The Mix-Up (Southern Hearts Club #3) - Melanie Munton Page 0,11
his leg. I was short and cold with him. He simply started giving it all back.
Maybe Ryder isn’t as bad as I thought.
Maybe I am the sole one responsible for our contentious relationship. All because I was affronted that he didn’t remember our one-night sexcapade that I now know never even happened.
Maybe we could actually get along and be…friends.
Eh. Friends might be pushing it.
But maybe we could, at the very least, be civil to each other. I’ll accept my role in how things have progressed between us if he can just meet me halfway.
Maybe I could actually like Ryder Colson.
Well, that theory gets blown to hell and back on Monday.
Turns out the new client we’re quoting wants to start the market research for their product release right away if they sign with us because their overall timeline is pretty tight. The market research really should have been conducted a long time ago, so this is more like a beta test phase. Around two o’clock Monday afternoon, Ryder blows up my inbox with a truckload of items he wants completed by tomorrow in order for us to be prepared for our meeting with the potential client on Thursday.
Which means it’s all aboard the Late Night Express tonight.
Choo-choo!
Hours later, he and I are the only two people left in the office. I’ve been chained to my desk for four straight hours and I’m wired. Not from the two energy drinks I guzzled down, but from the addictive high of being productive. When I get on a roll like this, I don’t stop until my fingers quit listening to my brain and can no longer function.
“Did you book the studio for the commercial shoot?” Ryder asks, sidling up to my desk.
I finish the sentence I’m typing before spinning my chair around to face him. “Yes. They can accommodate the short notice.”
His finger swipes over his phone screen. “And the focus groups have been scheduled?”
I wave back at my computer screen. “Done. I’m working on the questionnaire packets now, and Regina was compiling a list of participants all day. Right now, we’ve got about eighteen locked in for the first one and nine for the second, but we’ll get more.”
“She managed to get that many in one day?”
My mouth twitches as the voice of our deceptively sweet receptionist echoes in my ears. “Regina’s got three kids, remember? She knows how to handle being told ‘no’ over and over again and still somehow get her way.”
Just when I think I might get an itty-bitty smile from him, the man scowls. Lordy day, I’m trying to be amiable here. It’s taking all my effort to not revert back to my default behavior and infuse some bite into every word I snipe his way.
But he is not playing along.
“Why don’t you just come work in my office so I don’t have to keep dragging my ass out here to talk to you?” he asks on a frustrated exhale.
“I work better alone. Besides, if we go into that room together, it’ll end up turning into a crime scene. And I’m sure you don’t want to go through the hassle of replacing your carpet.”
What happened to the honey, Gretchen? That was a whole lotta vinegar.
Cut me some slack. I’m new at this nice thing.
With a muffled curse, Ryder reaches forward and snatches all the binders and folders off my desk. “Conference room. Now.” Arms full, he pivots on his heel and stalks off.
“Wow, really?” I throw my hands up. “Isn’t stealing my stuff a little juvenile? Are you my boss or my older brother?”
He slams to a stop.
Slowly wheeling around, his expression turns livid. “Never call me your brother again, duchess,” he growls. “Ever.”
Stomping off, he violently shoulders the conference room door open, sending it banging against the opposite wall.
Mm-kay. There are two possibilities here.
One, those energy drinks are straight-up rat poison and I just hallucinated that whole thing.
Or two, that actually just happened.
I don’t even know how much time passes as I remain frozen in my chair, contemplating the likelihood of the first.
“Get your ass in here, Gretchen!” he yells from inside the room.
Alllrighty dighty.
That’s how we’re going to play this.
Grabbing my phone and water bottle, I pound across the office, outrage causing my blood to rush through my veins like a raging river. The glare I fire his way when I pause at the threshold to the conference room would fall into the visual castration category.