Page 59 of The Girlfriend Clause
“Yes.” Her tone was ice.
Was that admitting liability? No. Of course not.
“Unless you count knees. Technically, theyaremechanical.”
What did I justsay?
She stared at me for a beat. “They are.”
No laugh. Not even a polite smile.
“But less likely to break down than an elevator. We hope.” My heart bumped against my ribs. I shouldn’t be mentioning body parts, either. Although, hopefully, knees weren’t sexual.
Werethey?
“Well. Good call with the stairs. They’re very… one foot after the other, aren’t they?”What? I wasn’t making sense.“Like walking, but—”
My sentence hung in midair like Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff.
“More upward.” The cartoon coyote fell, and a boulder landed on top of him, crushing him like the bumbling loser he was. I mentally stuffed my entire fist into my mouth and tried to remove my voice box.
We looked at each other, expressionless.
If things were okay between us, she would have laughed.
She didn’t.
I hoped to God she wasn’t recordingthat.
“Right,” I said. “Shall we?” I stepped back from the next flight of stairs, so she had to go first.
“Please.” She indicated for me to go ahead.
Every teacher I’d ever had at boarding school was staring me down in my head. What she was suggesting was sacrilege. No way was I walking in front.
“After you,” I said again. She didn’t move. A standoff. As if this wasn’t awkward enough. Although on second thoughts, if I had to walk behind her, up the stairs, her hips swaying right at my eye level—might she think that was some sort of sexualharassment?
No. Ridiculous. I’d already seen and touched everything… and then I’d run away like a coward.
No wonder she hated me. Was that why she was being hostile?
Yeah. That would piss anyone off.
How could I make thingsright?
Because if I was honest, Andrea Jones had been stuck in my head since Monday, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it.
I took a deep breath. I could wait all day if I had to.
Honestly, that seemed preferable to the conversation we were about to have.
Chapter 12
Andrea
A douche convention.How do you begin to apologize for that?
That was literally what I’d said about him and all his senior leadership team. And that wasn’t even the worst thing.
