“Don’t point at me.”
“I’m not your assistant. You’re at my house, and if I want to point at your crotch, I will. If you don’t like it, you can leave, especially since you weren’t even invited over here anyway,” I said, raising my voice.
“Message received.” Beck glowered at me. “Though you could have just yelled through the door when you saw it was me instead of jumping out here like a lunatic.”
“The peephole was painted over by the maintenance people, and I can’t see out,” I admitted.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone. “Here,” he said, stretching out his hand. “Or are you going to bite me? Should I slide it over on the floor?”
“No, I think the floor is leaking some sort of toxic chemical.” I took it from him, turned the phone over in my hand, and pried the SIM card holder out of the phone.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s your phone.”
“No, it’s yours,” he insisted.
“You bought it for me for my job.”
“Funny,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “I might have acted a bit hastily in firing you. Ethel showed up. She almost had a heart attack at the girls’ hair.”
I grimaced, vaguely remembering the drunk text messages.
“But it would be even worse if she learned you were out of the picture,” Beck continued, taking a cautious step toward me. “Tess, I really need you.”
A part of me, the part that hadn’t completely given up hope and still loved romance novels, wanted him to tell me how much he missed me and wanted me in his life and wanted me to be his one and only true love. You know, a full-on Cinderella moment.
“Tess,” he said, reaching for me.
Was this it?
You don’t even like him, I reminded myself.In fact, you hate him.
“I’ll raise your pay.”
Well, if that’s as good as I get, that’s as good as I get.“Double or nothing.” I crossed my arms.
“You drive a hard bargain.”
I held out my hand to shake. “I’m only coming back for the girls,” I warned, “not you.”
He took my hand then frowned. “Why is it sticky?”
“I’m making apple pie,” I explained, wiping my hand on my nightgown, much to Beck’s chagrin. I turned around and grabbed the handle of the cast-iron skillet and pulled. Nothing happened.
“I have the car waiting,” Beck continued. “I believe the majority of your things are still at the condo.”
I tugged on the skillet. It budged slightly. “Guess I’m stronger than I look.”
“I have to pick the girls up from the bento box class soon,” he prompted as I pulled at the skillet.
“So…”
“So let’s go.”
“I told you,” I said, bracing a leg against the wall and putting my full weight on the handle. “I have to bake a pie.”
The skillet jerked out of the wall, and I went flying backward. I careened into Beck, bouncing against his hard chest. His arms wrapped around me briefly, and I resisted the urge to lean into him.
