“What the heck was that?” Tiffany asked her.
“I don’t know,” she answered, looking around the room and seeing all the eyes on her.
“You’ve got to know something. The guy barely talks to anyone and he just walked in here and kissed you like you were some long lost lover he hadn’t seen in years that he’d been holding flowers for at the bus station.”
Close enough, she was thinking, but couldn’t very well say that out loud.
“We’ve been dating for a bit, but cooled off a few weeks ago.”
“That sure the heck didn’t look like it was cooled off to me. That looked more like Mount Vesuvius ready to erupt. I’d run after him and find out what was going on and then maybe yank him in for another kiss while you’re at it.” Tiffany started to wave her hand in front of her face. “If my husband ever did that to me, I might lock us in the bedroom for hours,” she whispered.
She looked around the room. Another co-worker said, “If you don’t go after him I will. Holy cow that was hot. To just put it out there like that in front of everyone. Damn.”
Jill finally came to her senses and took off down the hall running as fast as she could and then turning the corner into Owen’s office. He had the nerve to be sitting there calmly like he didn’t just walk in and kiss her breathless in front of everyone, embarrassing her on top of it.
“How could you do that?”
He looked up and smirked. “You could have pushed me off. I don’t recall you attempting that. Matter of fact, I’m pretty sure you clung to me and I had to pry your fingers off my shirt.”
Her face filled with heat. She couldn’t argue that point because he was probably right. She didn’t remember anything other than her body glowing inside like lightning bugs in a jar. She had no control over her body when he touched her.
“Why did you do it? It’s embarrassing,” she said.
“You need to make up your mind. You accused me of keeping it a secret for my job, so I did the only thing I could think of to prove to you that you were wrong. If you pushed me back. If you slapped me. If you did anything, I could be fired on the spot. That didn’t stop me though, did it?”
That hadn’t occurred to her. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“How would I know that? You haven’t given me a chance to explain anything. I took a risk. It got you here to talk to me, didn’t it?”
“What did you want to say to me?” she said.
“You can shut the door so we can talk, or leave it open and let everyone else listen in. I’ll leave the decision up to you.”
She walked over and shut the door. “Talk,” she said.
“I’m sorry, Jill. I’m sorry that you felt I was using you, which I wasn’t. I’m sorry that I made a misstep and didn’t tell you about the promotion. I should have told you. I should have confided in you and trusted that you’d keep it to yourself and that was wrong of me. But I can tell you right now I never used you once nor hid it for fear it would hinder me from getting the job. I’m not embarrassed by our relationship and I’m sorry if it made you feel that way. That falls under the misstep section.”
“It did. I guess. Though you just threw it out there and I’m embarrassed now.”
“Then you need to make up your mind on what you really want, like I said before. What is it you want? Do you want to end things? Are we done and you just didn’t want to voice it to me? Did you think I’d give up and just go away? I’m not that way. Not unless you tell me point blank.”
She’d always thought he wouldn’t fight for her. Deep down that was what a lot of this was about. That she felt if she gave anyone a choice, they wouldn’t choose her.
Yet here he was putting his job on the line like he’d said and making her realize she’d been in the wrong...again.
“I don’t want it to end. I just want you to be honest with me. To be open with me,” she said.
“I am being honest. I’ve never been dishonest. I was up front the whole time. I told you I wanted to take things slow, yet I still brought you home to meet my parents and my son. That’s not taking anything slow.”
“I realized that after the fact.”
“But you couldn’t tell me that?” he asked.
“I was ashamed,” she admitted.
“I’m not about to ask what happened in your marriage because I don’t want to know. You obviously had communication problems, among other things. But I don’t operate that way.”
“I realized that too. That a lot of my problems with our relationship were in my head. Self-doubt and low self-worth. It’s hard when you’ve always been pushed aside to change that feeling.”
“I get it. I do. I don’t know what to do to make you change the way you feel about yourself.”
“It’s something I need to do on my own. I thought I was. Or I thought I was trying, but I’ve been miserable for weeks. I shouldn’t have acted the way I have. It was childish on my part. I should have handled things like an adult.”
She didn’t want to tell him that she thought she handled everything like an adult with Darren and it didn’t make a difference. She just didn’t know what to do this time around. Admitting that would just make her look more like a fool than she already was.
“You should have but I’m not going to hold it against you. I’ve realized that we both made mistakes. That we both have things in our past that guided us, or I should say, misguided us. The truth is, I want to start fresh. I want to start over.”
“Since you just threw it out there to everyone, it’s kind of hard to start over.”
“Exactly. But at least you’ll know that I’m not hiding anything. Well, maybe I’m hiding one thing.”
“What’s that?” she asked, wondering what shoe was going to drop on her head now.
He stood up and moved forward, pulling her into his arms. “That I’m falling in love with you. That you make me feel like I’ve never thought I could ever feel. That my own son was crying last night because he wanted to know why I wasn’t happy anymore and then he told me I needed to do something to make myself happy again. Like I’ve been the months we’ve been together.”
“Luke really said that to you?” she asked, loving the feeling of his arms around her. Wait. Did he say he loved her? “What did you say? What was the first part?”
He laughed, then tipped her chin up and kissed her softly. She loved when he made that move, like the two of them were part of a romantic movie where the hero came and rescued her with a kiss.
“I said I’m falling in love with you, but the truth of it is, I felt that way weeks ago. Then when you wouldn’t talk to me these past few weeks and I had to see you around here, I realized I was heartbroken. That told me I was all the way in love with you. You being mad at me, or avoiding me, didn’t make it stop.”
She hugged him tight. “I love you too. I think that is why I was so mad. That I fell in love with you and had no one to blame but myself when I thought you didn’t feel the same way.”
“But I do feel the same way and I’m going to continue to feel that way. I can go kiss you again in front of everyone to prove it. Or maybe you could walk up to me in the break room and kiss me so we’re even.”
“I can do that. Go now. Go down there and stand around so everyone will look at you like you’re nuts, just like they were me. Then I’ll walk in and plant one right on you.”
He laughed. “I’ve got a better idea. Let’s walk down there together, holding hands, get a drink or something else silly, then walk back out. Let them talk.”
“Let’s do that then,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him again.