“I’m sorry,” he whispers, hurt tinging his apology.
His sincerity plays havoc with my willpower. It’s already painfully difficult to face him on a professional level. It’s painful, but it’s doable. I already feel consumed by guilt, ashamed of myself. This is impossible. The undercurrent of our connection is still there no matter how hard I fight to disregard it. But it doesn’t mean I can act on it.
“I should be going.” I push myself away, all in a fluster, my work predicament forgotten and the urgency to remove myself from the situation now dominating my mind. I grab my bags but forgo the drawings, knowing it’ll take me too long to fold them all up. I need to get out of here now before I let my attraction and want get the better of me. Before I cave under the pressure of his struggle, because it would be all too easy to fall into his arms again. So easy. Yet the aftermath and backlash will be unbearable.
I hurry away, keen to get myself home and talk some sense and strength into myself.
“Annie, wait!” Jack calls after me.
I ignore his plea and keep going, knowing I’ll be doomed if I let him stop me.
“Annie!”
I hit the fresh air and take the stairs fast, but come to an abrupt halt when Jack overtakes me and blocks my path. “Jack, please don’t.” My breath is labored, not only because of my rushed escape from him.
“I won’t, I promise.” He steps back, giving me space, his hands held up in surrender. “I’m sorry.”
I fix him in place with a sure, cut expression. “Then. Let. Me. Leave,” I say slowly, watching as he breathes in deeply. After what seems like ages, he finally moves to the side to let me pass.
I hurry away, fighting against the magnetic pull trying to drag me back to him.
The pull that’s getting tougher to resist by the second.
Chapter 9
I spot Micky outside the café and hurry over, landing in my chair with a thud. It’s been a long bloody day of technical drawings and calculations on my roof…and the total head-fuck that is Jack Joseph. I’m drained, my mind bent in more ways than one, and I didn’t sleep a wink last night, memories of his words and of his bare, sweaty chest refusing to leave my mind. That vision has plagued me all fucking night. Still is.
“All right?” Micky asks, eyeing up my stressed form.
“My brain is frazzled,” I sigh, dumping my bag down on the chair next to me. “Problem at work that I’ve been trying to fix.”
“You work too hard. When was the last time you went on holiday?”
I cast my mind back…and back…and back.
“I rest my case.” He shows the sky his palms on a shrug. “You look tired. Take some time off and relax. Do nothing. Your business isn’t going to fall apart if you take a break.”
He’s wrong. It most definitely would fall apart. Besides, even if it wouldn’t, going on holiday and doing nothing means I’d get to think too much, and I don’t want to be thinking right now because there’s only one subject my brain annoyingly wants to focus on. “Maybe next year,” I murmur, looking past Micky into the distance.
“Oh no.”
I snap out of my short daydream immediately and find Micky looking at me, all worried. “What?”
“That look. What are you thinking?”
“Nothing.” I laugh and start faffing with the spoon at my place setting.
“Annie…” My name is said on a long, warning exhale of air, and I laugh again, with a lack of anything else to do. Micky has known me my entire life. I’m not fooling him. “Tell me.”
“Nothing to tell.” I wave a hand in the air, feigning indifference, and pray he leaves it right there. “Work’s crazy.”
“And have you seen him?”
“Not really,” I reply weakly, hating myself for not being able to sound convincing. I’m too tired to find the energy to be convincing.
Micky moves back in his chair slowly, eyeing me with caution. “Please tell me you’ve not been there again.”
I slam my mouth shut and avert my eyes from his. “No.” Though I haven’t physically been there again, I have in my head, a million times, and that’s making me feel just as guilty.
“I hope not.” Micky leans across the table, probably to ensure I can see with perfect clarity how stern his face is. “You know, because he’s fucking married!”
“Will you be quiet?” I hiss across the table, my frantic eyes checking the vicinity, looking as paranoid as I feel. “I’ve not been there again, and I don’t plan to either.”
Micky throws himself across the table threateningly, and I withdraw, worried. I’ve never seen him look so mad. “I don’t like this. Is he pursuing you?”
“No,” I lie, for fear of my lifelong friend taking matters into his own hands. He looks perfectly capable right now.
“Are you pursuing him?”
“No.” That’s not a lie. I haven’t. “I’m working with him, Micky. It’s hard not to see someone when you’re being forced to work with them.”
“No one is forcing you to do anything.”
“Are you suggesting I should throw away my dream job because some arsehole led me on?” At that very moment, my phone starts buzzing on the table, and Jack’s name flashes up at us. I reach and reject the call, stabbing at the screen of my phone heavy-handedly. I look up at my friend and his lips purse.
“I know you, Annie. I know when something is on your mind, and I know that it isn’t work.” He shakes his head, dismayed. “Why didn’t you take that?” he asks, pointing at my phone. “If it’s purely business, why?”
“Because I’m having coffee with you.”
“He’s married,” he says simply, twisting the knife in further. “You don’t go there, Annie. You don’t even think there!”
“I’m not.” I grit my teeth harshly. “It’s work. Nothing more.”
His face softens as he reaches over and takes my hand. “You deserve more. Don’t get yourself caught up in that shit. It won’t end well.”
I drop my head, even more exhausted than when I arrived here. “I called you for coffee and a catch-up. Not an earache.” I force a smile and shift my hand so I’m holding his, nodding my assurance. “It caught me off guard. The whole situation. But I’m fine, honestly. You know me.” I look up when the waiter slides a coffee toward me. “Thank you.”
“Should I have ordered something stronger?” Micky asks seriously.
I snort, thinking that he most definitely should have. “Probably. How’s work?” I ask. “Specifically, the new client?” I wag a cheeky eyebrow.
My lifelong friend sniffs in the most blasé way possible, toying with the napkin at his place casually. But just like Micky knows me, I know him, and this new client has clearly gotten under his skin. “All right.”
“That’s it? All right?”
“I suggested she might need an extra session per week.”
I laugh and take a needed hit of caffeine. “Of course she does.”
Micky grins around the rim of his cup. “Hey, I saw Jason yesterday.”
“That’s nice. Did you tell him you’d screwed his ex?”
“No.” Micky rolls exasperated eyes. “Lizzy and I were a drunken mistake.”
“Yeah, yeah. So what did he want?”