“I did. I bet Cade was a better kisser.”
He was. Damn it. “Lilah, stay focused. I really thought Gerald was so good for me and the family.”
I hated that I’d let the one thing the family needed to see from me slip away. Gerald was stable. He kept on an even keel. He was what they wanted for me.
Except that he cheated.
“For the family? Like us?” She burst out laughing. “We all hated him. You realize that our brothers were taking bets on when you’d finally break up with him, right? So good riddance.”
I choked on my coffee. She’d used the exact same tone that I had before I spray-painted him.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. You all didn’t tell me you hated him!”
“Well, we want you to be happy,” she admitted, and I wrinkled my nose to keep my emotions at bay. They all coddled me too much.
As my Uber pulled up in front of Stonewood Tower, I sighed. “I really have to go. And don’t worry, I’m not at all sad about Gerald, in case you were wondering.”
“Well, I wasn’t really because he’s such a boring doormat.”
“Lilah! You said you liked him,” I reminded her again.
“Because you were dating him!”
“So, what? Now you like Cade? Because that’s not happening,” I said with emphasis as I stomped up toward the building in my stilettos.
“I think it’s happening. I want to go on a double date.”
“You’re out of your mind. Like way on another planet if you think that’s happening.”
“We’ll see.”
“Goodbye, you freak.”
“Takes one to know one!” she singsonged before I hung up on her.
The day was going to be terrible. After my conversation with Lilah, I could feel it.
Although Cade had never showed up at the office before, I knew he’d be there today. Somehow. Some way. Even as I set up my desk and sat down to go through my task list for the day, I knew I was already behind the eight ball.
Especially when my task list was empty.
“Juda, I don’t have any tasks listed. You having the same problem?”
“Um, no. My task list is very full. I was going to ask you about it because it seems you’ve added items back onto my list that I’ve already assigned you.” He scratched his thinning brown hair. “That’s unacceptable—”
“Izzy is strictly on IT today, Juda,” Cade said from across the hall as he made his way over from the elevators.
Every head in the office whipped toward his voice. I think I even heard Penelope gasp.
Cade Armanelli in a three-piece suit—black and pressed like he’d walked off the set of a photo shoot—was a sight for any fashionable woman, let alone for our motley team who barely attempted to dress anywhere close to business casual for work.
Cassie wore a damn T-shirt most days, and Juda was currently in shorts.
Thank God for my pencil skirt because at least he couldn’t look down his nose at me for not putting in the effort. And I needed that boost of confidence to let the furious question fly out of my mouth. “Strictly IT? You’re kidding me, right?”
“Why would a boss ever kid about assignments, Izzy? Your job title is IT specialist, isn’t it?”