“I didn’t screw up! I’m not your dog walker. I’m not anything to you at all. Your real dog walker probably quit like I would if I had to work for a jerk like you. Is it normal for you to just assume that every woman is here to be at your beck and call?” I step into him and all but growl. “News flash, Zane, no one likes guys like you.”
His chuckle argues with me. “Yeah, they do.” I hate that his cocky smile is just as charming as the sound of his voice.
“No, they don’t. No wonder you suck at love.”
“Who said I suck at love?” he asks and I realize I just gave away that I was eavesdropping on his conversation.
“Oh.” I throw my hands up in mock horror. “God forbid that huge ego of yours takes a hit.”
“You’re just jealous.”
I snort. “Not hardly.”
“Besides, love’s a stupid emotion fabricated to define relationships.”
“Only when you date a prick like you it is.”
Zane angles his head to the side as he folds his arms across his chest. “Is that so?” he asks as a lopsided grin of disbelieving amusement widens on his face.
“Yes.” I nod for emphasis, more than irked that he’s finding humor in my anger.
“Please, don’t stop. I’d love to hear your reasoning.”
I know I should walk away from him and how he’s literally talking down to me since I’m now a good three inches shorter without my shoes on. I should turn my back and strut down the hall in my bare feet and into the elevator because sure as hell, he doesn’t really care what I think. Not one bit.
But I can’t find it within myself to do it.
There’s something about him—the smug look on his face, the way he spoke on the phone, how damn gorgeous he is even when I know I don’t like him—that’s making me stay and finish telling him what I think.
“My reasoning? How about you think you’re way better than you actually are?” I huff and throw my hands on my hips, causing my purse to slip off my shoulder. So now of course instead of looking tough, I look like an idiot who’s standing my ground with its strap tight around my forearm and the purse part dangling near the floor.
“Says the barefoot woman who keeps shoving her shoes at me.”
“The heel broke because of your dog,” I grit out between teeth. “Or rather because you were too inconsiderate to actually take the time to stop and treat me like a human being.”
“Your broken heel is my fault?” he says through a laugh. “Am I missing how your choice in shoes and my opinion of love go hand and hand?”
“Yeah.” I snort in disgust. “Because it all comes back to you thinking so highly of yourself.”
“Funny, that’s what my ex said to me.”
“Hence, the reason she’s your ex.”
“Hence?” he says with a mocking grin.
“Yes, hence.” I take a step closer. “This isn’t the Outback. You’re not wrestling crocs, Dundee. So—”
“I’m not?”
“No. You’re not. So stop acting like you have no couth or manners. Women deserve manners. They deserve respect. They deserve to—”
His laugh cuts me off as a woman passes by us in the hallway. Their eyes meet and he flashes her a smile that hints at what it is he’d love to do with her. I hate that she almost runs into the wall because she’s so preoccupied flirting with him.
“Seriously? You’re proving my point!” I say.
“Yes. Your point. What was it again because my point was busy concentrating on something else?” He shakes his head as he gives her one last smile.
I grit my teeth and glare at him. “That no woman likes a womanizer.”
“I disagree.”
“And furthermore—”
“You’re so sexy when you use adverbs.”
Normally I’d laugh at that. But right now I sense that I’m the butt of his joke—me and the temper I can’t control—and it takes everything I have to keep my voice even and calm.
“Don’t be a dick.”
“Surprised I know my adverbs?”
“You need to get over yourself.”
“But I like myself.” When he takes a step forward and tucks a piece of hair behind my ear, it takes me by surprise. My next comeback dies on my lips as I blink at him several times trying to compute why he just did that. Why would he do such an intimate action to someone chewing him out? “And you like me too.” His voice is a deep rumble of sound that conveys the same thing as the look he just gave to the woman walking by.
I step back with a shake of my head. Flustered when I shouldn’t be flustered. “No. I don’t. I don’t even think Smudge does. He’s cute and has manners while you’re just . . .” I look him up and down. “The real dog of the house.”
His grin is lightning quick. “Are you finished yet?”
“No,” I say, trying to think of a comeback and failing miserably.
“Then by all means, continue—”
“Zane?”
I startle and see the voice’s owner sticking her head out of the door to his office. Her hair is slicked back and glasses frame her eyes.
“Yeah?” he asks but never breaks my stare.
“Robert’s on the phone,” she says.