both needed to remember that.
“Your attitude,” I said, launching into my own list. “Your shoes. Your eyes are too big for your face. You have issues remembering that you’re an employee and should act accordingly. And your hair constantly looks like you just rolled out of bed.” With a man.
She blinked. Twice. And then her laugh filled the car. “You’ve put a lot of thought into that list for it to just roll off your tongue like that.”
“I was just stating the obvious. I don’t sit around thinking about you, Maleficent.”
Lies.
She sent a cocky look in my direction. “Sure you don’t, Dom.”
“Not only are you not my type. You’re so far in the opposite direction of my type you rank next to my great-aunt Rose.” More lies.
I did, however, have a great-aunt Rose on my father’s side. She, too, was a horrible human being. There was something profoundly wrong with the DNA on that side of the family.
Ally laughed. “Don’t start being funny, Charming. I like a man with a sense of humor,” she warned.
“You’ll need to fight your baser instincts and resist me,” I grumbled.
She reached out and actually patted my hand where it rested on my thigh. “Don’t worry, Dom. You’re not my type either.”
I snorted to let her know I knew she was bluffing.
She turned in the seat to look at me straight on. The movement made that stupid swingy skirt she had on slip a little higher on her thigh.
“You’re callus, disrespectful, generally in a bad mood, and I’d guess that you have trouble taking anyone else’s feelings into consideration over your own.”
Look at her hitting the nail on the head.
“You’re a workaholic, which is fine. Work ethic is a good thing in my book. But you don’t like your job, so that makes you either too stubborn or too scared to make a change. And I’m not a fan of either.”
My eyes narrowed, and I could feel my nostrils flaring. “You don’t know me.”
“I know you’re not my type,” she said saucily.
She wished I wasn’t her type.
“You’re the type that waltzes into pizza shops and gets servers fired.”
“I’d like to amend my list to add the fact that you’re incapable of letting anything go,” I said, pretending to be fascinated by the website traffic email that just came through.
“I was depending on that job, Dominic.”
“And now you have a better one. You’re welcome.”
Ally growled. Actually physically growled. “There are consequences to our actions, Dominic Russo. And I’m going to make sure that one of your consequences is that you regret the day your mother hired me.”
“Mission accomplished already. Why don’t you quit and go ruin someone else’s day?”
“Please,” she scoffed. “I’m a tiny, little fish in your very big pond. You don’t even know I’m in the building.”
Now she was the delusional one.
We sat in silence for a few minutes. I gave up on pretending to read emails and stared out the window at dreary, frozen Manhattan.
“Tell me what got you to shut up for five full minutes upstairs,” I said finally.
The abrupt question threw her off balance, and I noticed she skimmed her gaze over me again.
Then her slow smile had my cold, dead heart doing something odd in my chest.
She leaned in a little closer so Nelson wouldn’t overhear her. I knew many things in that moment. I didn’t like her. I didn’t want to like her. I had no intention of treating her as anything but an annoyance. Yet none of that quelled my desire to be near her.
“I have this thing,” she began tentatively.
My breath stopped. I didn’t want the hammering of my heart to drown out her next words. When she didn’t continue, I merely stared at her.
“For vests,” she said, eyeing mine.
“But I’m not your type,” I shot back.
She smirked. “You’re only slightly less not my type in a vest. But don’t worry, Dom. I promise to resist you.”
13
Ally
Friday afternoon traffic in Manhattan was stupid. Why anyone would choose to take a car rather than the subway was beyond me. Yet here I was, making money just for being stretched out in the back seat of a very nice SUV on some very supple leather.
I could almost enjoy myself. Almost.
The broody guy in the sexy vest next to me was short-circuiting my ability to relax.
“I didn’t get much information from Zara. What’s this meeting about?” I asked, over the dueling horns of two cabs trying to get around a delivery truck. Middle fingers flew.
“You really should learn to do