I wave his words away. “I decided I might as well run with that story. Embellish it, even. So I began weaving my tale. I’d met a guy on vacation. An artist from Madrid.” With my hand, I indicatehim. “Interesting, glamorous, and not on the same continent. A perfect creation, really.”
“Long distance?” I hear Brandon scoff. “Never gonna last.”
“Fun while it does, though” was my retort.
He didn’t like the idea of that.
“So that was my story, and I’ve stuck to it.” Especially when his efforts intensified. Hair touching, fingers tracing the base of my spine or briefly touched to my hip, his opportunities chosen when he knew I wouldn’t make a scene. An elevator dick brush that I tried to tell myself was an accident.
“We will fuck, Killer.” This he said as late as last week, his assertion like a lover’s whisper as he hung over my shoulder as though helping me with something. “It’s only a matter of time before it’s my cock you’re riding.”
“Pretty sure anyone willing to fuck you is just too damned lazy to jerk off.”
“That mouth,” he said, all growling and entertained. “One of these days I’m gonna use it as a—”
“What part of ‘I have a boyfriend’ don’t you understand?” I demanded, rolling my chair back over his foot.
“The part where I’ve never seen him.” His retort, always with an air of having the upper hand.
I give an uncomfortable shrug. “That’s why I was so desperate earlier.”
“Why the hell are you still working there?” he asks with a serious frown.
“I have plans,” I say, not willing to give them away. To jinx them. “I know I’m not perfect, and in some ways, I’ve brought this on myself.”
“Fuck that,” he says immediately. Passionately.
“I just mean my smart mouth seems to encourage him. But you know that old saying, if you run into an asshole in the morning,you run into an asshole, but if you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole?”
“And that’s not you.”
“That’s not me. I know I’m kind of prickly, but I’m more than aware of my own flaws.” But even if Brandon’s interest was genuine and he gave me flowers in place of intimidation, I still wouldn’t date him. I won’t ever get involved with another man in finance. Too much drama. Too much trauma.
“I just wanna get tonight over with.” My words feel brittle. “We only need to stay long enough to make a point.” And not long enough for anyone to realize Matt isn’t a Spanish artist called Nate.
“And the point is that you’re taken? Or that they should pull their heads out of their arses and join the new century?”
“Both works for me.”
“Then I think we should dance. So you can show me off to the whole office, the big strappin’ lad that I am.”
I tsk. “Such a peacock.”
“Are you gonna want to congratulate the happy couple?”
I glance down and smooth my hand over the tablecloth. “Wantmight be putting it a little strongly.” Fun times to be had by all, right?
“What’s he gonna think about me?”
“I don’t give a flying fuck.”
“But you know he’s not gonna like it. He’s still part of the reason I’m here.”
I guess that’s true—no point in arguing. “Pete traded up.”
“Fucked up, more like. But getting back to me, the peacock.”
I give a tiny laugh. “Oh, so you admit it?”
