Page 71 of The Grand Duel
Why does he want to know more?
Why do I want to tell him?
“So I…I kind of volunteered one night when the owner of the club was short-staffed to do a little more than just bar work, and now my sister thinks I’m in love with this cop boy and won’t ever be with anyone else at the club because of him.”
“Copboy?” he remarks, brow furrowing.
“Oh no, it’s not like that. He’s all man.” I sigh dreamily.
Charles looks mortified, and I wonder if my thought process of him being okay with this conversation was the wrong one.
He probably just thinks I’m a horny child.
Which I am.
He blinks, then swallows. “Why would your sister think you’re in love with him?”
I ponder it. “I’ve been a bit needy ever since.”
He frowns harder as if not understanding yet intrigued to know more.
“I was blindfolded, so I couldn’t even see his face,” I explain, my palms starting to sweat. “It felt like it went great, likereallygreat,” I tell him with a smile. “But then he stopped coming in.”
Charles sits back a little.
“I watch the door every shift, waiting for my friends to tell me he’s back and…” I look up at Charles’s paling face. “Sorry, too many details.”
He shakes his head almost imperceptibly, so I continue.
“But that’s it. I’ve been ghosted.” I gesture towards the laptop. “I’m all but over the entire encounter now, but you could say that putting myself out there is my way of getting back at a man who couldn’t care less.” Which sounds so stupid when I say it out loud.
I stare at my profile. “Do you think a hair-up picture for my profile or hair down?”
He shakes his head, his lips a thin line. “Down.”
Down it is.
“The guy from the club,” Charles asks, his voice lower, almost breaking until he clears it. “You…you’d be with him again?”
My face heats. “Yes,” I say coyly, but sure. He made me feel too good. Too special. “But I can’t see him showing his face now.” I meet his eyes, his features hard. “Sorry.” I drop my head back. “I overshare at the best of times, but this is another level.”
“No,” he says, firm. “No, it’s fine.” He leans back in his seat.
I sit in silence, clicking around my profile, unsure if it is, in fact, fine. “We have a meeting with Dennis this morning, yes?” I say in a way to steer the conversation back to work territory.
“No. I have a meeting with Dennis. I need you to go to The Montwell, do you know it?”
I nod at him.
“Good. You’ll be meeting with my real estate managers at Ellis and Frey. Collect the papers and keys to the new storage offices. Scott will take you once he’s dropped me off.”
“Oh.” I frown, sitting up in my seat, checking my outfit. “Of course.” I smile at the idea he’s handing off a job to me and quickly google The Montwell.
SIXTEEN
Lissie
My thoughts are conflicted as I take the lift up to the seventy-eighth floor of The Montwell building. For the most part my head is firmly on my job, the task at hand—until it isn’t, and I’m daydreaming about my boss and his long fingers and gorgeous face. Charles shouldn’t even be a distraction, and yet I seem to double down further, letting him get pushed aside by our conversation in the car about the mystery man from the club.