Chapter 10
ten
VAL
I’m going to kill Rick.
My so-called “friend” and Amantha stood near the entrance of the Vanderbilt hall, shooting the breeze like two damn peas in a pod.
It wasn’t a crime for him to talk to beautiful women—last I checked—but spilling embarrassing stories about me to one deserved jail time. He was currently regaling her with his favorite tale about me.
“Last time I go golfing with you, Rick,” I grumbled under my breath as I stalked toward the last remaining ladder.
I didn’t mean to drive that golf cart into the pond. Really, it was the bird’s fault. I don’t know what that crow thought I had, but the memory of wild wings and the smell of bird feathers still made my skin crawl.
I had stood dripping with pond water while explaining what had happened to the country club clerk, but I wasn’t sure he could even hear me with Rick howling in the background.
I stole a glance at the two of them over my shoulder.
Amantha’s wavy blonde hair had grown longer since she first started at the museum, not that I had noticed. It tumbled down her back as her head tipped back in laughter. Her sparkling gray eyes collided with mine, the remnants of her last witty jab resting on her smile.
That smile.
My mouth ran dry.
An Amantha shaped—and oh, that shape—riptide threatened to drag me from my island of loneliness. I had stumbled onto the island over two years ago, stabbed a flag into it, and declared it mine.
Mine alone.
Attraction was overrated. And that was all it was.
Attraction. Short-lived and easily dealt with.
Besides, plenty of attractive women had approached me over the last few years.
I wasn’t blind to their lingering looks and flirtation.
While it was hard to resist some of them—I was still a red-blooded man, after all—I wouldn’t reciprocate.
And if they really got to know me, they wouldn’t want me to either.
I shifted uncomfortably in my sweaty black button-up and broke down the ladder before hauling it back to the industrial carts also needing to be put away.
The metal rungs trembled against my shoulder.
Despite my near-perfect gym attendance, the set-up was targeting different muscles I didn’t normally hit in my workouts.
Amantha’s beet-red face flashed through my mind as she had tried to muscle that heavy wall on her own.
A small grin lifted my mouth. When the rest of the technical crew didn’t show up, I hadn’t expected her to lift a pretty pink fingernail.
Now, she stood with Rick, barefoot and bare-shouldered and nearly as sweaty as me.
I swiped a hand across my slick brow, erasing my smile and replacing it with a scowl.
The woman didn’t make sense. Each time she did or said something unexpected, it only made her more interesting to me. The answers I wished I didn’t care about felt like sand slipping between my fingers. If I managed to hold onto a grain, it only sparked a thousand more questions.
I wished I’d never gone to that dumb pottery class. Regret ate me up inside for not ditching that punk, Stirling, after he insisted I participate. I should have left before I heard Amantha laugh—really laugh, like she actually enjoyed me for a second.
But above all, I wished she hadn’t touched me.
I couldn’t remember the last time someone other than family had willingly touched me. Before that touch, Amantha had simply been annoying. Cosmically designed to bug me, like a gnat I couldn’t swat. But after?
I still couldn’t shake the sensation of her ivory fingers atop mine.
That gaze of hers swung my way for a moment, hypnotizing me in my tracks.
Her eyes were the color of liquid mercury, shifting from the palest moonlight to the deepest shadow, depending on her mood, which usually seemed to be irritation around me.
I smirked, knowing full well that I was the cause for that irritation.
Resolve straightened my spine as I cracked my neck side to side. Nothing had to change. I wouldn’t let it. I threaded one arm through the other, stretching my sore shoulder as I walked toward them.
I met Amantha’s stare with a cocky one of my own.
“What’s that look for?” Amantha smirked. “Planning on driving another golf cart into a pond?”
I forced the fakest-sounding laugh I’d ever heard. “As long as birds stay the hell away from me, no.” I couldn’t hold her gaze anymore, so I looked at the floor instead.
Boring. Gray is barely a color, anyway.
Rick glanced between me and Amantha, a sneaky look forming in his eye. In the time it took for Amantha to duck her head and tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, Rick had shot me a knowing look and a suggestive nod toward her. An almost comical wink followed.
I decided to interpret the wordless communication as, “Get a load of this chick. So overrated.”
Couldn’t agree with you more, Rick.
The janitorial cart must have caught fire or something then, with how fast the old coot ambled away from us. My brain stumbled as Amantha drew closer, suspicion lifting her dark blonde eyebrows. She tapped a thoughtful finger against the neck of her lemonade bottle.
“Okay, so no plans to drown golf carts. Hmm. Let me guess. Kicking puppies then?” The undignified snort at her own joke should have been off-putting.
“Nice one, Adams,” I said dryly.
“Or is stealing walkers from old ladies more your speed?” She grinned.
That one was creative. I pressed my lips together to conceal my amusement, but an unreadable glimmer in her eyes made me pause.
Something had changed.
Now that I thought of it, the bite in her words seemed softer today.
As though the bite was playful and not to rip my head off.
A memory of shameful words exchanged at thirty-thousand feet shadowed the moment.
I flinched, remembering the phrase she had chosen to skewer me with.
But I had also acted like such a jerk that morning.
I would have wanted to rip my head off too.
So what changed?
Amantha’s pointed look conveyed how weird I was being.
Talk, man.
“Old ladies love me,” I blurted. “I put away their grocery carts in parking lots and everything.” I ran a hand through my sweat-dampened curls, not knowing what type of response that even was.
“I’m sorry, what?” She coughed a doubtful laugh.
“Old ladies... Carts... Parking lots...” I enunciated each word, annoyed, though it had nothing to do with her, and everything to do with her.
A flush of embarrassment sent a hard ripple through her eyes. “I heard you the first time, Russo. I’m not stupid.”
“Could have fooled me.”
A small step back rooted me on the island where I belonged. Where she did not.
Her creamy complexion blushed deeper. “Well you can’t fool me. Don’t pretend you’re a nice guy; you’re embarrassing yourself.” Her slender shoulder knocked my upper arm as she grabbed her abandoned shoes and cardigan from the floor. The dirty look she shot back caught me watching her.
“I’ll have you know I’m a very nice guy,” I called. “Just not to you.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” Her hand fluttered through the air as she strode off, not bothering to look back again.
“Oh trust me. I’ll keep telling myself,” I grated under my breath.
Like how I’m not attracted to you. Like how annoying you are.
Rick’s wrinkled hand clapped me on the shoulder before squeezing painfully. “Well done.” His gruff voice dripped with sarcasm. “She’ll be running screaming into the sunset with you in no time.”
I shrugged out of Rick’s grasp before turning to face my old friend.
“Sounds dreamy,” I said sardonically.
“Cut it out, Val. You like her. So quit pulling her pigtails.”
“Pulling her pigtails?”
“Yes. The whole asinine act. Quit it.”
Rick’s piercing blue gaze knocked me down a peg.
How this elderly man could be so intimidating was beyond me.
If it weren’t for the grandfather-like relationship I had with him, I would have shut down this conversation immediately.
But after these last few years, Rick’s sage advice had helped me through more than a few hard times.
“You know I’m not dating,” I said.
Rick scrubbed a hand down his face, the hard line of his wrinkled brow softening.
“And heaven knows a stubborn ox like you can’t be pushed.
That Amantha, though.” Rick clicked his tongue.
“A bombshell with brains. I haven’t seen someone snap at you like that since—well, you’ve really pissed her off, you know? ”
“And that’s a problem why?”
“There’s something there, Val. I can feel it in my rattly bones.”
My chest tightened. I absentmindedly rubbed the ache as I retorted, “You’re wrong. We hate each other.”
“Hate? Hate is good. Hate we can work with.”
I snorted. “Work with? You make it sound like there’s a grand scheme going on.”
“Grand? Maybe. Scheming? Definitely.” Rick chuckled. “Hate isn’t the opposite of love, indifference is.” He stepped his smaller frame up to mine as he rapped a sharp knuckle against my heart.
“Do what needs doing, Val. It’s time.”
My office door clicked behind me. Flipping on the lights, I took a deep breath in the pristine space.
Calm, organized, and so unlike my cluttered mind.
Rick didn’t know what he was talking about.
There was nothing between me and Amantha, or me and anybody for that matter. And it was going to stay that way.
I opened the tall cabinet behind my desk to find a row of crisp, hanging button-ups. After selecting a white one, I laid it across my office chair, closed the privacy blinds, and began to unbutton my damp, sweaty one. The fresh starched shirt enveloped me like a hug.
I didn’t care if my preference for formal wear seemed stuffy or uptight. All the better, in my opinion. Like Tom Ford body armor. A public warning to stay away from me with an impressively high thread count.