27. FRANKIE
TWENTY-SEVEN
FRANKIE
I walk down the outer hall of our San Francisco office, gaze scanning the tables filling the open space as I look for a familiar face. It lands on a pair of turquoise eyes, and my face splits in a grin. A woman with a short dark bob jumps from her seat. Genevieve.
“Babe!” I hurry toward her.
“Girl!” She flings herself at me and busses me on each cheek. Then she steps back and surveys me. Her turquoise gaze sharpens. “Who are you fucking?”
I zip my lips.
She gasps. “Girl.”
I chuckle. “Drinks tonight. I’ll fill you in.”
Her finger dusts over my cheek. “Pretty as ever. Are you all healed?”
“All healed.”
“I still can’t believe you got into a bar fight. I honestly can’t picture it.” She drags me over to the spot she saved for me—with the open floor seating they have now, it’s first come, first serve, which can really blow if you’re held up.
“What, you think I’m a doormat?”
Her blue eyes glimmer as she laughs. “No, babe. I just pictured you more stabby than punchy.”
“Eh, I can go either way. Some things require claws; some things require fists.” And I really wish I’d landed a fist in that jackass’s face. “Also, I’m loving the new eye color, Gen.”
She shrugs a bare shoulder. She’s in a tight, sleeveless black silk top with high-waisted wide-leg dress pants, and a killer gold-buckle belt. “I wanted something different,” she says, back to tapping away at her keyboard, attention on her screen. “I got bored with violet.”
I get my laptop plugged in and wait for it to boot up.
“Lunch.”
I raise my brows. “What?”
“Lunch. You really think I can wait until after work? Frank, we’re going to lunch. I want the tea. There’s a new smoothie place that opened up. It’s my favorite. The smoothies are terrible.”
I give in. Very easily. Because I can’t wait to tell her about Jackson—not by name, of course. I definitely don’t already miss him. Because that would be ridiculous. And extremely stupid.
“Why would I want to have awful smoothies?”
“Because they have antioxidants and stuff. They’ll make us svelte and keep us young.”
An amused breath falls from me as I log in to my computer.
“What’s on the docket for you while you’re here?” she asks.
“Client meeting with Colanova.” Colanova is a huge beverage company that I’m assigned to. Led by a certain asshole.
“They also wanted me to step in on a smaller client temporarily while the principal is on maternity leave. So I’m going to meet with the current team and get up to speed while I’m here.”
“Oh, Cathy’s team? Cathy is amazing. She’s so fucking organized. It’ll be easy to step in with her. She’s as anal about her spreadsheets as I am.”
I glance at her screen, and sure enough, a rainbow of headers reflects back at me. Gen’s spreadsheets are literally a work of art. I love me a pretty spreadsheet.
A thwack echoes next to Gen. A huge stack of papers with a large hand atop it rests on the table. “I want this peer reviewed with a rundown of any changes needed returned to my office by four p.m. sharp.”
I shiver at the deep, commanding voice. That would be Kieran. The sexy-as-fuck partner Gen reports to. He’s a total ass. Which only adds to the whole boss-daddy vibe he’s rocking.
Gen tosses her hair and doesn’t bother looking his way. “I’ll see if I can get to it.”
Oooh. Fighting words.
“Genevieve. That was not a request.”
Her mouth tightens. She turns to face him, hair whipping with the movement. “Perhaps if you wanted me to review an accounting report that’s over one hundred pages, you should have planned better, Kieran.”
“Fine,” he grits out. “You will join me in my office at four. If it is not finished, we will stay as late as needed until we get it done. But it gets done tonight. Client deadlines don’t move just because”—his gaze flicks to me, then back to Gen—“you’d rather be a social butterfly.”
“That’s slightly better. I expect Thai as consolation for this. I want the basil chicken with brown rice.” She shoos Kieran, and…was that steam coming out of his ears just now? His jaw tics, cheeks turning an enraged crimson, but he spins on his heel and leaves.
I cackle. I lean into Gen and whisper, “So how good is the sex going to be after that?”
She grins, glancing at me from the corner of her eye. “Won’t be able to walk tomorrow if I’m lucky.”
“Have I told you how much I love you?”
She winks.
She and Kieran have this love-hate foreplay thing going on.
He’s also her superior, which does make things dicey.
Been there, done that. Have the scars to show for it.
At least Kieran doesn’t have a secret wife—that we know of.
But the way he looks at Gen when she’s not aware?
That man’s a smitten kitten. Or maybe smitten wolf. He’s far from a kitten.
“Soooo… Will you have to spend a lot of time with The Asshole We Will Not Name?” Gen asks.
I slump in my chair and groan. “Unfortunately, more than I’d like. We need to rehearse for the meeting. He’s going to want to go through the deck. Slide by slide. You know how he is. I don’t know why we can’t just go through our parts separately.”
She spins in her chair and raises her hand. “I know why.”
My eyes catch on her forearm. “Oooh! New ink! Gimme gimme.” I snatch her wrist. It’s an intricate vine of leaves that leads up to a flower with a hummingbird drinking from it. “Stunning.”
“Thank you.” She runs her fingers over it. “Saw the prettiest blue hummingbird at my feeder and knew it was going to be my next one. I love what they represent.” Her smile softens. “Harbingers of love. Messengers of joy.”
“Lovely, Gen.”
Her eyes shine back at me. Then she bounces her thin brows. “If you ever decide to ink up that sexy body of yours, I know a guy.” She taps her lip. “You’d look so good tatted up, Frank. Like so good.”
“Still gay, babe.”
“Ugh. I know. But if you ever want to test the waters, I’m your girl.”
We grin at each other. Love this girl. But yeah, give me six-foot-six walls of muscle all day. Oh, and dicks. Obviously.
“Also, nice try distracting me. I know why McAsshole wants to spend all this time with you. He’s delusional, Frankie. He’s totally still hung up on you. I don’t know why, after all this time, he thinks you’ll slink back to him.”
“I would literally rather eat jarred pasta sauce.”
Her eyes go wide.
“I know. Cardinal sin, and my nonnina would come back from the grave and kill me.”
“He’s such a sleazeball. What he did to you—” She cuts off and waves a hand down her face. “Nope. Only happiness and joy here. He does not exist here.”
“Exactly.” I smile at her, and I mean it. I hate seeing him, but for some reason it feels a little easier this time. “All right. Let’s hurry up and get through this work so we can go drink awful smoothies.”
“It’s a date, boo.”
“What a lucky gal you are, having a date with a stunner like me.”
We share a smile and then get to work.
I step up to Nick’s office. A few higher-level employees have offices, including Nick. It’s a small space with an L-shaped desk and just enough room for two chairs in front of it.
I knock on the doorframe, and his head lifts from some papers he’s studying. He smiles at me. All warm and affectionate like we’re the best of friends.
I don’t smile back. “Hi, Nick.” I step into his office and drop the deck I’d printed out on his desk. His copy is resting in front of him—the papers he was studying.
“Frankie.” He nods toward the door. I close it, then settle into one of the chairs in front of his desk.
I flip to the first slide of the deck. “So, I’m assuming I’ll start us off like I usually do. I’ll introduce us both—”
“Frankie.” His soft words have my gut rebelling.
“Hmm?” I don’t lift my gaze. “Did you have a different idea?”
“Frankie, look at me.”
I really, really don’t like that tone.
I begrudgingly lift my gaze to meet his. His brown eyes are filled with a concern that makes me want to throw up. Because I know how fake it is. Performative.
I finally let myself look at him—actually look.
And I hate what I see. He’s still extremely attractive, maybe more so now that some silver is peppered at his temples.
His black hair is neatly slicked back, very professional.
He looks every inch a man in command. Something I’d craved when we first met.
So pathetically desperate to have someone love and take care of me.
But not any longer. Frankie is always the one in control now.
“I heard you were on medical leave.”
“Mmhmm.” I stare at him blankly.
He sighs. “Come on, Frankie. Do you know how I felt when I heard that? I had no idea what it meant. I was beside myself.”
Well, that’s interesting. If he was so beside himself, why didn’t he reach out? Not that I wanted him to, but it’s just such classic Nick.
“That must have been very hard for you.” I punctuate it with a bitchy smile, and his jaw clenches. There is no Frankie without sass.
“Don’t be like that. What happened? Are you…okay now? Is there anything you need, anything I can do?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, there is. You can stop asking me personal questions that you have no right knowing the answers to so we can get this over with as quickly and painlessly as possible.”
Those brown eyes flash at me. “That’s not fair,” he whispers.
Oh, fuck me, please. Not fair, my fucking pretty ass.
I snatch up the picture frame next to me. “How’s the family?” I ask cheerily. “Kids are looking big. So cute.”
“They are. Growing so fast.” He takes the frame from me and sets it back on my desk. “I don’t understand why you give me this anger. I’ve told you time and time again we can still be together.”
I flip to the next page of the deck. “So, we’ll do a brief overview of demographics of the plan, year-over-year change—”
“I never stopped caring about you, Frankie.”
I slap my hand on the desk. “Enough with the bullshit, Nick. Let’s make something very clear right now.
You never cared about me. You have only ever cared about you.
You lied. You cheated. You deceived. You want me to come back and be your little secret you fuck in the dark.
We have been through this a thousand times.
You were never the person I thought you were, and there is less than a zero percent chance we ever end up back together.
Less than zero, Nick. Do you know what less than zero percent is? Impossible. Just. Like. Us.”
His face is tight, his lips flat, but he nods. “I suppose that’s that then,” he says rigidly. “Clearly, you’re set on this opinion you’ve crafted of me. I’ll stop bothering you with inquiries about your wellbeing. My concern obviously isn’t appreciated.”
Ave Maria. This man will never cease to amaze me.
I shift forward. “Do you want to know what happened to me, Nick? I was kissing a man at the back of a bar—a really fucking sexy man—and a homophobic asshole thought it’d be fun to punch me in the face.”
His eyes stretch wide and dart over my face. “Oh my God. Frankie. What happened? Were you badly injured?”
“Yes,” I say bluntly. “Fractured cheek and a concussion. But do you want to know something, Nick?” I lean on my hands, my fingertips going white. “The pain from that didn’t even come close to what you put me through.”
His stare falls, and it might be the first time I’ve seen guilt slide across those handsome features.
A fuck ton too late.
I grab my deck and neaten the pages. “Now. Let’s get through this deck.”
So I can get the hell out of here.