Sure Thing(45)

Fun? When’s the last time someone accused me of being fun?

“So is it always good for you? The sex, I mean. Not the cheese. Cheese is always good, am I right? There’s nothing not to enjoy about a liaison with cheese. In your mouth.” She’s babbling and she makes a grab for her wine glass before adding, “Yay, cheese.” Then she downs a long sip and avoids my eyes.

Jesus Christ, she has no game.

I rub a hand over my jaw and think about my response. I need to tread carefully because this is a conversation that could result in me heading to my room alone tonight before I know what’s hit me. The last thing I need her thinking about is any woman who isn’t her.

“Daisy,” I say softly and wait for her eyes to return to mine. “You’re the most fun I’ve ever had.”

She dips her head and smiles, a blush coloring her face over the double entendre. “I’m not that experienced in fun.”

“Why is that?” I ask when what I want to say is, Good.

She shrugs and works on preparing another toast. “Focused on my career. Wasted time on the wrong guys. You know, the usual reasons.”

“Tell me about the guy.”

“Which one?”

“The one who led you to pick up a stranger in a hotel bar.” The idiot who led you straight to me.

She wiggles her nose while she thinks about what, if anything, she wants to share and I focus on not asking for the cheque and dragging her out of here caveman-style so I can fuck the answers out of her.

“It’s sorta tied into my old job.”

Fucking hell. I don’t think I like where this is headed.

“The design job? That you did prior to working at Sutton Travel?”

“Right.” She fidgets in her seat. “A long time ago.”

I wonder what a long time consists of in a twenty-six-year-old’s life.

“So what happened?” I prompt.

“It’s embarrassing,” she says while examining the crumbs on her plate.

“How so? You were co-workers? Dating the boss?” Fuck, neither of these options are great. No wonder she was squirrelly about company policies.

“We were co-workers, yes.” She pauses. “And his dad owned the company.”

Fuck.

“I sound like a hussy when I say that, right? I promise you I did not get any special treatment. None!” Her eyes flash with an old pain and I wish I could erase it for her. “It wasn’t like that at all. At all,” she repeats.

“Of course you didn’t.”

“It was the opposite of an advantage. I didn’t push hard enough to get the projects I wanted because I didn’t want anyone to think I got them unfairly.”

“I get it,” I tell her, and I do. I get the conflict, if not the holding back. Working at a family-owned business, you know you’re being watched more than anyone else. You know you have to work twice as hard to prove yourself worthy of the advancements that you’ve earned, but were always expected to receive.

“Then the company was sold and most of the staff was laid off, myself included. Mark relocated with the new company so I lost my job, my boyfriend and my house in the same week.”

“You were living together?” I hate the idea of this.

“No.” She shakes her head. “No. I was in the process of buying a condo and it fell through when I got laid off. Banks frown upon a lack of employment.”

Bloody arsehole.

“Never again, you know? I never should have gone out with him. What’s that saying? ‘Don’t mix business and pleasure?’ Yeah, don’t.”

“I prefer the saying ‘never say never.’”

“You do? Why?”

Because you’re involved with a co-worker right now and you don’t know it yet. Because I can’t envision walking away from you when this week is over and I need you to forgive me for not telling you sooner.

The waiter arrives with our entrées and I take the opportunity to avoid the question. When he leaves Daisy continues.

“If my work and personal life hadn’t been combined it wouldn’t have all blown up at once,” she says.

“Sometimes a shake-up is just what you need,” I counter.

She frowns at me when I say that and I realize I might be overdoing it.

“Did you consider going with him?” Hell, there I go again. Asking her questions out of context. Because what I mean is, Is Naperville fucking Illinois a hard limit for you?

She blinks a few times and pokes at her food. “I don’t know,” she finally says. “Because he didn’t ask. Looking back I’d like to say no, I wouldn’t have. Knowing everything I know now, I’d like to say no way. But I don’t really know, do I? He hadn’t shared any of his plans with me,” she continues. “I didn’t expect that he’d disclose the company was being sold. I honestly didn’t. But he could have found a way to tell me something. He could have told me he was considering a move. That he’d been recruited to another company. He could have told me that much, but he didn’t. The weekend I thought he was on a golf trip with friends he was in California signing a lease on a new apartment. He was full of lies and half-truths.”