Summoned like a schoolgirl to the headmaster’s office. It could have been horny if I wasn’t already at the end of my tether with his self-righteous, aggrieved shit. I hadn’t even had a chance to argue.My office, Faye, right now.Then the flat, dull bleep of the call-ended tone.
“What have you done now?” Topaz asked, catching my scowl.
“Fuck knows,” I groaned. “Breathed? Put my pen in the wrong place? Dared to exist in the same air space as him? Guess I’ll find out soon enough.”
I smoothed down my skirt and blouse before I opened the door to face the music. My clothes felt stiff and starchy, not quite imbuing me with the sexy CEO confidence I’d been hoping for when I’d picked out a blouse in corporate-bitch scarlet.
Andy was already standing, cutting an imposing stance in his black pinstripe tailoring. His tie was the richest deep purple, stark against the perfect white of his shirt, and his stubble was just a shadow, pairing with his ever-so-slightly messy hair to present an immaculate display of manhood.
His expression screamed pissed off, but as much as I wanted to slap him across his sanctimonious face, I couldn’t deny he looked ridiculously hot. Ridiculously, annoyingly, insanely fucking hot. Pissed off really suited Andy Morgan.
“Justfiction,” he said. “That’s a fucking joke, isn’t it?”
I folded my arms, kept my chin high. “Sorry?”
He clicked away on his keyboard. “I quote:he’s uptight, and controlling, and difficult, and a workaholic. He’s an idiot, fuck him.”
My heart thumped in my chest. “I was drunk. Prosecco. And it’s astory.”
“Fuck him.That’s how you felt about swanning off and leaving me to pick up allyourfucking slack, is it?Fuck him. Fuck Andy and all the work he put intoourclub. Fuck Andy, who invested thousands in a future forbothof us, who took a risk by ploughing a shit ton of his own money into a dreamyoufucking came up with. Who invested inyou,a twenty-four year old, hormonal, high-maintenance fucking nightmare with nothing but a bad credit rating and a string of weirdo ex-boyfriends in her back catalogue. Fuck him, right, Faye? Justfuck him.”
“Jesus, Andy. It’s only a couple of pages, don’t take it out of context.” I kept my nerve like a trooper, despite my elevated heartrate. “You weren’t there, it wasn’t like that. Anyway, youareuptight and controlling and difficult, and you’re definitely a workaholic.”
“And a fucking idiot?”
My mouth couldn’t help itself. “Yes. Yes, you are.Sometimes. Just like I may havesometimesbeen a hormonal, high-maintenance fucking nightmare. We’re not exactly pure as the driven snow, either of us. And youwantedto invest the money.Youhad the cash,Ihad the vision. Don’t try and make out it was some kind of mercy mission, we both did alright out of it.”
“Youleft me in the lurch, ditched every shred of commitment we had to each other and this business, and thenyoulaughed about it. You laughed about it, and you let that piece of shit put it in a fucking book!”
“I wasn’t laughing.”
“Doesn’t seem like it from where I’m standing.”
“Maybe you’re standing in the wrong place, then.Iwas there,youweren’t.”
“And what about this...” My stomach churned as he resumed his scrolling. “A partner in every way but the one that really matters.What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
I wished the ground would open up and swallow me whole. “It’s quite self-explanatory. You did actually bother to read the rest of the chapter, didn’t you?”
The corner of his mouth twitched, eyebrows pitted as he stared right through me. “You never told me you wanted more. Not so much as a fucking hint.”
I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t think I needed to, just likeyoudidn’t need to say you didn’t. It was obvious. A thousand opportunities you never took. A thousand times when it was there, simmering, where we could’ve, but didn’t. Whereyoudidn’t.”
“Business and pleasure don’t mix. I thought we were on the same page with that.” He took a seat, rested with his elbows on the table, staring so fiercely I could’ve burned up. “Lots of women flirt, Faye, it doesn’t always figure they want something more. If you wanted more, you should have used that smart fucking mouth and told me so.”
I smiled, shaking my head in disbelief. “Whatever, Andy. You knew. We both knew. Rewrite it all you want, but it was right there and you always chose the other road.”
“I’m telling you now, Faye, I had no idea. Yes, we had an intangiblesomething. We also had a business. A business that needed us to work well together, without any messy shit in the way. It would have gone tits up in five seconds flat if we’d started fucking. I assumed you realised the same.”
I shrugged. “It’s all water under the bridge now. You’re reading a fictionalised snippet of a conversation I had three years ago. Nothing in that book matters anymore.”
“I think I’ll read it anyway.”
“Please don’t.” My stomach lurched at the prospect. “There’s nothing important in there, nothing else about you.”
“Nothing else?”
“Nothing.” I hoped I wasn’t lying, since I wasn’t planning on checking my facts anytime soon.