“Ms. Dalton?” Will said. “What a stiff.”
Gray wanted to snap that he wasn’t deaf, but confrontation wasn’t really his style. Neither was playing nursemaid, and he silently begged Sophie to excuse him from this awkward mess.
“Sure, I can get a ride home from my parents,” Sophie finally replied, sounding uncharacteristically formal. “Thanks for taking the time out of your schedule to drive me over here. I apologize for the”—she shook her injured hand in a little wave—“inconvenience. Hopefully it won’t adversely affect my typing skills on Monday.”
That made his head snap around and he met her gaze. “For God’s sake, you know it’s not your work I care about—”
Will cleared his throat.
“I should go,” Gray said finally.
Hating himself for his curtness, but feeling completely out of his element, he walked quietly out the door and nodded an awkward farewell before escaping into the blissful anonymity of the hospital hallway.
Traces of conversation followed him as he headed for the parking lot.
“Good Lord, did the man just bow to us?” Will asked.
“Interestingly, William, some men understand the basic concepts of being a gentleman,” Brynn said.
“How, by screwing his secretary?” Will asked.
“Now, I’m sure it wasn’t like that. He doesn’t seem the type to be interested in our Sophie,” Marnie said. “They said they were working.”
“On what, French cooking lessons? Or French something else?”
“Can we please go now? Please?” The faint request came from Sophie, and the pleading quality of her voice almost had him turning around. She sounded nothing like herself.
But he kept walking. He didn’t know the first thing about playing hero.
“Gray, wait up a sec.” His heart sped up for a brief second when he thought it might be Sophie coming after him.
He watched her approach, waiting for some sort of sting of regret that he’d let this beautiful woman walk away from him. At the very least, he expected some sort of physical regret that he hadn’t even tried to get her into bed.
But as he watched Brynn come toward him, he felt nothing. A removed appreciation, maybe. She was still lovely, and he could see them being friends. But any lingering hope that they might get back together faded for good. There was nothing here but friendship potential.
“Can I get a ride home?” she asked. “I know it’s out of the way, but I don’t want my parents to have to drive me and Sophie, and Will…that’s just not happening.”
He was a little surprised by the request, but didn’t really mind. “Sure. My car’s parked just out front.”
She smiled in thanks and tucked her arm companionably in his. Gray waited for the alarm bells to go off in his paranoid mind, but nothing happened.
Brynn seemed more thoughtful than flirtatious, and he relaxed slightly.
While they waited for the elevator, Gray had the uncomfortable sensation of being watched, and he warily glanced back toward Sophie’s room.
Two very wounded eyes were blinking back at him, and he felt a stab of panic that he was seeing her here with Brynn. But before he could explain that this wasn’t what it looked like, her parents swooped around her, leading her in the opposite direction.
She didn’t look back.
*
Sophie gave the printer a soft kick. So much for her “minor” finger injuries not interfering with her work. The stitches from her parsley incident had been minimal, but the splint holding the two injured fingers immobile made even the simplest actions awkward.
Everything took her twice as long, from curling her hair, to typing up expense reports, to going to the damn bathroom.
Sophie’s patience had been fraying all week, and today she’d reached the breaking point. Hence the printer-kicking. She’d hoped to get out of work early today to stop by a friend’s birthday dinner, but instead it was seven o’clock and she was still stuck in the office. There was a pile of sales reports that needed to be printed before tomorrow’s board meeting, and, naturally, the printer with the built-in hole punch was out of ink.
Her choices were to try and figure out how to change the toner herself or use a different printer and do the hole-punching by hand.
Neither option would get her out of the office in the next hour with her crippled fingers.
On top of it all, she was spoiling for a fight and she knew exactly who she wanted to pick it with. Except the object of her frustration wasn’t exactly the type to lower himself to a good old-fashioned yelling fest.
He was more the ice-out-the-enemy type of fighter.
Something he’d been doing very well all week.
It had been six days since The Episode, and other than giving her curt work-related requests, Gray hadn’t spoken to her. He’d barely looked at her.
Either he was being a complete chickenshit, or whatever fuzzy feelings Sophie had felt that night at his house had been completely one-sided.