Page 86 of The Grand Duel
“What?” she asks, looking up at me as she starts to write quicker.
“You’re going home. You can’t school me on my quality of life and then do the opposite. I’ll help you. We’ll put the bed together.”
She pauses with her pen. “No,” she says whilst simultaneously considering it. “No, you don’t need to do that,” she says, a little more confident. “Your evenings are supposed to be spent on you. Not work things. There must be a million things you want to do with your evening.”
I can think of one very specific thing.
Jesus. “No, let’s go.” I stand and the dogs rouse. “Come on, girls.”
She follows me around the desk and towards the door. “Charles, you don’t have to help me.”
I come to a stop at the door and look down at her, my eyes taking on a life of their own and not knowing where to land on her face. “I know I don’t,” I tell her, my voice betraying me. “But I want to.”
She goes quiet.
I tip my chin up at her. “I don’t need you going to war with me on this. You put up a good duel over everything else.” I focus on her lips. “We can be friends now, you know.”
She swallows, her throat working as she considers the offer. I wonder if I leant in and kissed her throat, if it would still taste like the sun.
“I’m completely fine on the mattress. I’m not kidding when I say how comfortable it is.”
“If I told you I was using a cold bucket of water to shower with at night because my walk-in was broken but that it’s fine because I like it, what would you say?”
She sighs and steps back from me. “Fine.”
I fight my grimace, the stupid fucked-up feeling in my gut as she puts distance between us.
“I’ll get my things. Wait here.” I leave her office and head for my own, wondering what the fuck I think I’m doing.
EIGHTEEN
Lissie
Ishould have insisted. I should’ve said absolutely not, you’re not driving me home and putting together my new bed.
“Do you mind if I drop Daisy and Luna home first? They’ll be all over your things if I bring them, and I don’t like to keep them in the car.”
“Of course not,” I say, looking over at him as he pulls away from the green light and turns right.
It’s not that I don’t want his help. I do. It’s just…him being nice and kind.
Asshole Charles with the pretty face was a breeze.
Nice Charles with the pretty face is somehow hotter and making me feel a certain kind of way.
Ishouldhave insisted.
The drive to Charles’s home is short. We pull into an underground parking garage, and he turns to look at me. “I need to feed them and get changed. Do you want to come in for a minute?”
“Sure.” I unbuckle my seat belt and follow him and the dogs into the building.
“You’re quiet,” he says as we stand in the elevator.
“Just tired,” I tell him.
Although my tongue seemed to become tied the moment we passed by my parents’ home—my home.
“Well,” he says, tone promising. “Give me an hour, and you can pass out in a proper bed for the night.”