2. Dana #2
“Me?” I scoffed, trying to play it off as if it wasn’t a big deal, as if the thought of being alone in a room with Cole didn’t make my stomach sink. There was a questioning glint in her eyes, though. “Why?”
“He saw your employee of the month photo?—”
“Seriously? Goddammit. Why do we even have those?” I groaned, throwing my head back in frustration as I stepped through the door. “Drew’s not gonna sleep tonight if I leave much later.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” Allison sighed. “I tried explaining that your shift had already run over but he’s very… well, no nonsense. You haven’t worked under him yet, Dana. He’s more of a hard ass than Ben.”
Somehow that didn’t surprise me in the slightest.
She walked with me in silence to the elevator, briefly giving me directions to Cole’s office as the doors closed and separated us. As the elevator lifted me higher, it felt like my freedom was slipping away.
How fucking convenient that the moment I found a job that paid well, and one I actually enjoyed when tourists weren’t actively trying to destroy machinery, that this had to be the outcome.
I’d finally been able to stand on my own two feet competently and my brief fling, my one-night stand that ended in disaster, turns out to be the boss.
If there was a god, he certainly had it out for me.
Those eyes found me the moment I stepped out of the elevator.
“You actually came.”
I didn’t do Cole the decency of meeting his gaze as I stepped around his hulking frame. “Not like I had much of a choice,” I mumbled.
Whatever conversation he wanted to have absolutely wasn’t going to be done where someone could stumble upon us, and I was going to make damn sure of that.
I followed Allison’s directions to his office and let him trail silently behind me.
The floor was clean and shiny; not a chance that a single spec of stickiness would be clinging to my shoes.
The only sound was our heavy footfalls and the swing of his office door as we entered it.
I wondered where the other guy had gone, if he’d sent him home or if he was waiting around downstairs.
The door clicked shut behind me. “Been a while. Don’t you think?
” he asked, his deep voice trailing around me as he weaved his way to his dusty desk and office chair.
As he sat, a cloud of it puffed up, dancing in the low light around us.
Had the sun been out, the view from his office would’ve been incredible—all mountains and trees with only a trace of the street below.
But all that filtered through now was a lonesome streetlamp, reflected headlights, and a hint of the stars above.
“Can we please not do this?” I asked, not caring how badly it came across. I didn’t want to be in here and it wasn’t like he couldn’t tell already. I didn’t even bother sitting, didn’t care to bring home any dust or make him believe I was staying long.
His lips curled into a thin, harsh line. “When did you start working here, Dana?” he asked, avoiding my question as if it were the plague. And as much as I didn’t want to play into his interrogation game, I knew him well enough to know it was the quickest way out of this situation.
“About five months ago,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “You didn’t need to bring me up here for that. Surely you could just check my file.”
Avoiding the heaviness of his gaze, I gave myself a moment to take in the expanse of his office.
Exposed brick, just like Allison’s office and like every other wall in the building.
The only difference was the sheer size and the ornate furniture that littered it.
A solid, perfectly carved wooden desk, a chair that likely cost more than a year’s worth of my rent, lamps that looked like the original fixtures in the bar.
Even in the poor lighting and the far too wide silence, it still screamed wealth.
“You didn’t tell me,” he said, breaking the quiet he’d created. But his voice wasn’t quite as booming, wasn’t quite as demanding as it had been before.
I forced myself to look at him, to take him in for a moment.
The line between his knitted brows was juxtaposed by the softness of his eyes, and in his expression I saw who he was before that night we’d shared that had changed everything.
It hit me more than I thought it would. In my wildest dreams, when I considered the possibility of running into him out in public, I always imagined he’d be the way he’d been that night — not the way he’d been before.
Maybe that was my mistake. “Why would I, Cole?” I sighed. “I had no idea this was your business.”
“You never noticed my pictures on the wall in the restaurant?” he smirked, leaning forward into the pile of dust on his desk. Little particles clung to the sleeves of his suit jacket. “You didn’t notice my face three photos down from yours where you’ve been hung as employee of the month?”
A memory flashed in my mind from the stupid hanging ceremony they’d had for me, and sure enough, nope — I couldn’t remember even looking at the other photos on the wall.
I’d avoided looking at them ever since it’d be hung my second month here because I hated that picture of me, taken just a few months after my son was born.
How had I missed this?
“Do you think I look for you everywhere I go?” I crossed my arms, trying to mask the tremor in my voice.
He snorted. “I don’t know, Dana. But if you think it wasn’t obvious that you knew who I was the moment you locked eyes with me downstairs, then you’re dead wrong. I saw your face go as pale as a goddamn ghost. You haven’t forgotten my face just as much as I haven’t forgotten yours.”
Warmth spread across my cheeks, betraying me as I tore my gaze from his. My mind was a whirlwind of emotions, the memory of our one night together clashing with the urgent need to keep a wall between us.
“I’d even hazard a guess that it excites you just as much as it used to.”
“Don’t—” I cut myself off and searched for the words I wanted to say, but everything fell flat.
I stared at the brickwork to the left of him, counted the odd ones that looked like more recent replacements, focused in on them to give myself a moment to breathe and find myself.
“Please. I actually like working here, and I really, really don’t want you to sully that. ”
“How would I?” he asked, and I could hear the grin in his voice. “If anything, I’d bet that my presence would only magnify that.”
“Don’t be an ass,” I snapped, pulling myself back to his piercing green stare and the little lines beside his eyes brought on by his shit-eating smirk.
“I only mean because you have an in with the boss.”
“If I wanted an in with the boss, I would have stayed working for Lottie.” As much as I loved the independence that came from working a job where I didn’t get pity-paid, I did miss seeing my close friend as often as I used to when I worked on the ranch.
And if Cole made my life hell here… “I’m sure she’d be plenty happy to have me back, though. ”
I didn’t expect him to move the way he did.
He pushed up from his desk, sending dust flying into the air in the low lamp light. Three steps and his height was already rounding it, moving far quicker than I was capable of as I took a step back toward the door.
His presence enveloped me, stealing the air and leaving it dry, demanding that I try to reclaim it.
At one point in time, that had been enticing to me — the back and forth between us, the fight for who was really in command.
Even now, a part of me still responded to it, still clung to it, and as he brought himself inches from my face, his light cologne filling my nostrils.
“You don’t want that,” he said, that thickness back in his voice. I could feel the depth of it in my chest and in my stomach, but somehow, I doubted it was loud enough to even make it through the door. “You’ve made that irrevocably clear.”
I swallowed. He wasn’t wrong, and I almost wished I hadn’t said how much I enjoyed it here.
It gave him power over me — gave him the power to hold my employment above me and dangle it like a cat toy, too tempting to ignore but with the possibility of it disappearing the moment he decided my presence wasn’t worth the effort.
I didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know how to handle him like I used to, and in my flailing, I found my tried and true get-out.
“I need to go home,” I said, the warble in my voice only slightly noticeable.
The moment after I started my sentence, I realized that I couldn’t finish it — I couldn’t use that excuse, no matter how true it was.
I couldn't tell him why I had to go home or who was waiting for me there. Shit. “It’s late.” Please let that be enough.
His eyes flicked between mine, studying me, watching every minute movement I made. “Fine,” he smirked. “But know this… " He moved his face an inch away from mine. "I won’t let you go this time, Dana.”