Page 27 of Love and Gravity

“Mont Salève,” she bit out, narrowing her eyes and trying to increase the heat of her stare by a good thirty degrees celsius.

He sighed, tipping his chin down, and gave her a dispassionate look. “You trying to stare me down might be impressive if I hadn’t spent most of my school days in the death grip of Europe’s most severe boarding schools. You’ll have to try harder, Grace.”

“Damn boarding school kids. You’re supposed to be as soft as the marshmallow puff in my hands.” She waved the bag for emphasis. “A true menace.” Grace scowled again, which only made him grin at her.

“How are you going to get all of this up there? You have to go by tram.”

She grit her teeth and strangled the marshmallows within an inch of their sugary lives. “I don’t know. When I fever-dreamed up the whole thing I didn't realize just how involvedyour movewould be. I thought I was going to have more hands on deck.”

Anton hummed when he saw the narrow-eyed glare she shot toward the army of workers unloading his gear from New York.

“You need help,” he said, voice even.

“Maybe,” she replied, not meeting his eyes, and threw the marshmallow lump off her tablet and back into the heap of other marshmallow bags.

He gestured at the supplies with a raised eyebrow. “So what’s your plan to move all of this then?”

“Gonna get it done.”

“How?”

“With my two hands,” she muttered and raised her tablet when he looked like he was going to come closer. She used it like a shield and started to add glitter sparkles to the whole scene. It might look like she was busy ticking things off her never ending to-do list, but it was nothing but coloring fun. She could keep this up all day…or as long as Anton wanted to butt into her business about the pile of supplies she had zero clue about transporting.

Stupid Anton. Stupid equipment that needed moving.Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Anton shook his head and looked towards the ceiling, but Grace ignored him. “Your two hands? That’s the plan? You’re going to need more than that, Grace.”

“Then it’s a good thing I have a pair of legs too,” she shot back, pointing down with a flick of her finger.

He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “Grace, take some of the guys helping me. I don’t need all of them.”

“I’ll be okay.”

She turned her back on him and made a show of checking things off on her tablet. Now her drawing had a nice pair of trees and a smiling sun. If she kept this up she’d have a regular Renaissance painting by the end of their conversation.

“Really. I’ll get it,” she added when he stepped closer, but he wasn’t in the mood to let her brush him off. She raised her tablet and glared at him over the rim of it when he started talking again.

“Grace, take the help. There’s plenty of manpower here and not all of them need to be working on getting me unloaded. I don’t care if you have two legs and arms. You’re going to need at least four times that to make a dent in moving this stuff.”

She jutted her chin. “I’m fine.”

He raised his hands as if surrendering. “I’ll have them come over and get to work,” he said with a sigh when she showed no sign of budging on the matter.

She shook her tablet at him. “I can do it. I don’t need yourhelp.”She spit the last word, help, that damnable word, on a growl and had to resist the urge to stamp her foot at him. She managed it, but just.

“You do. We both know it. But you’re just mad at me, and you shouldn’t let that make things harder for yourself. I don’t know what all of this is for, but why are you going to kill yourself doing extra work? We both know you already work hard enough without this on top of it. You’re going to run yourself into the ground, and for what?” he asked, tilting his head to the side and giving her a shrewd look. “A little pride? It’s not worth it, Grace. I’ll have some guys over here and whatever else you need to get everything set up, okay? You do enough around here. You don’t need to tire yourself figuring this out.”

He wasn’t wrong that her team needed it, or that she was already burning the candle at both ends. It was chaotic around her labs, but she thrived in it for the simple reason that it involved taking care of those she considered family.

She shouldn’t like that he knew that about her. It wasn’t smart. She also shouldn’t like that he was worried about her tiring herself out. That was downright dumb. She looked down at her feet and almost groaned at herself. She’d never been good at staying away from dumb decisions.

“Yeah, fine, okay.”

“Good,” he said. He didn’t sound triumphant or smug, or any of those things that Grace most definitely would have if she’d been the one to get her way in an argument with him. He just sounded relieved. What was that about?

“I’ll, ah, I’ll get people over here ASAP to help,” he said and then rubbed the back of his neck, looking awkward before he gave her a quick little nod. “Have, ah, a good rest of the day, Grace.” He turned on his heel and set off at a pace that could only be described as high-tailing it, and Grace felt like an ass.

She was mad at him, yes. But that didn’t mean she needed to be a little shit when he was making sure she had the help she needed. She could…be cordial and civil. She had promised Lou she’d do that, right? She took a quick step forward and before she could stop herself she blurted out, “Thank you!” She managed to get that much out before he rounded the graham crackers.