He rolls his eyes, taking a swig of his beer. “You’re unbelievable. Is it always going to be like this between us?”
“There’s nothing between us.”
“And you claim that you’re not still angry, ten or so years on.”
“I told you to forget about it!” I snap.
“I wishyouwould forget about it. I wish…”
He trails off, his expression softening as I glare at him.
I notice his eyes flicker down to my lips. My throat tightens and my heart begins to thud against my chest. Suddenly, my thoughts are clouded by how close I am to him. My cheeks flushing under his gaze, I exhale shakily and swallow. His forehead creases and then, out of the corner of my eye, I see his fingers twitch. I think about what would happen if I reached out and pulled him toward me and—
“Jansson! There you are.”
Cosmo appears next to us and we jolt apart. My face is on fire.
“I’d like your opinion on something,” Cosmo continues, clapping him on the back. He notices me and adds impatiently, “Unless I’m interrupting, of course.”
“No,” I assure him. “I was going to go get another drink anyway.”
I move toward the bar, eager to erase what just happened. I can’t let myself think that way about Ryan. I focus on steadying my breathing as I lean against the counter and wait for my drink, closing my eyes in the hope of shutting out the memories.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It’s official: Ryan Jansson is impossible.
I don’t know how long I’ll be able to work in these conditions. He’s only been here a couple of weeks and already he’s driving me crazy. His first day, he waltzed in with a box of—get this—homemade cookies.What kind of person does that? A sneaky, arrogant, manipulative one, that’s who. Of course, the whole team flocked around him and his stupid cookies, praising his baking skills and saying hemustshare the recipe.
Please.
I wasn’t fooled for one moment. I saw him nervously take out the Tupperware and slide it onto the treat shelf, where we put out edible items sent in for the food and drink review pages. Then he stalked back to his desk without announcing the cookies to anyone, obviously waiting for Mimi to call out, “Hey, where did these cookies come from?” when she passed a little later, so that he could look modest as he admitted that he baked them over the weekend.
What a performance.
I did not fawn over his cookies, no matter how delicious they smelled. I would never give him that kind of satisfaction. When he noticed me staring at them, an amused smile played on his lips and he casually said, “You can help yourself, Harper.”
“No, thank you,” I repliedcivilly,as was required.
“They’ve got extra chocolate chips.”
“I’ll pass,” I said, cool as a cucumber. “I don’t like cookies.”
Mimi then had to ruin everything by saying, “What? Youlovecookies! Last Thursday you ate four of those Millie’s Cookies that were sent in. Wow, Ryan, these are delicious!”
“Thanks,” he said, before leaning toward me and muttering, “I promise you they’re not poisonous.”
“I never said they were.”
“You shouldn’t not eat them just because I made them.”
“I told you, I don’t like cookies.”
“Suit yourself,” he grumbled.
I ignored him and got on with my day, successfully avoiding the temptation to eat any of those cookies, despite having to walk past the treat shelf several times.
If only it was as easy to avoid Ryan.
