How was he here? He’d said he’d gotten a job, but I’d just assumed… And Bob was stillright there.
Lauren tilted her head. “Elizabeth?”
Thinking fast, I said the first plausible thing I could think of. “My shoe fell off.”
She looked down at my feet, lip curling at the obvious lie. “Hurry up and come meet Evan.”
Fuck.
I clenched my fists and resolved to get this over with. As I stepped through the door, Lauren announced, “Evan Spurlock, meet Elizabeth Wright, my associate producer.” She turned to me. “Evan will be taking over for Bob on weather now that he’s retiring.”
When Evan’s eyes met mine, he stood and straightened his tie. He looked un-fucking-believable in a suit coat. The guy I’d met at the rooftop bar had been cute, like unapproachably pretty, and I thought that was his maximum effort. Who knew his beauty could dial up beyond eleven?
His gaze traveled down my body, and my heart thundered in my chest. I imagined literal lightning sparking between us and let loose a very inappropriate hysterical giggle.
I pressed my lips into a smile approximating sanity and nearly said, “Hi,” flirtatiously when I remembered how he’d spurned me, and I forced my face into a scowl. He hadn’t so much as texted me since our phone call, and now here he was. In my workplace.
How was this remotely fair?
His expression darkened, his eyes growing distant and drifting away from me like I was invisible. A telltale blush creeping up his neck was the only sign he’d even recognized me. As if his radio silence hadn’t been enough of a “fuck you,” he had the gall to physically shut me out without so much as a how-do-you-do.
I swallowed down my initial reaction, which would have been to scream at the top of my lungs, but I was too busy fighting back very inconvenient tears to speak a word.
Lauren said, “Well, okay then. You two can become better acquainted soon enough. Come on, Elizabeth. We need to play catch up.”
I glanced once more at Evan and noticed the shadow of a beard covering his jaw and his black framed glasses slightly askew on his face. How dare he be so frustratingly hot?
And more importantly how dare he act as if he’d never seen me before?
Just like that, a cold front rolled in.
Evan focused resolutely on his computer monitor, but I glared at him anyway. Fuck him. I turned around with a head flip and stormed out without a word. I stomped through the news studio until both Sandra and Kent looked my way, then slowed my steps. The last thing I needed was for everyone to think me a petulant baby.
Although what did it matter? I had to quit this job. I couldn’t possibly work in the same building as that man. That motherfucking man and his goddamn sexy fake glasses.
I needed a drink. I could walk out right now, call Chelsea, and meet her for a bottle of wine.
But as we walked to the newsroom, Lauren said, “Never mind Evan. He’s been very standoffish.” She turned and winked. “But talk about hot. I had the same reaction as you when I first saw him. Hot, but frosty.” She laughed at what I assumed was her poor attempt at a weather pun.
I could have topped that by telling her Evan and I had a tempestuous relationship that had stalled. But I didn’t want to rain on her parade. I snickered at my stupid internal puns and nearly forgot that we were headed directly into the eye of the hurricane. At least she was talking to me without disdain for once.
Lauren must have taken my reaction as encouragement. “Too bad he’s gay.”
I stumbled and caught myself. “These damn shoes.”
Chapter Twelve
Evan
“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”
Hamlet
As soon as Elizabeth turned and left, I peeled my eyes off the radar I’d been staring at to force my body to behave itself and not betray my immediate physical reaction to seeing her with no warning at all.
But like an afterimage, the vision of her remained clear. I couldn’t shake it from my mind if I tried. That skirt cut to just above her knee, that form-fitting blouse open low enough to remind me what lay beyond, those heels that I’d fantasize about for the rest of the day. All of it, so different from the last time I’d seen her.
And her makeup. Jesus. She’d been pretty without. But that dark eyeliner and glossy lipstick caught me completely off guard and sent a jolt straight through my core. My imagination went into overdrive, and I pictured her, the way she’d lain in her bed, all decadence.
