9. Bianca #2
“Ma’am, security is on their way.”
“They’ll have to come in to get me.”
A third assistant has appeared on my other side, somehow, from somewhere. They multiply, these people. Rabbits in heels.
I open the door.
Theodore Sawyer is standing at his window with his back to me, phone to his ear. The office is a wall of windows on two sides.
The assistants behind me are talking over each other.
He turns and sees me.
“I’ll call you back,” he tells the person on the phone, and he hangs up before whoever it is can respond.
The assistants begin apologizing and telling him that security is on the way.
He doesn’t look at them. “It’s fine. Close the door.”
One of them audibly gasps. But they both do as he says and shut the door behind them when they leave.
He sets the phone on his desk. He unbuttons one sleeve and rolls it up. He doesn’t look at me while he does it.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Miss Donovan?” He begins to unbutton the second sleeve.
“Jasper Jenkins.”
His hand pauses on the second button. “I don’t know who that is.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He looks away quickly before looking back. Body language that tells me he’s lying.
“He released three mice in my bakery yesterday.” I take a step toward his desk. “He photographed them. He posted the photograph. Then he locked his accounts when I posted the security footage of him doing it.”
He finishes rolling up his second sleeve. “That has nothing to do with me.”
My eyes narrow. “You hired him.”
“I didn’t.”
“One of you did.”
He doesn’t answer that. He doesn’t deny it either.
“This has to stop.” My hands won’t hold still, so I flatten them against my thighs. “I asked your brother for a truce. You’re going to give me one.”
“You’re in my office, Bianca.” He comes around the desk. “I’m the only one who gives orders in this room.”
I don’t move. “You want to know what I think?”
“Not particularly.”
“I think you’ve wanted that truce since the gala. I think the man who got up and talked about kindness in front of three hundred people meant it. And I think somewhere along the way, attacking me stopped being fun for you.”
He stops in front of me. Close. Closer than two people who can’t stand each other have any business standing.
“This stops,” he says, “when I decide it stops.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“You didn’t ask a question.”
He closes the last of the distance, and then the wall is at my shoulders, and his hand is flat against it beside my head. His attention drops to my mouth.
And, oh my God, this man is going to kiss me.
And here’s the part my body seems to have forgotten: I hate this man.
I hate him for the mice, for Jasper Jenkins and his flat blue stare. I hate him for how he made me feel at the gala. I hate that he thinks having money and power means he gets to back a woman into a wall without saying sorry first.
I’m not going to be one more thing that falls into Theodore Sawyer’s lap because the world hands Sawyers whatever they reach for.
“No,” I say.
His head tips a fraction. “I haven’t asked you anything.”
“You were about to kiss me.”
“Maybe I was.” The corner of his mouth moves. Not quite a smirk, but almost. “What if I said I’m sorry?”
He says it so quietly I almost miss it. Almost.
“For which part?” I ask. “It’s a long list.”
“All of it.”
“You’re going to have to do a lot better than sorry.”
He brings his free hand up near my jaw and lets it stay there, not touching, daring me to lean in. “And if I apologize,” he says. “Properly. Will you let me kiss you?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
And that’s the reason I can’t stand him. He wants the kiss more than he wants to actually fix what he did. I’m just the next thing he’s trying to win.
I put my palm flat on his chest and push. Not hard. He gives and steps back like it was his idea.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I tell him. “You’re going to call off whatever cute little plan is next. No mice. No bloggers. No accidents on my sidewalk. And if you’re very lucky, and you grovel beautifully, someday I might let you buy a cinnamon roll like a regular human being.”
He drags his lower lip through his teeth. He doesn’t answer.
I tip my head back against the wall and say something dumb on purpose, the way I always do when things get too heavy. “Anyway.” A breath. “What would your father think if you kissed me?”
It’s a joke. It’s supposed to be a joke.
His face changes.
The hand by my head drops. He steps back further, and whatever was in his eyes a second ago gets packed away somewhere I won’t reach.
“Get out,” he says.
“Really? Let me get this straight. Me rejecting you is fine. I make a little joke about your father, and that’s the part you can’t handle?”
“Get out of my office, Miss Donovan.”
Back to Miss Donovan.
I push off the wall and smooth the front of my shirt where he never quite touched it. “Leave me alone, Theodore,” I say, walking to the door. I pull it open. “You are continuing to embarrass your family and yourself by attacking me.”
The assistants in the hallway don’t look at me as I walk past. The elevator is already there. I push the button.
The elevator is taking too long, or it is taking the normal amount of time, and I have lost track of what normal means.
I walk through the lobby, avoiding all eye contact.
Thankfully, the bakery is closed by the time I get back, so I go upstairs to my apartment to decompress.
I check on the mice, who seem comfortable enough in the old fish tank that I dragged out and wiped down before I watched the security footage.
They’ve eaten all the fruit I put in a small dish, and it looks like they drank some water.
The biggest one is tawny and calm. He sits on his haunches.
The second one is leaner, darker. He watches me without moving.
The third mouse is running laps around the tank. He pauses to look at me. He runs. He pauses. He runs.
If only they’d chosen a different dessert caterer for the gala a month ago. Then I wouldn’t be in this mess.
I wouldn’t be thinking about Theo’s mouth, or how close he got, or the half inch of air I refused to give him. I wouldn’t be wondering what it would’ve been like if I’d said yes. But I didn’t say yes. And I’m not going to.
Nope. Not interested at all.
It doesn’t matter, anyway. I hate him.
And he hates me. He made that abundantly clear when he told me to get out.
I look at the mice.
The biggest one. The calm one. I name him first. “Theo,” I say out loud.
He doesn’t react. He grooms one paw.
The lean dark one. The one who has been watching me without movement. “Gideon.”
He blinks.
The small one stops mid-lap, but runs off again.
He is moving the fastest. He has not stopped moving since I caught him. He is, against all reason, the one I am most fond of already. “You,” I tell him, “are Ander.”
He cocks his head. He sniffs the air.
I lean my head against the cabinet.
The smallest mouse runs another lap.
“Slow it down, little guy,” I tell him.
He doesn’t.