That fact alone made my jaw tighten.
“Believe it or not,” I said, tilting my head to the side, “Dora didn’t even mention you.”
The corner of his lip tugged up. "I'll have your replacement phone on your desk by tomorrow morning."
"That's really not necessary," I argued, but he lifted his shoulders. The pretentious asshole had just brushed me off. For a second, as I stared into his penetrating blue eyes, I wondered if he was the man who’d called me four months ago. But then I let the thought drift away as quickly as it came. Calling me like that wouldn’t have benefited him, and besides, the voice didn’t fit. Neither did the secrecy. Oliver Manning would have announced himself at the very beginning of that call if it had been him.
“I’m serious, Oliver,” I said through gritted teeth. Besides, I wouldn’t even be at the office until Thursday—not that he needed to know that.
"I fix what I break."
I stiffened, remembering his words from fourteen years ago. I’d give anything to fix this for you. Drawing in a few quick breaths, I pinched my mouth. “It’s a phone, Mr. Manning; I promise it’s not the end of the world.”
He started to pull off, but then he slammed on his brakes. I narrowed my eyes, but before I could ask him if he actually planned on leaving sometime today, he said, "I'm not sleeping with Dora."
“What?” I blurted.
“I’m. Not. Fucking. Dora. We’ve never had that kind of interest in each other.”
Wow ... really? I looked down at a crack in the garage floor. "It's none of my business, and I really, really don’t want to know. You don't have to explain anything to me.”
"No, I don't. I just didn’t want you getting the wrong idea about me." His vivid blue eyes examined me one final time, and then he put his car in gear. "Soon, Lizzie.”
*
Once I was sure he was gone, I rushed to my Mini Cooper. With my phone broken, I was even more anxious to get home. I ignored the speed limit, shunning the radio in favor of silence. By the time I closed my apartment door behind me, my body trembled.
Exhaling deeply, I dropped my purse by my feet and closed my eyes. I opened them just in time to see Pen coming out of the kitchen, holding a plate with a bagel slathered in strawberry cream cheese. She paused the moment her slate blue eyes landed on me.
"Oh shit." Her dark brows drew together in concern. "You didn't freak out and tell them everything, did you?"
I shook my head. “I don’t go back until Thursday. Margaret’s out of town, and she wants to be there when I start.” Pen let out a sigh of relief that echoed through her body. Dropping her plate a few inches from the red floral centerpiece on the dining room table, she sat down and motioned for me to take the spot right across from her. As I joined her, she studied me carefully.
"Alright, why are you shaking?" she demanded. “Being in that building didn’t get to you, did it?”
“I can handle the building,” I promised. “I’m shaking because of Oliver Manning.”
She repeated his name and then fanned herself, laughing at the dark look I shot at her. “That man gives me the shivers. Is he gorgeous in person? Or is he one of those guys who just photographs well?” Observing my silence, she leaned forward and whispered, “His mom was married to your dad for all of two years. It’s not wrong to—”
“He’s arrogant.” I left it at that because I absolutely could not look at her and tell her he wasn’t attractive. Everything about Oliver—from his voice to his touch to his knee-weakening looks—was overpowering and stunning. I recounted most of what had happened this morning, from meeting Stella to bits-and-pieces of the parking garage encounter, plunking my destroyed phone on the table between us when I was finished. “He’s bow-down-to-me, fall-into-my-Egyptian-cotton-sheets-right-effing-now arrogant.”
“He’s rich,” Pen pointed out. “You should be used to his type.”
In the last three years, I’d met my fair share of men with money, men who had gladly tossed out a few thousand a night to have me on their arm with absolutely no promise of anything more. But as I sat there trying to compare Oliver to them, I quickly found that my brain refused to make the connection.
He was in a class of his own, and I didn’t know if that was good or bad.
“Hmm ... I’m used to them. Doesn’t make it any better.” Thinking about the way his hands had felt flared over my skin doused me with a bucket full of emotions, and I shoved away from the table. “When are you leaving for Vegas?” I called out, walking into the narrow kitchen. As bad as it sounded, I was determined to get Oliver the hell out of my head, even if that meant powering through my fully stocked fridge.
“About that,” Pen said. I heard her make a noise that I associated with indecision. I knew what was coming even before I returned to the adjoining dining room with blueberry yogurt and a can of Diet Dr. Pepper. The thought made me ridiculously giddy inside. When I slid into my seat and tucked my foot beneath my butt, she folded her hands together and gave me one of those looks that made me feel like we were negotiating a business deal.
She should have known by now that none of this was necessary.
“So I called my boss, who was totally cool with me doing some work remotely, and I was thinking...” she said with a timid look that was so unlike her I bit my lip to suppress my own smile. For the last couple years, she’d been with the same software company, working in what she called a “white hat” position where she tested cracks in the software. She was such an asset to the company that her boss had reached the point where he let her do her own thing. “Well, hell, I was thinking—”
“Of course you can stay with me.” I pulled the foil off my yogurt and licked it clean. “I’d honestly love for you to be here.” Something about having Pen—my best friend and the mastermind who helped launch this complex plan—nearby took pounds of pressure off my chest.
Looking surprised at how easily I agreed, she twisted her head to the side, causing her mane of brown hair to cascade over one shoulder. “Really?”
“Really.” I shoveled another bite of yogurt in my mouth, already feeling thoughts of Oliver evaporate from my brain. “When are you going to go get your stuff?”
Pen’s eyes crinkled when she grinned, and once again, I knew what she was going to say next. She was impossibly easy to read, which I loved about her. The only thing I’d ever regretted about our relationship was that it had taken so long for her to come into my life.
“I’ve got a couple bags already in my trunk,” she announced, with a sheepish shrug. “Surprise, Gemma, I’m all yours until you see this through and get your answers.”
Chapter 3
“Gem? Were you expecting a package from E & T?” Pen shouted, nearly causing me to poke myself in the eye with the mascara wand. Her footsteps drew closer, and a second later, the bathroom door flew open. She poked her head inside, holding up a manila envelope, and heard its contents shift. “This was downstairs in your mailbox. It’s from them, so I figured it might be important,” she said, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the Anya Marina cover playing on my phone.
Moving my head to either side, I brushed the pad of my thumb across the smooth screen to pause the song. “I doubt it. If it were, they would’ve called already.”
I’d replaced my phone the same day that Oliver caused me to break it, but I’d splurged on an updated, shinier model in deference to my new job in the land of all things fake. I was a habitual message checker—both this phone and the one associated with my real life that I kept in my nightstand drawer were looked at multiple times a day. There definitely hadn’t been anything new from Emerson & Taylor.
Dropping my mascara in the makeup bag sitting between the double sinks, I faced Pen and took the envelope. Not even glancing inside, I tossed it behind me on the counter beside my new iPhone. “You’re not still worried about going to work, are you?” she asked sympathetically.