Facing him, the closeness unnerved her, and she tried shifting a little on the seat to put
some distance between them. The move didn’t get her far enough away. “Thanks.”
“It must have been tough.”
She shrugged off the comment with disregard. “I got over it a long time ago.” Jack raised an eyebrow as if questioning whether she was telling the truth.
“So, about your office, do you have any idea what you would like for me to do?” She changed the subject before he asked too many questions. Questions she didn’t want to answer.
Not mentioning her subject change, Jack answered, “Everything needs to be done. Walls need repainting, new carpet…the works. Everything got trashed.”
“Do you have a color scheme in mind?” Lauren drummed her fingers on the tabletop as ideas sprang to mind.
Shrugging his shoulders, he smiled. “Nope, I’ll leave it up to my designer.”
“Hmm, I’m thinking maybe pink walls with purple trimmings and white, lacy curtains. How does that sound?” Lauren gave Jack a mischievous grin.
Tapping a finger to his chin, he pretended to look like he was considering it. “The pink and purple walls sound good, but I draw the line at white, lacy curtains.”
A laugh bubbled from her. “If you had let me meet you in the morning instead of rushing me out here tonight, I would’ve brought along a color swatch for you and we could’ve picked out some colors.” Actually, it was Jade’s text message that had her forgetting the samples.
“Well now, you’ll need to come by in the morning and we can look at colors then.”
“So what was the point of this meeting? You could have told me over the phone what you wanted done.”
“I used the office as an excuse to take you out for a drink,” he answered, not looking at all sorry for misleading her. His fiery gaze traveled over her body, burning her from the inside out.
And that’s my cue to leave.
Jack may have tricked her into the meeting, but he definitely wasn’t getting anything more. If he thought the rest of the evening was going to consist of less clothing and a lot of heavy breathing, he had another thing coming. She just had to remember who he was—Jack Henderson, football playboy of the century.
Reality hit her in the face like a splash of cold water. It was only a few days ago he had been there with another woman, and now he thought he could get lucky with her?
She picked up her purse, pushed away from the table, and rose. “Good night, Jack.” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and stopped her once again from leaving.
“What’s the rush?”
“We’re going to be work colleagues, nothing more. You tricked me into coming here to have a drink with you so you can what…get me to go home with you? I don’t work like that, especially when it was only a few nights ago you were here with another woman!” He looked puzzled, and she chuckled with disbelief.
“The tall and gorgeous Amazon queen. Surely you haven’t forgotten her already?”
Recognition lit up his face, and he laughed. “Sophia is going to love that description.”
Disgusted, Lauren shook her head. “I’m leaving.”
“No, no. Wait.” His lips were still twitching with laughter. With his hand still wrapped firmly around her wrist he pulled her back down to the seat. She didn’t want to cause a scene so she sat back down.
Rubbing her brow, she sighed. “Jack, you’re wasting your time with me. I’m not one of those women who’ll wait in line for your attention. Do you have a different woman for each night of the week? Amazon queen on Tuesday, some other women for the rest of the week, but had a free spot tonight and thought I could fill it? I’m not interested, Jack.”
“She’s gay.”
“What?”
“Sophia, the Amazon queen, she’s gay.”
Lauren rolled her eyes. “Do you expect me to believe that? She was all over you like a bad suit.” Actually, they had sat and watched sports. She had occasionally touched him gently on the arm or his thigh; not exactly a display of indecent behavior.
“Do I detect a bit of jealousy?” Hope shined from his eyes.
