Not a chance.
“Thanks for the coffee,” I said, making sure a coldness was audible in my tone. “I will see you around, I guess.” With that, I took my mug and marched right out of the break-room, not looking back and not stopping when I heard him say my name. I turned the corner in the hallway and walked back to the elevators, which I promptly rode down to the lobby, where I sat with Morris for the rest of the morning until Jane, the head of HR, arrived and told me to follow her.
I worked hard to avoid seeing David for the rest of that day, and thankfully, he was such a busy, in-demand man, that it wasn’t very difficult to steer clear of him.
The only problem was, even though I wasn’t running into him in person, he was still running through my thoughts for the entire day. When I got home that night, I ordered some food since I had yet to go to the grocery store, sat in bed eating and watching TV on my laptop, and fell asleep early. Of course, David haunted my dreams.
But not the David from that day. The David who made an appearance was the one I met in Hawaii. The one who was funny, charming, and who did things to my body that no man before him had ever done. I dreamed of the way he touched me, of the way his hair smelled, and the way his tongue felt against my skin. When I woke up in the middle of the night, my whole body felt like it was on fire, and I had to get up and take a cold shower to calm down.
Standing under the chilly water, I gave myself a little lecture.
“Lily, you are not going to let this man distract you. You are not going to let this get in the way of your career. He means nothing to you, and in all honesty, the sex wasn’t even that good.”
But even as I said this, I knew it was a lie.
The sex was the best I’d ever had, and a part of me even wondered whether or not it would be the best I everwouldhave… Maybe so, considering I was determined to never let that man touch me again.
ChapterFour
DAVID
By Wednesday afternoon, I knew for sure Lily was ignoring me.
I didn’t know why or to what end, but after three and a half days of watching her dodge me in the hallway, avoid eye contact during meetings, and the one time she practically leaped out of the elevator to escape being alone with me for thirty seconds, I got the distinct impression that she was mad.
After coming back from lunch that day, I spent some time wracking my brain to try and figure out what I did to make her so upset, but nothing was coming to mind. I understood she was embarrassed when she saw me on Monday—I felt similarly uncomfortable—but I had walked away from that conversation thinking that we were at least going to be adults about this. I assumed that things would be a little awkward, but I didn’t feel any animosity toward her. In fact, it was just the opposite. I was looking forward to getting to know her better. Then, something shifted, and now she was acting like she hated me.
I shook my head, looking down at my lap and ignoring both my work and the sandwich I had brought from home, which I hadn’t even touched since unwrapping it nearly an hour ago. “I just don’t get it.”
“What was that?”
I glanced up to see my younger brother, Matt, standing in the doorway and smiling at me. “Oh, hey,” I said. “Nothing. I’m just talking to myself, you know, like a normal person does. What’s up?”
“I just came to give you a heads up, dad’s coming into the office today.”
I groaned. “I thought he went out of town.”
“What would make you think that?” Matt came in and sat on the edge of my desk. He reached for a pen and started clicking it, and a part of me wondered whether or not little bro wastryingto annoy me. “Dad never goes out of town now that he’s retired. He’s too afraid to walk away from the city and the company for too long.”
“He said something about doing a weekend trip when we saw him last Saturday, didn’t he?”
Matt grinned at me. “First of all, Dad always talks about taking weekend trips, but he never does, you should know that. He’s a grumpy old man who likes to complain that the city is too congested, but he never actually can tear himself away. Second of all, that wastwoSaturdays ago, so if he had gone on that trip, that would’ve been last weekend.”
I frowned and pulled up my online calendar. “No, that can’t be right,” I said. “It hasn’t been two weeks since we all had lunch. I swear that was just…” I trailed off, seeing the evidence proving me wrong right before my eyes. “Oh shit. Wow. Time flies.”
“When you’re having fun?” Matt said. “Or when you’re putting in twenty hours of overtimeevery single week.”
“I don’t think it’s twenty,” I said. “But enough chat, I have to look busy for when dad comes in.”
“I thought youwerebusy.”
“I am. I have to look even busier, you know how dad is. Which means you have to get out of here.Now.”
“Fine,” he said, dropping the pen back on my desk. “I’m leaving. Let’s go out for drinks on Friday. Will is going to spend the night at a friend’s house. He doesn’t normally like to stay the night, but he’s determined to make it work this time. He’s promised me that he isn’t going to call me in the middle of the night to come to get him, so we’ll see.”
I laughed. “All the more reason for usnotto go out drinking. What if you have to go pick him up?”
“I won’t drink too much,” Matt said. “I’m not looking to get wild so much as I’m looking to spend some time with you! We never see each other anymore, and you’ve been working yourself mad.” He pointed to my calendar. “Case in point, you don’t even know what week it is. I think you could use a night off.”