The Mix-Up (Southern Hearts Club #3) - Melanie Munton Page 0,45

employee. For him, that doesn’t seem to enter into the equation when he has his hands on me.

“What about the night you got all biblical with his brother?” Quinn inquires.

I wave that off. “Nothing more than a voodoo batch of vodka working some weird juju on me. It wasn’t what I thought it was. Nothing at lunch with him that day…” I trail off, knowing this is going to sound so high school I could die.

“What?” Harper chirps, equally high school in her enthusiasm.

“Tingled,” I finish on a sigh. “He never made me want to climb him like a spider monkey.”

Sloane and Harper both nod in understanding. And surprisingly…so does Quinn. Like she knows. What’s up with that? Is there someone she wants to climb like a spider monkey that she hasn’t told us about?

“Is that all it is with Ryder?” Sloane asks in a contemplative tone. “A case of the tingles?”

I have to remind myself to be patient with her because she’s always patient with me. She’s the type who needs to discuss every little detail, every feeling, every emotion, or else her brain will twist itself into knots.

“He’s got the personality of a garden snail,” I lie. “So, yeah, I’d say it’s just about his dick.”

She watches me with her snowy wolf eyes. The girl is far too damn intelligent for her own good. “The timer’s almost up, Gretch,” she murmurs in a voice that only I can hear.

In other words, be prepared to be waterboarded if you don’t give me some real feels soon.

I wink at her. “Then you better be ready to pull those cupcakes out of the oven.”

“As long as you guys are careful and he can keep it quiet, I say go for it,” Harper says, surprising me.

She used to be the non-risk-taker of the group. The one who, after going ‘just around the river bend’, always chose the smoothest course. West has clearly been a good influence on her, not that I didn’t already know that.

“It’s a risky move.” Quinn tips her glass in my direction. “Keeping it a secret from everyone, constantly sneaking around…”

Harper looks at her ex-stepsister incredulously. “Isn’t that the whole fun of having an affair?”

I throw my hands up, silencing them. “Let’s nix the word ‘affair,’ shall we? We’re not hooking up in sketchy, pay-by-the-hour motel rooms. This is simply about the two of us working this insanity out of our systems. And bonus, breaking my dry spell at the same time is killing two birds with one stone. Once the mystery is gone, we can move past the whole moronic thing.”

Sloane’s expression is skeptical. “And what if it makes everything awkward at the office?”

I shrug, unconcerned. “We’ve always had an unconventional work relationship. I don’t think doing the squeeze and squirt together can really make it worse.” Harper chokes on her wine. “Especially since up until recently, I thought we’d already done that. It might actually help if the sexual tension is gone once and for all.”

“I’m not so sure, Gretch.” Sloane’s voice is soft, sympathetic. “If this is all just about getting some afternoon delight, you can end your drought with anyone. Is it really worth sacrificing a job you love and a career you’ve only just begun?”

I slam my forehead down on the table, groaning.

She’s right, damn her. I can go to a bar tonight and pick up a guy to take home. It’s my own fault the Countess has been surviving on bread and water lately. I can change that anytime I want. Whatever’s going on between me and Ryder is fleeting, but I plan to be in the advertising industry for years.

A penis is easy to replace.

A job you adore, not so much.

“You’re right,” I tell her, the table absorbing my dejection. “It’s just that I’ve never been the sacrificial type.”

Harper sighs, sounding crestfallen.

“Probably wise,” Quinn says. “I mean, historically speaking, when has a woman sleeping with her boss ever not ended in disaster? You don’t want to be the woman at the end of the day with a stained dress and a tarnished reputation.”

Yuck.

Just the thought of the people I work with losing all respect for me because I let Ryder pop me with his corkscrew is enough to turn my stomach. Or maybe that’s just because you’re drinking soot. If people found out, they would talk. Rumors would fly. My recent promotion would come into question. The other senior account managers would gladly take the larger accounts I’ve brought in off my