Chapter 20 #2
Her mouth tightens slightly. That tiny reaction shouldn’t matter. It does.
“Drew,” she says, “this is Jimmy.”
He already knows exactly who I am, even if she doesn’t realize that yet. A man like him walks into Ambrosia and clocks who owns the room within seconds.
But he nods anyway, gives me one of those shallow little almost-smiles men use when they’re pretending not to dislike each other on principle.
“Jimmy.” The way he says my name makes me want to rearrange his jaw. Then he turns to her and says, “You ready, Allison?”
Allison.
Not Allie. Not the name everybody who actually knows her uses.
Allison.
Polished. Formal. Distant enough to sound respectful. Wrong enough to make my skin crawl.
She nods once. “Yeah. Just let me grab my purse from the office. I left it on my desk.”
“I can come with you.”
“No, you’re good. I’ll be right back.”
She says it easily enough, but I still catch the brief glance she throws my way before turning toward the hall.
A warning.
Maybe a plea for me not to start anything. Maybe just irritation that I already did.
Either way, she disappears toward her office, and Drew stays where he is, hands loose at his sides like he belongs. He doesn’t.
I move first. Just one step closer. Not enough to be physical. Enough to make sure he hears me clearly over the music.
“You waiting for her outside.”
His gaze cuts back to me. “I’m sorry?”
“You heard me.”
His jaw tightens this time. There we go. “I think I can stand wherever she expects me to stand.”
I look at him for one long second.
He looks right back. No fear. Too much attitude. A little too sure of his own place in the world.
I hate him immediately.
Not because he’s particularly dangerous.
Because he isn’t. Because he looks at this room like it’s beneath him.
Because he said Allison’s name like he thinks he knows her.
Because he’s here for a date with a woman I haven’t stopped thinking about for one single useful second since I had her in the office.
Blaze drifts a little closer, casual as hell and entirely too entertained. “Everything good over here?”
Drew glances at him, then back to me. “Perfect,” he says. He means the opposite.
Good. At least we’re all honest about something.
I should leave it there.
Should step back. Should let him wait. Should act like this is none of my business and maybe if I repeat that enough times, my body will stop reacting like it’s under attack every time he breathes in her general direction.
Instead I stay right where I am until he finally exhales through his nose and says, “I’m taking her to dinner, not trying to smuggle state secrets.”
“Lucky for you.”
That gets me another hard look. “You always this welcoming?”
“Only when I don’t like somebody.”
Blaze lets out a low laugh behind me.
Drew’s expression goes flat. “You don’t know me.”
“No,” I say. “I don’t. Yet.”
And there it is. The threat under the words. Quiet. Controlled. Enough.
He hears it.
I know because the line of his mouth changes again. Not scared. Not even close. But aware now. More careful.
Maybe he does have sense after all.
Behind us, the office door opens.
I turn before I mean to.
Allie’s there with her purse over one shoulder and her keys in hand, and for half a second, all I can think is don’t go.
Not because this date means anything. Not because I think Drew is the love of her life waiting in a clean shirt and a smug little attitude.
Just because the idea of her leaving with him feels wrong in a place I can’t fix with anger.
She catches my expression. I know she does. Her face doesn’t change much, but there’s something in her eyes that says she sees right through me anyway.
“Ready?” Drew asks.
She nods. Then, because apparently the universe still isn’t done testing me, she starts toward the door and her purse slips off her shoulder.
She catches it halfway, frowns, and says, “Hold on. I left my phone on the desk.”
Drew turns. “You want me to—”
“No, I’ve got it.” She heads back toward the office again.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I follow.
I hear Blaze say, very softly, “Ah, hell,” behind me.
Too late.
Allie makes it into the office just ahead of me, and the second she turns and sees me in the doorway, she exhales like she knew exactly this was going to happen. “Really?”
I shut the door behind me, not locked this time, just enough to cut some of the sound. “You really going on a date with him?”
She stares at me. “That is generally what happens when someone asks you to dinner and you say yes.”
My jaw tightens. “You know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
She sets her keys down on the desk with a little more force than necessary and turns fully toward me. “Then say what you mean, Jimmy.”
There it is again. That impossible insistence on honesty.
I fucking hate it because I never have anything she’ll accept. “He’s a cop.”
One of her brows lifts. “Congratulations on your powers of observation.”
“He looks at this place like it’s filthy.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
She shrugs, infuriatingly calm. “He’s allowed to have opinions.”
“Not if he’s walking in here to pick you up.”
Something flashes across her face then. Fast. Sharp.
Not hurt. Not exactly.
Recognition.
Like she heard more in that than I meant to say.
“He doesn’t know me,” she says quietly. “Not really.”
That should help. It doesn’t. Because I know what she means. And because some savage little part of me wants to say exactly.
He doesn’t know you. He doesn’t know what your laugh sounds like when it’s real. He doesn’t know how you look under the stage lights. He doesn’t know how your pulse jumps under my fingers when I touch you.
He doesn’t know a damn thing.
That line of thinking is a fast track to disaster, so I shove it back down and say, “Then why go out with him?”
Her eyes hold mine.
For one long second, neither of us moves.
Then she says, “Maybe because I’m tired of waiting around.”
That lands clean.
Deep.
Too clean to misread.
My body reacts before my mind catches up. One step closer. Then another.
She doesn’t back away, but her breath changes.Just slightly.
“Waiting for what?” I ask, though I know exactly what.
Her mouth parts. Then closes. Then she laughs once, soft and bitter. “You don’t get to ask me that.”
Maybe not. I ask anyway. “Why him?”
“Why not him?”
“Because he’s wrong for you.” The second it’s out, I know exactly how it sounds.
Possessive. Too familiar. Way too much.
Allie just looks at me. Then, very quietly, she says, “You don’t get to decide that either.”
I know.
Christ, I know.
And yet I’m still standing here, too close again, breathing too hard, acting like a man with some kind of claim he never earned.
Her gaze drops to my mouth for half a second.
That’s all it takes.
The room goes tight. Every memory of that night. Of her on stage. Of the kiss years ago. Of all the ways I’ve been trying not to touch her and failing spectacularly.
All of it slams together at once.
I move before I can stop myself.Not much. Just enough to crowd her space. Enough that if she leans even a little, we’re done.
Her hand braces against the edge of the desk behind her.
My hand lands beside it. And for one stupid, dangerous second, all I can think about is kissing her again.Not soft. Not careful.
Just taking.
Taking all the smart decisions in the room and setting them on fire.
Her lips part. Her eyes lift to mine. The air between us goes electric.
Then she whispers, “Don’t.”
That one word stops me harder than a shove would have.
Not because I want to stop. Because I hear what’s in it.
Not fear.
Need.
And boundaries I’ve already pushed too far.
I close my eyes for half a second and force myself back one step. Then another.
Her chest rises sharply with the breath she finally takes.
Mine’s not much better.
She reaches for the phone on the desk behind her without looking away from me, then picks up her purse and slides the strap back over her shoulder.
Neither of us says anything for a second.
Then she smooths one hand over the front of her shirt like she can press herself back into place and says, “I’m going on my date.”
The words shouldn’t hit like a punch.
They do.
I look at her and say the first stupid thing that comes to mind. “You still want to?”
Her eyes flash. “Yes.”
That answer is too fast. Too firm. Too clearly aimed at me.
Good. Fine. Whatever.
She steps around me before I can think of something else to say, and this time I let her.
Because if I stop her now, I don’t know what the hell I’ll do next.
She makes it to the door, hand already on the knob, then pauses long enough to look back over her shoulder. Then she leaves.
I stand in her office like an idiot for half a second too long, staring at the closed door and trying not to put my fist through something expensive.
When I step back out into the hall, Drew is waiting by the side exit. He straightens when he sees her. Not me. Her.
And there’s something about the way he moves toward her, too close and too comfortable for a man who hasn’t earned any of that space yet, that makes my jaw lock all over again. “Allison,” he says, holding the door open.
Wrong name. Wrong tone. Wrong man.
She walks past me without another look and heads out with him into the parking lot.
I follow only far enough to see them reach his car.
Far enough to watch him open the passenger door. Far enough to see her get in. Far enough to feel every ugly, possessive instinct in me rip itself raw all over again.
Then the car door shuts.
Drew rounds the front. Gets in. Starts the engine.
And I stand there outside Ambrosia, working security on a night that should be normal, watching Allison leave on a date with a man I already hate for no reason good enough to say out loud.