he wanted to be at the office early to go over some things, and I’d said he didn’t want to let go of me. He had kissed me then, right in front of my coffee shop. So what? he had said once he’d left me all breathless and hungry again.
“You think?” he asked, sounding amused.
“I know.”
“Would you like to have lunch with me then?”
“Rose?” I looked up and to the side to see Sally grinning at me. “Should I unlock the door?”
“Yes, yes. Sorry, I’ll come help in a second.”
She waved a hand at me. “I got it.” Then, with an even bigger smile, she unlocked the door and welcomed our first two customers of the day. I hadn’t even noticed they were waiting outside in the cold.
Basically squeezing myself into the corner, I focused my attention back on Jack. “If you missed me so much that you couldn’t continue on with your day without seeing me during your lunch, I would consider that option…but since you haven’t mi—”
“You’ll always call me out, won’t you?”
“I think that’s a given.”
“Good. Well, if you don’t go out to lunch with me, my entire day will be ruined because I won’t be able to think about anything but you, you and your taste.”
I blushed. He definitely knew my taste.
“Fine. I’ll have lunch with you. I’ll have to cancel all my other plans, but only because you insisted so much.”
As I smiled down at my shoes, there was a heavy silence from the other end of the line.
“Jack?”
“I’ll make you happy, Rose. I promise.”
Words got stuck in my throat for a short moment. “I’ll make you happy too, Jack.”
Before he could respond, I heard an unexpected and unwelcome voice behind me.
“Rose?”
My smile dropped before I even set eyes on him. Joshua. His hair was slicked back, which made him look like a total douchebag, and he was wearing a suit—nothing as good as Jack’s suits, but still a black suit. He looked like a perfect fit for someone as rich as Jodi was. When we had been together, he hadn’t been like this—no slick hair, no suits. It was as if he had molded himself into a different person, or maybe my cousin had molded him into a different person. Either way, it wasn’t my business.
“Jack,” I said, still holding the phone to my ear. “I…uh, we just opened. I should go. I’ll text you when we slow down a bit.”
After a quick goodbye, I hung up the phone.
“What are you doing here, Joshua? Again.”
“I’d like to talk to you, if you have a few minutes.”
I frowned at him. We had nothing to talk about. I glanced over his shoulder, annoyed that he was almost blocking my way of escape. “We just opened.” I repeated the words I’d said to Jack. “I don’t have time to talk—I need to work.”
He smiled, a small intimate expression that only made me more annoyed because he was messing with my happy morning. He didn’t belong there. “I don’t mind waiting.”
Because we were starting to fill with customers, I couldn’t make a scene and straight up kick him out. So, I shrugged and, turning my shoulders so I wouldn’t get too close, walked past him.
I made him wait for over an hour, hoping he’d get bored and leave on his own. I couldn’t remember a single time he had waited for me even for an extra fifteen minutes, but now it seemed he had all the time in the world. What bugged me the most was the fact that he hadn’t even ordered one simple coffee as he occupied a table I could have offered to actual paying customers.
That was why I made my way toward him when the morning rush started to slow down, that and the fact that he was making me feel extremely uncomfortable with the way he was trying to catch my eye.
I figured I didn’t need to sit down to say what I needed to say, so I stood next to his seat and, trying to be as quiet as possible, I rushed straight into it.
“I’m not sure how to say this any other way, but I don’t want you to come here again. I don’t want to see or talk to you.”
“I thought we were going to talk.”
Was he even listening to me?
“And I thought you’d take a hint and leave before that happened.”
“Rose, I think you’ll want to hear what—”
“I don’t. I don’t want to hear it, and I don’t want