Despite her attitude, I had to admit Lola had already proven to be one of the few who could handle my niece. Max hardly even complained about Lola or her lessons. In fact, I was beginning to suspect my niece actually liked the woman.
“You brought your dog to my office.”
“Yes,” Lola said. “Termite is not feeling well, and I figured if my grumpy boss had his pick between me staying home to watch her or bringing her to work, he’d choose having me here.”
Annoyingly, she was correct. “Your grumpy boss needs you to ask his permission for this sort of thing.”
She smiled sweetly. “Grumpy boss, may I please bring my poor, sick dog to work today so she’s not home alone and scared without her mommy?”
I gripped the armrest of my chair tight enough to make the leather groan. “Yes, you may.”
Lola started to stand, and I just couldn’t help myself.
“But,” I said, causing her to freeze with her big bag over her shoulder. “If you pull a stunt like this again, I will fire you.”
She didn’t move at first, almost as if she was internally debating with herself over whether she should say something. Finally, she turned toward me with fire in her eyes. “You know, if you threaten to do something enough times without doing it, the threat starts to lose its punch. So either fire me, or stop claiming you’re going to do it. Asshole.”
I stared as she walked out of my view. I would’ve never let anyone else talk to me that way. Not a living soul. But there I was, watching her go and feeling only a throbbing sense of need. I wanted to have my hands on her so badly it was fucking blinding. I wanted to taste her so much that my already shitty sleep was even more elusive.
Lola Thorn was unraveling me, one thread at a time.
I briefly considered hitting one of the bars in Fairhope for the first time and trying to pick up a quick one-night stand. Maybe I just needed to scratch the itch. But I felt no desire or temptation by the thought. It wasn’t meaningless sex I wanted. I wanted to fuck Lola Thorn, and I was the world’s biggest idiot for letting things get this far.
I decided this was the last time I would watch the cameras. This only ended one of two ways. Either I learned to control myself and stop thinking about her every hour of the day, or I fucked her brains out and got her out of my system. The latter would probably mean losing my company and the former would only require a little discipline. I knew what I needed to do, even if I wasn’t going to like it.
16
LOLA
After my last run-in with Mr. Stone, he was surprisingly distant. I even wound up talking to Chase in the office for at least half an hour because he was venting about his visiting aunt who chain smoked in the house no matter how many times he told her to stop. I kept expecting Paisley or Cassie to butt in and tell me I was being summoned by the king of all grumps, but the summons never came. A very, very small part of me was disappointed.
But I started to enjoy my independence from him. I came to work every day, organized his itinerary by assigning certain tasks to various individuals in the office and setting some aside to handle myself. Mr. Stone had given me virtually no feedback on whether he was happy with my performance these last three weeks, but I was going to assume silence was a good thing.
I was getting to know everyone in the office from the gossipy but surprisingly competent triplets to the square-jawed supervisor named Griff who played in three different amateur softball leagues after work nearly every day. Getting to know everyone helped me figure out which tasks to send to who, and if the feedback was any indication, my personal touch was making everyone in the office happy.
Everything seemed to be shaping out for the best. I’d started getting drinks with Paisley and Cassie after work a few nights a week, I was slowly but surely tackling the terrible smell of the combined Tinkerbells in my apartment, and I’d begun exploring the town of Fairhope in my time off. It all should’ve made me feel like I had a new home and could put New York behind me.
But then I’d see all the missed calls on my phone. I’d see the unread texts from my ex-fiancé and his parents and my former friends. I knew I couldn’t turn a blind eye forever, and I also knew I was never going to truly feel like I fit in here as long as I was running from my past.