Chapter Thirteen
Olivia
“Was that really necessary?” I ask, quiet enough that it doesn’t carry past the bar.
“Yes,” he says, then catches himself. “He was being… too charming.”
I let myself look at him. He’s in navy, crisp enough to cut paper, tie straight, posture saying absolutely nothing. The only tell is the way his hand sits half-fisted on the rail. His eyes aren’t on my face. They’re on the scarf. He drags them up a second later, like he knows I noticed.
I unclench my fingers from around my pen. “Charm is part of the job,” I say, deliberately keeping my tone even. “And I know how to do that job. Or do you doubt that?”
Something flickers in his face quickly, then disappears just as fast. If I didn’t know him, I’d miss it. But I do. Or I’m starting to. He almost flinches. The words from last night sit between us.
Are you going to fire me?
You’re the best damn coordinator I’ve ever worked with.
He clears his throat. “I don’t doubt it.” His eyes dip, then return to mine. “He was veering off the runway. I nudged him back.”
“By making it seem like I couldn’t control the conversation.” I slide the pen up the pad’s spiral and set the pad aside. “By answering questions meant for me.”
“He was aiming the answers at you and hedging the numbers.” His voice is low, controlled. “I’d do the same for any one of my employees.”
And there it is. Employee.
My shoulders go tight. The scarf feels hotter at my throat.
I slide off the stool and keep the motion efficient and practiced, like this conversation isn’t tearing me apart.
“Noted.” I smooth the front of my blouse and tuck the pen in the pad’s wire. “I can handle my job, Roberto. If you think I can’t, you might as well fire me so I can stop wasting both of our time.”
His jaw tightens. “Olivia—”
“I have work.” I hook the legal pad under my arm, reach for the sample box Marco left, and step past him.
“Wait.” The word is soft, uncharacteristically so. I feel it tingling at the base of my spine. “Please.”
I stop, but I don’t turn. A breath. Two. I rotate just enough to give him my profile. The scarf pulls slightly when I swallow.
His hands are empty and open at his sides. He looks like a man who regrets walking into the room in the first place. “I shouldn’t have said it like that,” he says. “I shouldn’t have stepped in at all.”
“Like what?” I ask, throat dry.
His mouth works once, like he’s practicing his words before saying them. “Like you’re just another employee.”
I keep my eyes on the far window for a count of three. Then I turn fully. “I’m not,” I say. “I’m your coordinator. I’m good at this. And I don’t need rescuing from an overly friendly salesman.”
He absorbs the words with a small nod. “You’re right,” he says. “I’m sorry. I didn’t like the way he was enjoying your time instead of answering you. I reacted. That’s not an excuse. It’s the reason. And it’s not good enough.”
“You’re the one who set these boundaries,” I remind him. “What happened here,”—I tip my chin back toward the bar—“was not that.”
He breathes in once, deep, then out. “No,” he admits. “It wasn’t.”
I rest the sample box back on the bar and finally face him squarely.
“You can’t have it both ways,” I whisper.
“You can’t ask for distance and then step in whenever you feel like it.
Women in my position already have a hard time getting respect from salesmen.
You can’t undermine me in front of someone I’ll be doing long-term business with.
Marco was a bit too cheesy, but he was respectful.
Now, I don’t know what I’ll be getting the next time I have to deal with him. ”
He opens his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. “And you can’t step in and fix it, demand his respect for me. It’ll only make the problem worse.”
His jaw flexes. He takes it, doesn’t argue. “You’re right.”
Silence folds in. I can hear the tiny hiss from the espresso machine being tested two rooms over, the slow tick of the HVAC kicking through a cycle.
“What do you want me to do differently,” he asks, “so I don’t make your job harder?”
The question is simple and disarms me. I lift my chin. “Don’t stand between me and anyone I’m managing. If I need you or anyone to cut in, I’ll give the signal.”
His eyes search my face, and I have to force myself not to squirm under his gaze. Then he gives a small tip of his head. “Noted.”
I reach for the box again. He gets there first, palm up. “May I?”
For a breath, I stare at his hand. His long fingers, his oddly callused palm for a lawyer. I step back and nod.
He reaches past me to pick the box up, and the shift brushes against my scarf. It slides down, just a whisper, and I feel the cool kiss of air on the skin he marked.
His gaze drops before I can pull the scarf back up. A flash of dark heat and possession sends a spark through me, landing squarely between my legs. His expression quickly shifts into shame, then his control snaps back into place. He looks away hard.
I catch the scarf and tug it up, fingers steady even if my stomach is doing flips. “It’ll heal,” I say, because pretending he didn’t see is worse.
His jaw works once. “It shouldn’t have been there to begin with.” It’s quiet and scolding. Not aimed at me, but at himself.
The words send a feeling of despair through me, and I can’t figure out why. The words play through my mind again, sending me into a feeling of despair I can’t explain. It shouldn’t have been there to begin with.
I don’t answer that. I can’t rewrite what happened last night, and I wouldn’t if I could. I step back to give him more room.
When he’s got the box in his hands, and we’re ready to go, I lead the way out of the room, then stop.
I turn back. “Roberto.”
He meets my eyes.
“I’m not sorry,” I say. “About what we did.”
I feel the words run through him. I can see it. His fingers flex once on the box, then loosen. His eyes darken the way a sky does when a cloud passes over. He takes a breath. “Neither am I,” he says and doesn’t elaborate.
Something inside me stops shaking.