“Tell me about it.”
Holy shit. For the first time in his life, he didn’t have the upper hand. In fact, he didn’t have any hand. He had nothing whatsoever. “Would you like a drink?”
“No.”
Well, he would. After pouring a scotch, he settled on the end of the bed to hold vigil over the bathroom door for when she decided to come out and clear this up.
Clancy curled up next to him, and he absently sifted his fingers through the dog’s hair while sipping his drink and puzzling over what had upset Mia so much. He assumed with her spontaneous nature, she’d love a surprise like this.
Maybe she thought the clothes belonged to someone else. Hell, who knew what she thought. At this point, though, he figured the best tactic was to wait it out and let her come around in her own time. She was unusual, and honestly, the stakes were very high. Too high. What started out as an uncomplicated business arrangement, which he’d hoped would morph into some great sex, had turned into something unexpectedly complex.
Never before had he cared about impressing a woman past the level of convenience and self-serving gratification. And that had always worked for him because the women he had dated wanted no more than that from him. Very clear A, B, and C categories.
Mia was different. A whole new category: those who just wanted him as a friend. A business-only friend. He finished his scotch in a gulp and set the glass on the floor at his feet. He gave a half-laugh. Before he met Mia, he’d have never put an empty glass anywhere but the sink or the dishwasher. Something about it was liberating.
Waiting was not.
…
“Calm down,” Mia scolded herself in the bathroom mirror. “Maybe he just can’t see what a dick move this was.” Of course he couldn’t. To him, it was probably generous, and how he’d operated in the past. She’d always had a gift for putting herself in other people’s shoes, but his shoes were way too big to wrap her head around. She couldn’t even imagine what it was like to be him.
In his warped sense of what was appropriate between people, paying someone was probably his answer to most things. Goodness knew it was the easiest answer for someone like him. He most likely knew she wouldn’t take money, so he bought her stuff instead—beautiful stuff, of course; he was Michael Anderson after all.
Ordinarily, she would have just chewed him out on the spot, but after spending time with him, she’d learned that curbing her impulsive side had benefits—not that it wasn’t still there, lurking under the surface like a powder keg, waiting for her to light the fuse. But, he responded much better to more controlled responses. He liked order, not only in his physical life, but in his emotional world as well. And it was worth putting things away where they belonged and waiting to react because of the ease it brought to their friendship.
Friendship.
She shook her head at her reflection. Nope. Not friendship. Business relationship. He’d just proved it by paying her. He saw her as an employee, not an equal.
Well, she couldn’t stay in there all night. They were leaving for the wedding in the morning, and they needed to clear this up before then. Ripping the Band-Aid off all at once was the best tactic.
After a deep, fortifying breath, she opened the bathroom door. Michael shot to his feet from the corner of the bed, kicking over an empty highball glass. The glass rolled across the floor and came to rest right in front of her. Ordinarily, she’d have just left it there, but she knew that things on the floor bothered him, so she picked it up. Turning it in her hands, she watched the light play off the cut glass. “I don’t want to be paid, Michael. You’ve made me uncomfortable.”
“It wasn’t my intention to make you uncomfortable. Quite the opposite.”
“I didn’t come to the office with you because I expected compensation. I didn’t expect anything. I didn’t come with you tonight as an employee; I came as a friend.”
“This isn’t about tonight.”
She placed the glass on the counter just inside the bathroom. “I heard you on the phone in your office.” After shrugging out of her coat, she folded it over her arm. “You did this because Kawashima signed the deal with you. It’s why you kissed me, too. It’s all about the deal. You’re trying to pay me and I feel uncomfortable.”
A puzzled look crossed his face. “The only call I made was to Jacob to let him know we were ready for pick up.”
“And the clothing store in the living room just magically appeared on its own?”
“No. I arranged for it last week.”
“Last week.” Well, that put a new spin on things. She thought he’d ordered the zillion dollars worth of designer clothes after Kawashima signed the deal.
“The items in the living room are costumes and props for the fake fiancée routine we’re going to pull off this weekend.”