Something is ringing. Very insistently.
My bleary eyes blink open and I realize I’ve passed out on my keyboard. My cheek is wet from resting in a puddle of drool, my hair is a rat’s nest of curls since I failed to brush it out after my shower, and my back is so sore I think I’ll need traction. I’m completely disoriented, unsure whether I’ve been asleep minutes, hours, or days.
I finally locate my chirping cellphone beneath a stack of glossy photo paper.
“Hello?” I grunt, voice huskier than normal.
“Phoebe.” The voice is warm and unmistakably male.
Phey-bee.
“Cormack?”
“Lila gave me your number. I hope it’s okay to call.” He pauses. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“Of course not,” I say, wiping congealed drool off my cheek with the back of my hand. Cute. It’s really a wonder I don’t have more men beating down my door. “I was just doing some work.”
“For your father?”
My brows knit. “For WestTech.”
“Ah.” He clears his throat. “Well, if you’re ready to take a break from work, I’d like nothing more than to take you to dinner.”
“That’s so sweet, Cormack, but I’m really—”
“I insist.” Even while cutting me off, he maintains his über-polite tone. “It’ll be my way of making up for last night. If I hadn’t been such an oaf, you wouldn’t have run off.”
Nate will probably kill me if I go out with Cormack again. Show up here all brooding and angry…
Somehow, to my crazy brain, that sounds more like an incentive than a negative. I shake my head, hoping to clear the delusional thoughts.
“I really shouldn’t—”
“Please, Phoebe? I feel like an ass. I never should’ve acted the way I did, getting into it with Knox.”
“It seemed like you two have a history.” My words are carefully nonchalant.
“We don’t. Not really.” He pauses. “I guess you could say we’ve… crossed paths, in the past.”
“Oh.” That wasn’t supremely vague, or anything.
“I wasn’t aware you knew him.”
My lips twist. “I don’t.”
Not anymore.
“You’re not close? He acted… territorial.”
“I’d sooner hug a cactus than get close to Nathaniel Knox.”
“Great.” His voice is audibly relieved. “Then there’s no reason you can’t come out with me, tonight.”
Damn, he’s persistent.
“I actually have a lot of work to get through—”
“Lila gave me your address. I’ll be there at seven.” I can hear that dimpled grin in his voice. “And I won’t take no for an answer.”
“But—”
“See you in forty minutes, Phoebe.”
What?!
“Did you say forty—”
He’s already clicked off.
Crap on sourdough!
I jump out of my chair and sprint for the stairs, screeching in horror when I catch sight of my hair in the mirror across from my desk. Short of a miracle, there’s no way I’ll be buffed, polished, and ready for a date in forty — shit, make that thirty-nine — minutes.
Rushing through the archway, I cut through the kitchen so fast I almost miss the piece of paper taped to my refrigerator. Boo lifts his head from the plush doggie-bed where he’s been snoozing when I slam to a stop, heart pounding in my chest.
My eyes move from the note to the countertop, where my house keys rest. My stomach clenches at the sight. I was in such a rush to get to yoga this morning, I didn’t have a chance to search through the bushes to find them. And yet, there they sit.
Eyes narrowed on the note, I walk numbly to the fridge and lean close to read the blocky, masculine words scrawled on the paper.
Now you won’t starve to death. Stay put until we talk.
He didn’t bother signing it.