my eyes and remembered she, herself, was bi, even though the last three people she’d dated were men. She’d dated a woman in high school for three years. It was just that I hadn’t liked Heather, so I tended to forget about her.
“You know what I mean,” I said.
“I do, but you’re still an ass. And I think your bad attitude is coming from fear. You can be bi without telling anyone about it, Locke. You can also be bi without doing anything about it.”
Of course, she was right. And I could admit to myself there’d probably been other times I’d been physically attracted to men in my past, but I simply hadn’t felt strongly enough to acknowledge it, let alone act on it. There’d always been plenty of women to hold my attention instead.
“Can we please stop talking about it? I’m bi. Okay? There. I said it. It’s just a surprise, is all. And learning this about myself doesn’t change my stance on relationships.”
She blew out a breath, the air making her bangs flutter. “No. I get it. Maybe it would have been different six months ago, but now we definitely don’t have time for anything serious.”
It was a conversation she and I had shared many times. We loved what we did for Maris, even before my grandfather had died. And we both recognized we were in prime career-building years. We could find love later.
But hearing her say it now made me feel… annoyed. Cheated somehow.
Stifled.
“Youdo,” I said. “You have time.”
She laughed. “Right.”
Her grin changed into a familiar expression of challenge. “If you don’t have time, neither do I.”
