SEVEN
I’m right in the middle of an enormous yawn the next morning at work when Portia soundlessly appears beside my desk like she’s been teleported to the surface of the planet from the starship Enterprise.
“Good morning, Jillian!”
Startled, I jump, sloshing coffee from the mug I’m holding all over the front of my white blouse. I swear she barks like that just so she can watch me freak out.
“Portia. Hi.” And it’s Joellen, you witch.
She watches with an expression of distaste as I mop up the coffee as best I can with the spare napkins I keep in the top drawer of my desk for emergencies such as these, which occur with depressing regularity. In an ice-blue dress that matches the color of her heart and with her hair swept off her face and tied into a low chignon that showcases her elegant neck, she’s immaculate.
Beside her, I feel like a mangy donkey next to a thoroughbred racehorse.
“Have you finished the edit on Maria’s manuscript?”
I can tell by her tone she’s expecting an excuse, so it gives me satisfaction to hand her the sheaf of banded papers with a smile. Lips pursed, she takes the manuscript from me and thumbs over a few pages, checking my work like a grade school teacher.
If I didn’t desperately need the rest of the coffee in my mug, I’d be tempted to hurl it in her face.
“I understand you spoke with Michael this weekend,” she says offhandedly.
I freeze.
If she knows I spoke to Michael, it must be because he told her. Why would he tell her we spoke? What could that mean?
“Uh . . . I . . . yes. He was working, too. We said hello.”
Her sharp gaze flashes to mine. “You said ‘hello’?” she repeats frostily.
I cringe, wondering what on earth she could find so offensive about me speaking to Michael and how she gets her mouth to pinch like that. It looks painful. “Um . . . yes.”
She stares at me for a moment, waiting for me to elaborate. When I don’t—because I’m too worried about what might fly out of my mouth—she hugs the manuscript to her chest and starts to aggressively tap one manicured fingernail against it.
“Joanna.” Tap. Tap. Tap. “I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that we expect a certain level of . . .” Her gaze travels over my coffee-stained blouse, my unruly hair, my makeup-free face. Tap. Tap. Tap. “Professionalism here at Maddox Publishing.”
A flush of heat crawls up my neck. The words are out before I can stop them. “You mean like calling the employees by their correct names?”
The tapping ceases. She blinks—once, slowly—and it’s terrifying.
I’m saved from certain death by a uniformed delivery man carrying an enormous bouquet of long-stemmed red roses. He stops at the cubicle next to mine. “Is there a Joellen Bixby around here?”
“Right there.” Shasta, the girl who sits at the next desk, stands and points at me accusingly over the top of the cubicle wall like she’s an informant for the Nazis.
The delivery guy ambles past Portia, inadvertently swatting her with foliage, and deposits the vase on my desk with a relieved sigh. It’s so huge it takes up almost all the available square footage.
“Man, that sucker’s heavy. Sign here, please.” He thrusts a clipboard into my face while pointing at a signature line on a routing slip.
My hands shake so badly I’m barely able to manage my signature.
Could it be? Could Michael have sent me flowers?
The delivery guy walks off, whistling, while Portia, Shasta, and I stare in disbelief at the roses.
“Well, who’s it from?” demands Shasta.
I swallow, pluck the little white envelope from its plastic holder, and open it, my heartbeat like thunder in my ears.
Your pie is the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted.
Sweet. Succulent. Melting on my tongue.
I want more. Tonight.
Oh, that cocky son of a—
“So what does it say?” asks Shasta too loudly, making me wonder what her problem is while simultaneously realizing that everyone in the cubicles around me is looking curiously in my direction.
Portia snatches the card from my hand, then reads aloud, “Your pie is the most delicious . . .”
She trails off into silence, her eyes growing wide.
Hearing muffled giggles, I remove the card from her fingers, tear it into bits, and toss it into the wastebasket. I turn stiffly back to Portia and say through gritted teeth, “If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
I know it’s only my fury at Cameron that makes my voice so hard, but Portia seems to think it’s directed at her. Her chin lifts. She sniffs, sends me an outraged glare, then turns on her heel and stalks off, trailing smoke from her nostrils.
“Dude,” says Shasta, watching her go. “That was awesome.” She looks at me and grins. “High five, bitch!”
In a daze, I slap palms with Shasta, who has spoken more words to me in the past three minutes than she has in the past two years since she’s been sitting next to me.
My desk phone rings. I snatch it up, grateful for a legitimate escape from my new bestie. “Joellen Bixby speaking.”
“Wow, your professional-workin’-lady voice is hot. You ever think of goin’ into the phone-sex-operator field? You’d make a killing.”
“You!”
The low rumble of a laugh comes over the line. “Aye, it’s me, lass, your favorite neighbor.”
“The prancer.”
“Ha! No, the exquisite physical specimen of a man you’ve been’ dreamin’ about since we met.”
I balk, shocked that Cam somehow guessed that, but realize he’s joking before I blurt something stupid like How did you know? “Very funny. What do you want? And how did you know where I work?”
“I asked Mrs. Dinwiddle. Did you get the flowers?”
I glance at the colossal bouquet of roses leering at me from two feet away. “Yes. And your charming note. Shakespeare you’re not, my friend.”
“Oh ho! So we’re friends now!”
“No. I’d still like to push you into traffic. Why’re you calling me?”
“To discuss phase one of Operation Pretty Boy.”
I collapse into my chair and sigh. “Give me a slight break, would you?”
He breezes right past that request. “I’ve already kicked things into gear with the flowers. If you’re on his radar at all, that’ll pique his interest.”
“Pique? Did Cameron McGregor just use the word pique in a sentence?”
He chuckles. “You’ll be happy to know, darlin’, that Cameron McGregor has an exceptional vocabulary. Extraordinary, anomalous, remarkable, and preternaturally unprecedented.”
I pull the phone away from my ear and make a face at it. When I listen again, he’s still talking.
“. . . men are competitive by nature. If he likes you even a little, knowin’ another man is sniffin’ around will arouse his instinct for—”
“Sniffing around? How romantic.”
“Quit bustin’ my balls, lass. I’m helpin’ you get your heart’s desire. A little gratitude would be nice.”
“I still don’t understand why you’re interested.”
He pauses just long enough to make my ears perk up. “I’ll tell you later.”
“Yikes. That sounds scary.”
“Maybe I just want you to keep givin’ me that sweet, sweet pie of yours, lass. You ever think of that?”
His voice is warm with teasing laughter, and he’s lucky he’s not standing in front of me, because I’ve got a brand-new pair of scissors in my top drawer that would look lovely protruding from his eye socket.
“It’s too bad you got stuck in puberty, McGregor—you might’ve been a productive member of society one day.”
“Oh, I’m plenty productive, lass.”
“Name one way you’re productive that doesn’t involve the amount of sperm you produce. I’ll wait.”
He dissolves into gales of laughter that seem to continue forever. I listen, trying not to smile, until he’s caught his breath and comes back on the line. “Ach, you’re a hoora salty lassie. Pure dead brilliant.”
“Thank you. I think.”
“Now listen, this is important.”
I say drily, “I can hardly stand the anticipation.”
“When pretty boy asks you who gave you the flowers, just give him a little Mona Lisa smile and shrug. Don’t answer. Be coy as shit. If you can’t manage it, pretend you’re Mrs. Dinwiddle and do whatever you think she’d do.”
“I don’t have a mink coat and a silk fan handy. A girl needs props to make that kind of Scarlett O’Hara routine work. He’ll think I’m lame!”
Cam sighs. “He’ll think you’re mysterious. The less you say, the better.”
“Ouch. I know I’m awkward and weird, McGregor. You don’t have to rub it in.”
Over the line comes a blistering silence, then Cameron’s voice, hard as stone. “I don’t ever wanna hear you put yourself down again, Joellen. Don’t do it out loud, and don’t do it in your head, either. Show yourself some damn respect, woman, or no one else will.”
My cheeks heat. I chew the inside of my lip for a while, composing various scathing retorts, but none of them have any teeth because I know he’s trying to be supportive. Plus, he’s right.
Grr.
“Understood?” he prompts.
“Yes. Fine. Okay.”
“Good. Now get back to work. And Joellen?”
He still sounds mad, so I’m hesitant when I answer, “What?”
There’s a pause. He exhales, then says softly, “You’re not weird. You’re unique. There’s a difference.”
He hangs up before I can reply, leaving me staring at the phone in disbelief. What the hell just happened?
I can’t dwell on it, though, because Denny has arrived at my cubicle with a large cardboard box on a dolly. “Hey, kiddo! Special delivery!”
Shasta pops back up over the cubicle wall like a groundhog, eyes bugging out. “Another delivery? What is it?”
Why is this girl suddenly so interested in my business? “I wish I could tell you, but unfortunately my X-ray vision isn’t working today.”
She’s too busy ogling the box to be put off by my sarcasm.
Denny parks the dolly upright and removes a folding work knife from a pocket of his trousers. He slices open the tape on the top of the box. “It’s a new chair for you, kiddo. Mr. Maddox put in a requisition over the weekend.”
The breath leaves my lungs in a wheeze. Shasta and I gape at each other.
Denny makes a great show of unpacking the box, cutting at the cardboard so the chair is revealed all at once when the sides fall away.
“That’s the new ergonomic model,” whispers Shasta, agog.
I don’t know about ergonomic, but it makes my current chair look derelict.
“Oh, fantastic, you brought it up!” says a male voice to my left, and my heart stops.
It’s Michael, watching approvingly as Denny dusts off the chair with a rag taken from his back pocket, even though there’s not a speck of dust on the thing.
“Yes, sir! You said first thing Monday, so I made sure to do it before my regular rounds.”
Shasta and I share a stunned glance, and I know we’re both suffering the same brain meltdown. Michael ordered Denny to bring me a new chair “first thing.” Like it was a priority. And then he showed up to make sure it was done!
Don’t get ahead of yourself—he’s probably just about to tell you you’re not getting the raise you requested!
He looks perfect today, so perfect he’s almost blindingly beautiful. Smooth hair, gorgeous navy-blue suit, freshly shaven jaw. He obviously didn’t spend another night on his office sofa. He turns his gaze to me and dazzles me with a killer smile.
“Good morning, Joellen.”
I love you and want to have all your babies. “Uh . . . morning.”
He sends a friendly nod to Shasta, who giggles. “Hi, Mr. Maddox!”
“Good morning, Shasta. What a lovely sweater you’re wearing. That color suits you.”
I can tell Shasta wants to run over to him, throw her arms around his neck, and lay a big wet one on him, but she manages to control herself.
“Thank you. Blue’s my favorite color.”
“Mine, too,” says Michael, causing Shasta to furiously blush.
I’m not surprised. Making females swoon is his superpower.
Then Michael notices the bouquet of roses on my desk. He does a comical double take, blinking in surprise. “That’s quite the enormous bouquet. Is it your birthday, Joellen?”
It stings a little that he’d assume the only reason I’d ever get flowers is for a birthday, but who am I kidding? I don’t even get them then. “Oh, no, those are just from—”
I bite my tongue just in time. Then, frantically trying to think of how Mrs. Dinwiddle would handle this situation and remembering Cam’s suggestion that I should act “coy as shit,” I gaze fondly at the roses as if remembering a night of passion.
On a dreamy sigh, I say, “A friend.” Then I bat my lashes and look demurely at my feet.
When Michael is silent in the wake of my theatrical performance, I’m convinced I’ve made a colossal fool of myself. But when I glance up at him, he’s staring at the roses with a new expression.
An expression, if I’m not mistaken, like he wants to pick up the bouquet and smash it against the wall.
Michael looks at the roses. I look at Shasta. Shasta retreats into the safety of her cubicle, sinking slowly into her chair, eyeballing me like What the actual fuck? until her head disappears beneath the wall.
“I guess it didn’t turn out to be such a bad weekend for you after all.”
In response to Michael’s terse statement, I simply smile. Mona Lisa. Mona Lisa. Mona-effing-Lisa!
“Let me get rid of this for you, kiddo.” Denny breaks the weird tension as he grabs my old chair and rolls it out of my cubicle. He rolls the new one in with a triumphant, “Ta-da!”
“Thank you. That’s great. It looks very . . . ergonomic.”
You don’t have the brains God gave a flea, Joellen.
Then, right after my own voice in my head, Cam’s voice intrudes, full of disappointment under the brogue. Dinnae tell ye te stop that, lass?
I smother the thought before it can go any further, because the last thing in the world I need is the Mountain ganging up on me, too.
While Michael and I stand in awkward silence, Denny packs up the old chair in the box, tapes it shut, and loads it back onto the dolly. When he’s finished, he turns to me with a grin.
“Did I tell you the one about Bill Gates farting in the Apple store?”
“That will be all, Denny, thank you.”
Michael’s quiet but firm voice puts the brakes on the next phase of Denny’s joke, which I’m sure has something to do with the Apple store having no Windows.
Denny says, “Oh yes, of course. Sorry, Mr. Maddox. I’ll be off now.”
He’s gone with my old chair in seconds flat, leaving Michael and I staring at each other with the stupid bouquet of roses ogling us both. I wonder if McGregor has a listening device or a camera hidden in the foliage and decide I wouldn’t put it past him.
“Um, thanks for the chair. I really appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome. Let me know if there’s anything else you need, Joellen. I want to make sure you’re well taken care of.”
Why does his voice sound so husky?
My eyes flash up to his, our gazes lock, and the heat in his eyes makes me feel like I’m channeling starlight and lightning bolts through my veins. A peep of surprise—maybe hysteria—slips past my lips.
After a rough throat clearing, Michael smooths a hand down the lapel of his jacket. “Well. I’m back to work. Have a good day.”
Before I can answer, he turns on his heel and strides away.
I watch him go, hope and confusion and longing churning in my gut, until Shasta says in a stage whisper, “Did someone drug my coffee, or was he flirting with you?”
I throw myself over the wall that separates us and stare down at her, crouched in her chair where she has obviously been eavesdropping, and stick out my arm. “Pinch me. I’m dreaming.”
Smiling, Shasta shakes her head. “Bitch, I’ll do more than pinch you. If Michael Maddox has the hots for you, I’ll punch you right in the face.”
Today is officially the best day of my life.