Good thing she’d pulled her hand back from the shake with Travis and let it rest in her lap with the other one. Now she could clasp them together tightly in frustration without anyone else seeing them.
“Really? So are you here this weekend for work or pleasure?” Travis asked, probably because she wasn’t wearing her ID badge.
Glancing over at Maurice in his fitted black T-shirt and black basketball shorts, she noticed he wasn’t wearing his badge, either.
Of course Kelli answered the question for them. “No, silly, they’re Dear Lovers, too.”
“Oh? Wow. How does that work? Were you surprised to find each other here?” Now, all on board with Kelli’s excitement, Travis was the inquisitive one.
“No,” Desta spoke up. “We knew we’d both be here, and once our matches didn’t pan out, we just decided to stay for a relaxing weekend.” Where that lie came from she didn’t exactly know, but it felt right. The less these two—and possibly, at some point, the world—knew about how she and Maurice actually came to be here together, the better.
“Yeah, but it was quite a coincidence,” Maurice added easily. “With the disappointment of not hitting it off with my match, it was an unexpected comfort to see Desta here.”
This was the second time he’d used her full name. Since about a month after she’d begun working at RGF, Maurice had called her Des, and because she’d liked him from the start—in a strictly platonic way—she hadn’t bothered to correct him. It dawned on her in this instant that he was the only one who called her that, and she liked it.
“That’s so cool.” Kelli had leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. She stared at them as if they were a couple on a reality-television show she was obsessed with. “So, how’s it going so far? What’d you think about Make-Up and Mimosas? I only saw you two walking out, but I couldn’t catch up with you.”
“It was definitely informative.” Maurice was sure to answer first this time. “All those tips on how to shift the anger from the argument to sexual desire were quite interesting. Makes you want to pick an argument just for the sake of getting to the make-up sex.”
Travis grinned and nodded at Maurice. “I was thinking the same thing, man.”
“No,” Kelli answered quickly. “No arguments over here, at least not yet.” She giggled. “It’s too early to say for sure if they’ll end with make-up sex or a complete block from my email and my phone.”
“That’s certainly an option,” Desta added. Even though, for her, it really wasn’t. If this thing they’d agreed to went south, she had no idea how the work relationship between her and Maurice would turn out.
She couldn’t tell if Maurice was thinking along the same lines, and the conversation quickly turned when the server came to take their orders. Cheeseburger sliders, hot wings, fries and beers all around came to the table in the next fifteen minutes. From there, the chatter went to the food, the beer and guesses as to which movie they’d be watching tonight.
Desta managed to relax at some point, and when Maurice put his arm around the back of her chair after they finished eating, she didn’t give it a second thought. A stranger walking by might think this was a normal double date, with four friends laughing and talking about things like sports and how many times Desta fell on the slopes in comparison to how many times Kelli had done the same.
Nobody would know that a war was going on inside her—one in which she wished she could actually have this sense of normalcy. Only, the smarter, more experienced side of her knew it was an impossibility. Things could seem good one moment and change completely the next. And because of that, she would never willingly take a chance on a relationship again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MAURICE HAD GUESSED they’d be watching something like Iron Man or some other Marvel movie, because it would’ve certainly taken the sexual edge off all the other planned events for the weekend. He’d been sorely mistaken.
Twenty minutes after they’d finished eating, he found them a set of beanbag chairs in the far-left corner of a room that had been designated their movie theater for the evening. It had taken a little dodging to unravel them from Kelli and Travis after leaving the restaurant, but he knew dinner had been stressful for Des. When she wasn’t eating, she’d been wringing her hands so much he was certain she’d caused bruising.
And he needed to make up for losing his patience with her earlier. He wasn’t going to apologize because she’d been out of line throwing his family into the reason why he had job security, especially since she of all people knew that wasn’t true. If there was one thing his father, Ron Gold Sr., didn’t tolerate it was insubordination on the job, and if his dad for one minute thought something Maurice was doing was jeopardizing the image of the company, he would fire him personally. Admittedly, on the surface, he could see how his philandering ways might be a stain on RGF’s otherwise impeccable reputation. But he’d always been the charming Gold brother, a trait which aided in his job as the head of PR. The media reps loved him, which more often than not worked to his advantage. If that meant the media also took a considerable interest in his personal life, he’d been willing to deal with that.
“We’re pretty much out of sight back here,” he said when Desta only stood next to the pair of beanbags. He had no idea why the organizers of this event thought these were a cute idea. While he got a kick out of them, Des definitely wasn’t a fan.
“And we can still see the screen,” she added, even though she made no attempt to sit.
“Of course, as soon as they turn the lights down and get started it’ll be just like being in a
