Winona pins me with an ice-cold stare. “So. We’ve established that you’re forcing me to eat lunch with you while piling more work on me, and you think that wins you points or something. Well, guess what, you lose this round. I am going to enjoy a delicious lunch on your dime. I’m going to take home a freaking doggy bag. All those calories are just fuel for battle. And now I am going to go powder my nose.”
She stalks off to the bathroom, her back stiff with anger.
“What a lunatic, huh?” I really need my sister to get on board the “we should re-home Winona” train.
“You are going to marry that girl,” Alice says merrily. “You are going to marry her so hard.”
“Go, Sunni Sunni Sam!” Tamara cries out, pumping her little fist. “Fly like a bird!”
“I will give you whatever you want if you promise never to say anything like that again,” I implore my sister.
Alice grins at me. “The last time you made that offer, it didn’t work out too well for you, now did it?” Then she glances around the room. “Why are all the people at that table clutching their knives and forks in a threatening fashion and glaring at us?” Alice asks. “Isn’t that the Abelards? Dad used to play golf with their granddad.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I bury my face in my hands.
When Winona returns to the table, she’s breathless. “Do you see who’s sitting over there? It’s Marshall Perry. The guy who owns the Sunni Sunni company. The man who could save my job.”
I follow her gaze. Marshall, a tall, mop-haired geek right down to his thick dark glasses, is with an ebony-haired stunner who’s sipping wine and looking bored. They never last long with Marshall, and he never seems to care, although he did seem to like Sloane more than most of the girls he’s dated. He glances up and sees that Winona’s staring at him, and starts to smile…then he realizes that Winona’s with me. He shoots us a dirty look and deliberately turns away.
She chews her lip thoughtfully. “He’s on a date. I guess I shouldn’t go over and try to speak to him.”
“He used to date Sloane, and she dumped him for me. So now wouldn’t be the best time,” I say drily.
Or at all. She shouldn’t speak to a man like that, a man with a new model on his arm every week, at all. I mean, yeah, Winona may be infuriating and distracting and defiant and the star of far too many of my wet dreams and… Where was I going with this again?
Oh, right. She deserves better than Marshall. She deserves…to stay single, that’s what’s best for her. She shouldn’t date anybody.
With that decided, I signal the waiter to come over. “I know what I want,” I call out.
“Do you really, though?” Alice says drily. I try to kick her under the table, and miss.
Chapter Fifteen
Winona
My temporary new office is down the hall from Blake’s. We’re on the eighth floor, which is currently occupied by me, Henry, and Blake. There’s also a door at the end of the hallway which is locked and which I have been instructed to stay away from. That gives me definite Bluebeard vibes, but then I already suspected I was working for a sociopath.
Every morning, I walk through the lingering scent of Blake’s cologne and it sets my senses tingling. I plop down in my office chair and check through my mile-long to-do list. And I struggle not to be distracted by the fact that I’m physically a hundred feet away from the man who’s taken up residence in my erotically charged dreams.
At least it’s a very nice office, filled with photographs of Shanice, her husband, and their two soccer-playing sons. The pictures are encased in wooden frames in bright primary colors. Wicker window shades give the room a tropical feel. Potted palms rest in painted baskets in the corners of the room, and glass vases of potpourri nestle on tall drum-shaped stands, spicing the air.
I wish I had time to enjoy it. From eight in the morning until oh-dark-thirty, Blake has me running my rear off. Not only are there dozens of things I have to get done by the end of the day, I have to complete each item within a specified time, and send an email to Blake notifying him when each task is accomplished. I don’t