Chapter 7
Scheming to attract someone I knew so well was harder than it should have been.
Brett and I had known each other too long.
If I made an innuendo, he took it as a joke.
If I tried to sound sultry, he asked me what was wrong with my voice.
If I bent over seductively in front of him to pick up something I’d “accidentally” dropped, he told me to bend my knees or I’d hurt my back.
Obviously, I still tried.
Saturday, I wore my tightest yoga pants to class.
Sunday, I convinced him to take me for oysters.
Monday, I made him take a love quiz.
Tuesday, I ordered myself flowers and displayed them prominently at the office to make him jealous.
Wednesday, I surprised him with coffee and banana bread from his favorite coffee shop.
Thursday, I fawned over Scott like a teenage girl—again attempting the jealousy angle.
Friday, I cried in the elevator. Not as part of my scheming but because none of the rest had seemed to catch Brett’s attention at all.
To make things worse, Tess Turani had been at the office every day to try to help a small committee choose a charity to sponsor, and wouldn’t you know it, Brett was the main point person.
Well, besides Scott.
Funny how I barely noticed him these days.
And Brett hadn’t noticed that I hadn’t noticed Scott even once.
Which was why I hadn’t noticed that Scott wasn’t attending the Friday meeting until the lunches came in and there were only four instead of five. “Is Sylvia skipping meals again?” I asked Brett when he came into the conference room early to help me set up.
“Scott said the committee could narrow down the decision without him. Did I forget to copy you on the memo?”
Fortunately, that’s when Matt and Paris walked in the door so that Brett didn’t see me have to grab a Kleenex to wipe my eyes. Thank God I’d stolen Avery’s waterproof mascara.
Because seriously, what the fuck? Forgetting me on a company email? It was like all my attempts to get his attention had done the complete opposite, moving me from the category of Best Friends to Barely Remember She’s There. Was he trying to make sure I understood I’d been rejected?
I thought about that during the meeting in between refilling drinks and taking away empty trays.
That was it, wasn’t it? Brett wasn’t an idiot.
He’d probably recognized that I was flirting, and because he was the super nice guy that he was, he was trying his hardest not to have to say “not interested” again.
I was the idiot. The headstrong fool who couldn’t take no for an answer.
I was already leaning against the wall at the back of the room, and since all eyes were on Tess Turani, no one saw me bump my head against the wall once, twice, three times.
Or I thought no one had seen.
But then Brett looked my way, as if so attuned to me that he felt my frustration. “Okay?” he mouthed.
I didn’t know why they called that feeling butterflies. For me, it felt more like horses galloping across my insides. Simply because he’d shared fifteen seconds of his attention with me.
When I remembered that he’d given the previous fifteen minutes of attention to Tess, the galloping came to a dead halt.
Never mind that she was the presenter and that was where his focus was supposed to be.
I’d rarely kept my focus where it was supposed to be when I’d been into Scott. Not by choice. I couldn’t help myself.
I wished that Brett couldn’t help himself about me.
But it was what it was.
“Fine,” I mouthed in response—what else was I going to say? Then I mimed a yawn because as long as he was looking at me, might as well point out that I didn’t think Tess was really all that.
Brett rolled his eyes at me, and then he was gone. His gaze back to her for the rest of the meeting.
Which was fair. It was his job to listen to her, and she was most likely very competent, not that I’d heard a word she’d said. I had a feeling if I really listened to her, I’d quickly agree that she deserved Brett’s affection more than I did. And I really didn’t need more fuel for my self-doubt.
I glanced at the clock on the wall.
Fuuuuuuuuccckkk.
There was still another thirty minutes scheduled for this meeting. Kill me now.
But suddenly Tess exclaimed, “Fine!” boisterously enough to pull my attention. She swept all of her materials into her briefcase with an energy I couldn’t quite place then stood up. “Totally fine.”
I narrowed my eyes and listened for clues for context.
Of course, Brett jumped up right on her heels.
“You don’t have to go right this minute.
We still have half the hour left to talk more about it.
We can make some recommendations for how to present to Scott.
Then make an appointment for later. Or even next week.
It doesn’t have to be today. His assistant probably isn’t even back from her lunch yet. ”
Brett’s eagerness to keep Tess in the room made my chest ache. And it had already been aching. At this rate, I was going to be curled in a ball in the janitor’s closet with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Therapy before the day was over.
“Thank you for the offer,” Tess said with almost as much kindness as when Brett had rejected me nearly two weeks ago now. “But I’m actually fired up from all your enthusiasm. Might as well strike while I’m still hot.”
“Okay, then. I wish you luck. We all wish you luck.”
This time Brett’s deflated tone didn’t hurt as much because I was stuck on Tess’s parting tone.
I recognized that tone.
That was a nervous tone. That was a nervous energy. A specific kind of nervous. The kind of nervous that a woman felt when she was about to see a guy that she could very possibly get it on with, usually because she had gotten it on with him in the past.
It was the kind of nervous I felt every time I was in the room with Brett ever since The Night.
Who was she off to see? Scott?
Well, well, well. Didn’t I say that he’d steal the girl from day one?
Poor Brett.
Except I was feeling too sorry for myself to really commit to that Poor Brett and instead was a thousand percent ready to rub it in.
Good guy that Brett was, he not only helped set up, but also generally always stayed to help me clean up. I waited until everyone else had gone, and it was just him and me.
Then I pounced. “She’s banging Scott.”
“What?” He’d been bent over the table, reaching for a crumpled napkin that Matthew had left behind, and now he shot up straight. “Who is?”
“Tess.” I was both exhilarated and devastated that he cared so much. “Tess is.”
“You know this for a fact?”
I considered. “Not for fact...but—”
He shook his head and went back to his straightening. “She’s not like that. She’s a professional. I trust her.”
I ignored what that implied about me. “And you trust Scott?”
He thought about it for a moment, his eyes turning toward the closed door as though deliberating going after her. Then shook his head. “There’s no reason to be jealous of Tess. She’s here to get a corporate sponsorship, not to steal your man.”
It took me a second to realize he thought I was jealous because of Scott. “You think—? I’m not—!” God, I was so frustrated, I couldn’t get a clear thought out. “I’m not jealous.” At least not for the reason he thought I was. “I don’t care about Scott.”
“Uh huh.” He moved to straightening the chairs.
I ran around to the other side of the table so I was facing him.
“I’m not! And I’m not suggesting that she’s not a professional or that she isn’t serious about her sponsorship.
I’m saying that despite the fact that she is, she’s into him.
” For that matter, Scott was pretty professional too.
He generally left his philandering to off-hours.
Brett paused again. This time he looked at me—really looked at me. “How do you know that?”
“I just…” No way I was telling him that she was a mirror of my own current emotions for Brett, but thinking about that made me alert to the knowledge that we were alone together.
Truly alone. For the first time in days.
“A woman knows these things,” I said softer.
“She had a nervous energy about going to talk to Scott. Alone.”
He shrugged. “He’s intimidating. He controls the future of her pitch. Of course she was nervous.”
“Different kind of nervous. Her eyes got dark.”
“She has dark eyes.”
“They were darker. And she had that ‘Am I wearing cute panties?’ look on her face. I could practically smell the pheromones shooting off of her.”
He laughed, but he was listening to me. Regarding me. “Say she is into him—”
“She is.”
He set his executive notebook down on the table. “And he’s into her—”
“What hot girl is Scott not into?” In the past, I would have flinched saying that, but today there was nothing.
Brett didn’t say anything, but I could tell he realized it too. “And if both of them are professionals...what might happen between them?”
It stung that he cared.
Unless he cared because he knew I could answer the question from experience.
I pretended it was the latter—it wasn’t hard with his eyes burning into me so intensely—and slowly stalked around to his side of the table.
“Well, it will start innocently enough. She’ll walk into his office with an agenda.
” I stopped, two chairs away from him. “Then she’ll forget it when she gets close enough to shake his hand. ”
“Stupid ritual,” Brett said.
“It is. And they might even forgo it since they’ve met before, but she’ll walk up to him anyway. She won’t be able to resist.”
As though he couldn’t resist, Brett took a step closer to me. “Then he’d close the distance? To get a better sniff of her perfume.”
I was a connoisseur of fragrances, and in her week at the office, I hadn’t detected anything notable coming from Tess.
On the other hand, I was currently wearing Marc Jacobs Perfect Eau de Perfum that I’d picked up recently at Ulta.
My heart skipped.
“He’ll say something funny so he can casually lean in to do it, and she’ll put her hand on him. ‘Oh, Scott.’” I placed my hand on his chest to demonstrate.