She turned and walked out of the office without another word.
“Why’d you throw away her papers?” Chris asked.
“Why don’t you focus on what you can control. Like this situation with your coach. Has it improved?”
“What, the whole thing where he said he wouldn’t re-sign me?”
“Yeah,” I said dryly. “That.”
“I did think of an idea, but it’s probably going to sound stupid.”
“Color me shocked.”
12
Chelsea
It was raining, and not the polite kind of rain that makes pretty girls giggle and flip their skirts as they shuffle across the intersection. It was the ugly kind of rain reserved for breakup scenes in romance movies. I’d just watched Damon casually slide hours and hours of my work into his trash can, confirming that he’d only given me the task to screw with me in the first place.
And now it was past midnight. And it was raining.
It meant my grand plans to walk home had been foiled in two ways. The first foil came when my stupidly grumpy and stupidly sexy boss decided to give me a task. Worse, he’d given me a task that clearly wasn’t meant to be completed. He had expected me to get frustrated with the enormity and seeming meaninglessness of it. He’d thought I was going to fail, and he’d have his little victory.
And being the eternal dumbass I am, I decided to prove him wrong. Because that’s what I always did, wasn’t it? Even if it meant having to call my brother and beg him to put Luna to bed for me and promise I’d make it up to him. Even if it meant walking home and taking the subway past midnight in New York City alone because I couldn’t afford to waste money on a cab.
Foil number two was the downpour that was hitting the streets so hard it was coming back up in a frothy white mist. Cars slicked by, blasting little yellow cones of light through the rain and leaving smears of red in the wake of their taillights.
I stood just inside the lobby of the building, waiting for it to magically stop or maybe just calm down enough that I wasn’t afraid of being swept into a sewer grate.
“You’re still here?” Asked a deep voice from behind me.
Damon was walking out of the building with his hand in his pocket and a jacket slung over his shoulder. Late night or not, he looked as composed and gorgeous as ever. He even smelled delicious, which was impossible to ignore in the tight confines of the little glass box we were standing in beside the doors.
“As long as Mother Nature violently pisses all over the street, yeah.”
Damon looked like he was debating something internally, then he sighed. “Come on.”
“No.”
“I’m not asking.”
“And I’m not on the clock. So, no. I’m not going anywhere with you. You’re an asshole.”
“Yeah, and I try very hard to make sure you and everyone else continues thinking that. But this asshole would rather not have to find a new personal assistant in the morning. If I let you go out there yourself, chances are you’ll get mugged or run over by a car.”
I sighed. “You’re so considerate it hurts.”
“Are you going to come with me willingly, or do I need to carry you over my shoulder again?”
I squinted. “Again?”
“Your legs stop working when you get drunk enough, it seems. So what’s it going to be, Tinkerbell?”
I crossed my arms but started walking with him. “Why did you take me home when I got drunk, anyway?”
Damon gestured for me to head back inside the building, toward the stairs leading to the basement parking garage. It made me realize he hadn’t happened to pass me on his way out. He’d been heading to the garage when he spotted me over here and came out of his way for me. I wished I wasn’t silly enough for that to make butterflies explode in my stomach.
I followed him to the staircase, even though I was deathly afraid of tall staircases. I could always imagine looking up to see a shadowy head pop out from several flights above, followed by hurried footsteps and heavy breathing.
Ugh. My overactive imagination was not my friend at night.
I had to admit I did feel safer with Damon around. At least this way, I already knew where the most evil thing in the vicinity was.
We entered into a mostly empty parking garage before he decided to answer. I’d noticed he had a habit of waiting irritatingly long to reply or talk, as if long stretches of silence and the uncomfortable tension it caused were no bother to him.
“I didn’t trust Mace with you.”
“So, what, you were protecting my virginity?”
He chuckled, as if that was a rich joke. The vague implication that he knew damn well I wasn’t a virgin reminded me of exactly how he knew that. Pleasant pulses of heat passed from my chest to my lower stomach. It reminded me how good it had felt to have him take me from behind—and how strong his hands had felt on my hips.
Stop that, Chelsea. Bad, bad girl.
That seemed like another life now. Another Damon. Still an asshole, but he had at least been an asshole who was attracted to me. I guess that wasn’t a huge plus on the redemption scale, but it was something.
“Mace has a reputation.”
“And you don’t?”
He paused outside a dark, expensive looking luxury car. “I learned a few hard lessons about what happens to people who mix business with pleasure. So, no. The only reputation I have now is of being the prick you don’t want to get stuck in an elevator with.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything, but yeah, I can see that. You do smell.”
He turned sharply. “What?”
I laughed in surprise to see how vulnerable he looked. “It was a joke. You don’t smell. I mean, bad, at least… What
