“Where are you going?”
“Uhhh…” Lexi didn’t bother to set down her bags. She edged closer to the front door. “I’m leaving. The kids are gone now. Our arrangement is over.” Why did the words seem so heavy on her tongue and what was the dead weight at the bottom of her feet? It felt like they’d been encased in concrete blocks. Also, in the untimely demise kind of way.
“Uh- uh,” Curtis chided like he’d talk to a child. But right. He didn’t actually like kids. “We just got through the worst weekend in history. I’ve been through natural disasters that were more of a walk in the park than those two. Let’s celebrate. Have a glass of wine. We’ve accomplished the impossible.” Curtis pasted on a look of innocent vulnerability that she’d never seen before. He was being… casual. Almost friendly. He could lay the charm on thick when he wanted to. She had to remind herself, this was a man used to getting his own way.
“No way.” She grinned back at him to soften her words. “That wasn’t part of the deal. I don’t do wine. Not with my boss.”
“Do I have to be your boss right now? Can you just forget about work and power trips and whatever it is you have against me and be nice? It’s just a glass of wine. A really good, vintage, glass of wine. I’ll bring up the best I have. Come on. Would it kill you to be nice to me for ten more minutes?”
Ugh. She wanted to say that it would. She wanted to spin on her heel and leave Curtis standing there. It was just after five, though, and she knew that even on a Sunday, traffic would be terrible. She’d already driven to the zoo and back. She didn’t really have the patience to sit in another jam. What were a few sips of wine? She wouldn’t have more than that. She has to drive after all. Plus, she’d eaten a massive sandwich when they got home from the zoo. She was stuffed. A few sips wouldn’t hurt. Just a few. She also had a feeling that after the stunt she’d pulled last night, she’d have to at least pretend to be nice for a few minutes or Curtis James was going to come up with some pretty inventive ways to make her life a living hell.
Planning business trips with eighteen layovers and flight changes, sending extra dry cleaning, changing things up… there were a thousand ways he could make her job a nightmare.
She had to go with that.
It had to be option A because there was no option B. No option where she actually wanted to have a glass of wine with him. In her world, the Lexi she knew did not want to do anything willingly with Curtis James. That was the pre-kiss Lexi though. The post kiss Lexi was something and someone foreign and frightening. Someone who couldn’t stop feeling the sneaking tendrils of heat, the unwelcome shivers of desire, the pinches and pulls and prods of something close to want. The old Lexi wasn’t fixated on Curtis James’ lips. But the post-kiss Lexi couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. It might have been unwelcomed and uninvited, but it rocked her entire world and shook the foundation of the very earth she’d thought she was so firmly rooted on before.
Curtis, like the asshole he was- how could she have forgotten- snapped his fingers in front of her face, right under her nose, so close she felt the movement of air. “Earth to Lexi… are you going to do me the honor of tasting and critiquing a really good vintage or not?”
“You have a wine cellar here?”
“Of course.”
It wasn’t a commonsense question. She’d seen his house plans and knew nothing about a wine cellar. “Right. Well… does it have a locking door?”
“Uh- no. No reason to have a lock on it. It’s just me here.”
“Darn.” She snapped her fingers in feigned disappointment. “It would have been really nice if you would have got accidentally locked down there. For like, eternity.”
Oh damn, what happened to doing damage control before she went home. Well, she’d just have to blame it on Curtis James for rubbing her all sorts of the wrong way. Just by existing.
Curtis granted her a dazzling, very Curtis James, god-like, billboard worthy, swoony smile in response. It did not affect her at all. She only dropped her duffel bag and her purse to make a point and totally not because her limbs were suddenly all gooey and soft and about as useful as warm molasses.
“I like that. Maybe I’ll have one installed. If you’d agree to do me the honor.”
“Honor of what?” she choked.
“The honor of getting locked down there with me.”
“Not in your lifetime, Trust Fund Baby.” Lexi nearly slapped a hand over her mouth. Had she really just said that out loud? She knew she’d probably slip up at some point, given that she used bad names in her head for him all the time. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.