He wanted to talk about work then. Fine.
“Yes. They’re time-consuming and the bane of my existence.” I hated the several-page analysis that Weston required monthly for every account that I worked, but I’d do a million of them if it meant the uneasiness between Donovan and me would disappear. “If they were helpful, that would be one thing, but mostly they just reiterate information from month to month.”
He nodded once. “Agreed. When you report to me, I’ll reduce the requirement to semi-annually.” He flipped another page on his tablet.
My brow furrowed and alarm bells rang in my ears. “I’m going to report to you?”
With his back still to me, he explained. “We have lax fraternization rules, but even so, you can’t report to Weston once you’re dating him.”
I almost dropped my coffee mug. “You’re kidding, right?”
He turned to face me. “No, I’m not,” he said gruffly.
Of course he wasn’t kidding. Donovan wasn’t the type to kid and everything about his tone and body language said he was serious.
“Weston and I discussed it before you started working for Reach. We decided to wait until you were officially dating to make the assignment transfer, but it will be necessary.”
I set my mug down and ran my hand across my forehead. “Wait…what?”
“When you start seeing Weston,” he said slowly, patronizingly, “you will report to me instead of him.”
There was something familiar about this. When I’d first arrived, Donovan had joked about me reporting to someone else, but the conversation had gotten dismissed. This was what it was about. They’d made arrangements in case Weston and I decided to see each other seriously.
God, that was a lifetime ago.
And Donovan thought it was still a possible scenario?
“No,” I said, shaking my head emphatically, which was suddenly pounding as heavily as my heart. “No.”
“No?” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the island behind him.
“No!” I was vehement this time. “Never mind that we’d have serious conflicts with you as my supervisor.” Okay, sometimes I found his power games hot, but that wasn’t the point. “I am not dating Weston.”
“Not now, you’re not. This is after he’s annulled his marriage that we’re talking about.”
I threw my hands up. “I am not dating Weston! Not now. Not ever. How can you even think that I would…?” I trailed off, realizing that I might have never fully clarified this.
Shit. Had Donovan been thinking I was still hung up on Weston all this time?
“Okay.” I exhaled, trying to remain calm. “I said I was going to go after him, but I’m not. I’m not interested in him. He is not the guy I’m interested in.” I couldn’t make it any more clear without saying it outright.
Donovan thought about it then shrugged. “That’s a shame.” He grabbed his coffee mug and carried it over to the sink where he dumped out the remains. “You two seemed right for each other.”
“We are not even a little bit right for each other!” I blared. Besides, I’m seeing you!
Calmly, he filled the mug with hot water from the faucet. “I wasn’t aware your feelings had changed.”
He was being such an incredibly hurtful ass. I wanted so much to grab the mug and throw the hot water in his face. “My feelings haven’t changed, and you know goddamn well they haven’t. I never had the feelings in the first place. You were the one who pushed me to him, and that was only because you were trying so hard to push me away from you.”
He shut the faucet off and turned to me, his stare confrontational. “What was that?”
His icy tone and the cold way he looked into me sent a chill down my spine.
I folded my arms across my chest, willing to stand my ground but not sure I was brave enough to say it again. “You know what I said.”
He took a step toward me, his eyes narrow. “Are you under an impression that something else is going on between us other than what is?”
My hands felt suddenly clammy, and my throat had a lump in it the size of a tennis ball. It was my chance. My opportunity to tell him things had changed. This was a relationship. This was more than Just Sex. Not just for me—for him too, I was almost sure of it. He hadn’t slept with anyone else since he’d been with me. Wasn’t that what a relationship was?
But I could tell how this would go. I could feel it in the energy vibrating off his body. As soon as I admitted it to him, he would either have to embrace me or end things, and there was no way he was embracing me. Humiliation was the only thing to be gained by that admission.
So, jutting my chin forward, I gave him the easiest answer for both of us. “Nope. There is no ‘us’. That’s the right impression, isn’t it?”
He held his offense posture a moment longer. “It is.”
“Then we’re good.” My hands were shaky as I turned back to my coffee and my yogurt, but my appetite was gone. “I’m actually not hungry. And I’m just going to shower at home. You can get back to whatever it is that your life is.”
Five minutes later I was changed. Thankfully my coat covered the tear in my dress. But even with my hair thrown up in a knot and my coat wrapped tightly around me, I would be making a very obvious walk of shame through his lobby.
Though we weren’t really speaking, he saw me to the door. “My driver is waiting for you downstairs,” he said.
“Thank you,” I mumbled.
He stayed at his door and watched from across the hall, so when I got in the elevator and turned around, my eyes locked on his. The last thing I saw before the elevator doors closed between us was his expression wrinkle with regret.
I just couldn’t tell if he regretted letting me leave or that he’d ever let me in in the first place.
Thirty
I threw myself into work the rest of the day. Getting caught up on Weston’s lengthy, redundant opportunity analysis reports was an excuse to ignore thinking about Donovan.
Even with my mind busy, I couldn’t stop from feeling. And my feelings were like a swarm of bumblebees buzzing inside of me. I felt so much for him. So much about him. And all of it stung when I examined it too closely.
Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this.
When I’d first let Donovan into my bed, I hadn’t thought it would be more than a one-night stand. I hadn’t realized that I’d fall so hard, so quickly. I hadn’t imagined that he might show feelings for me and that every time he turned cold afterward, I’d be shattered.
It was better not examining any of it. If I did, I’d have to make a decision about what to do. So, instead, I kept my head in my laptop and focused on revenue pipelines and investment costs.
By Sunday afternoon, I’d knocked out a significant amount of work and had managed to distract myself from random crying jags with a marathon of Community playing on the TV in the background. My Chinese delivery had just arrived, and I was about to sit back and enjoy my Kung Pao chicken when my phone alerted me that I had a text.