Chapter 8
I’m halfway through my everything bagel when I walk into the office and nearly choke on a bite.
Eve is already there, standing perfectly still in front of her desk like a statue carved from pure rage. Her shoulders are rigid, two coffees in her hand. From across the room I can practically see the fury radiating off her in waves.
My desk sits there, completely normal. Steven’s desk looks exactly as he left it on Friday. Flora’s workspace is its usual organized chaos of hamster-themed accessories and project files.
But Eve’s desk? Eve’s desk looks like a party store exploded all over it in the most spectacular way possible.
I completely forgot about my Friday night’s pet project.
Seeing Eve so worked up, has me pressing my lips together. I never thought I would find an angry woman attractive. But Eve is all pissed off and huffing, the sight is both endearing and exciting. I wonder if there is something wrong with me.
While Eve seethes, I make my way to my desk and settle into my chair, setting my bagel down just as she turns around slowly, like a hurricane gathering strength before it strikes. Her dark eyes lock onto mine with laser precision, and if looks could kill, I’d be a pile of ash on the floor.
“You,” she says, the single word delivered with enough venom to kill a small elephant.
I take another bite of my bagel, fighting back a grin. “Good morning to you too, Princess.”
“Don’t you dare ‘good morning’ me.” She stalks toward me, her heels clicking against the floor like tiny bullets.
She’s holding two coffee cups and wearing a deep burgundy blouse that makes her skin glow.
Her scent is different today—something dark and intoxicating with notes of black cherry and vanilla—which makes my blood heat despite the fury radiating off her.
“I know it was you,” she continues, stepping close enough that I can see the fire burning in those dark eyes.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I gesture vaguely toward her desk with my bagel. “Though I have to say, pink really suits your workspace. Very festive.”
Her nostrils flare in that way that always makes me want to push her buttons even harder. “You wrapped my entire desk in princess wrapping paper!”
“Did I? Wow, that’s weird. Maybe you have a secret admirer.”
“Cut the bullshit, Caleb.” She steps closer, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to look at her properly.
I lean back in my chair, enjoying the way her cheeks flush with anger. “You know, most people would say thank you when someone goes to all that trouble to brighten up their workspace.”
“Thank you?” Her voice rises an octave. “You want me to thank you for vandalizing my desk?”
“I prefer to think of it as interior decorating. Really brings out your personality.”
“And here I was, thinking I should be nice to you.” She lifts one of the coffee cups, and for a second I think she might actually throw it at me. “I even bought you coffee this morning. Thought maybe we could call a truce after last night.”
The fact that she bought me coffee catches me off guard.
“You bought me coffee?”
“Wasted my money is more like it.” Without breaking eye contact, she turns toward the trash bin and slowly, deliberately, tips the cup upside down. The coffee pours out in a steady stream, and I watch what looks like five dollars’ worth of caffeine disappear into the garbage.
The gesture is so perfectly Eve—dramatic, pointed, and utterly ruthless—that I can’t help but be impressed.
“That was cold,” I say, trying not to smile.
“Not as cold as what I’m going to do to you.” She sets the empty cup on my desk with a sharp click. “This is not over, Wilder.”
“Reynolds,” I correct automatically, but there’s something in her voice that makes something dangerous stir in my chest. The way she’s looking at me, like she’s calculating exactly how to make me suffer, is doing things to me that I absolutely cannot acknowledge in a professional setting.
“I’m going to make you pay for this,” she says, stepping closer and bracing her hands on both armrests of my chair, effectively caging me in. The position brings her face inches from mine, and I can feel the heat radiating off her skin. “I’m going to make you cry.”
The threat probably should worry me. Instead, my pulse quickens as I watch her lips form the words, her eyes promising to fulfill every dangerous syllable in ways I find myself craving.
“I’m so scared,” I drawl, settling back in my chair with my arms crossed. “What are you going to do, Princess? Wrap my desk in pink paper, too?”
Her smile turns deadly, sweet as poison. “Oh, I’m going to do so much worse than that.”
She straightens up slowly, deliberately, running her tongue across her lower lip in a gesture that makes my slacks uncomfortably tight. “You think you’re so clever with your little pranks? You have no idea what you’ve started.”
“Bring it on.” The words come out taunting, and something flickers in her eyes—awareness, maybe, or recognition of the dangerous magnetism pulling us toward each other.
“I’m going to destroy you so thoroughly, you’ll beg me to stop.” She leans down again, close enough that her breath ghosts across my ear. “And when you’re broken and pathetic and pleading with me to make it end, I’m going to smile and keep going.”
Fuck. The way she says it—low and husky with just a hint of accent creeping in—makes every nerve ending in my body light up. I’m hard as a rock, and from the way her eyes drop briefly to my lap, she knows it.
“You’d better be careful,” I murmur, catching her wrist before she can pull away. “Because two can play that game, and I don’t lose.”
“Neither do I.” She doesn’t try to free her wrist, just stares at me with those dark eyes that seem to see right through me. “And I’ve had a lot more practice being vindictive than you have.”
“Have you now?” I run my thumb across the pulse point on her wrist, feeling how it races under my touch. “I guess we’ll see about that.”
For a moment, we’re frozen like that—her leaning over my chair, me holding her wrist, both of us breathing a little too hard. The office around us fades away until there’s nothing but the thrumming current connecting us and the promise of war in her eyes.
“Jesus Christ, what happened to your desk, Eve?” Joshua’s voice cuts through the tension like a knife.
Eve jerks back, yanking her wrist free and putting distance between us so fast you’d think I’d electrocuted her. The flush on her cheeks deepens, and I can’t tell if it’s from anger or something else entirely.
“Ask your new friend,” she says icily, not taking her eyes off me. “He thinks he’s a comedian.”
“Holy shit,” Steven appears behind Joshua, his eyes wide as he takes in the pink glittery disaster. “Someone really went all out. That’s... actually kind of impressive in a completely psychotic way.”
Joshua looks between us, and I can practically see the wheels turning in his head. “This is about the hot chocolate thing, isn’t it?”
“What hot chocolate thing?” Steven asks, still staring at Eve’s desk in fascination.
“Eve put salt in Caleb’s cocoa powder,” Joshua explains cheerfully. “And apparently he decided to redecorate her desk in retaliation.”
“You put salt in my premium Swiss cocoa,” I remind Eve, enjoying the way her jaw tightens. “Sixty-dollar cocoa that I can’t replace for at least a month because it ships from Switzerland.”
“Sixty dollars?” Steven’s eyebrows shoot up. “Jesus, Caleb, what kind of chocolate were you drinking?”
“The good kind. The kind that doesn’t deserve to be poisoned by unhinged colleagues.”
“Unhinged?” Eve’s smile turns razor-sharp. “Oh, you haven’t seen unhinged yet. But you will.”
“Is that a threat?” I ask, leaning forward with interest.
“It’s a promise.” She turns on her heel and starts toward her glittery disaster of a desk. “Hope you enjoyed your little prank, because it’s going to cost you more than sixty dollars before I’m done with you.”
I watch her go, admiring the sway of her hips and the way her dark hair cascades down her back with each angry step. When she reaches her desk and starts aggressively unwrapping her stapler, I can’t hold back my grin anymore.
“You know,” I call out, “pink really is your color, Princess.”
The look she shoots me over her shoulder makes me want to snicker “We’ll see how good you look in pink when I’m done with you.”
I reach over and pluck one of the wrapped pens from her desk, twirling it between my fingers as I start whistling a cheerful tune. The pink wrapping paper crinkles with each rotation, and I can practically feel Eve’s murderous glare burning into the side of my head.
I lean back in my chair, thoroughly enjoying the show as Eve begins to destroy my artistic handiwork.
The moment she rips the first piece of wrapping paper off her monitor, glitter explodes everywhere like a sparkly bomb has gone off.
It cascades onto her desk, her keyboard, her clothes, and most satisfyingly, into her dark hair where it catches the overhead lights like tiny diamonds.
She freezes completely, staring at the glittery chaos now coating everything within a three-foot radius of her desk. Then she slowly turns to face me. “Did you sprinkle glitter in the wrapping paper?” Her voice is deadly quiet, the kind of calm that comes right before a nuclear explosion.
I take another bite of my bagel, fighting back a laugh. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You complete ass.” The words come out in a hiss that sends fire through my veins. “When I get my hands on you, I’m going to shove so much glitter up your ass, you’ll be sparkling for weeks.”
Joshua doesn’t even look up from his screen. “Well, that’s a new one. Death by arts and crafts...”
“I’d help you unwrap all that, Eve, but I’m taking my son to the dentist today and can’t explain why I’m covered in glitter,” Steven says sympathetically from his desk.