Chapter Seven
Crystal checked Mark’s Twitter page yet again. He’d gone silent after her last tweet, and it was driving her crazy. She’d broken down on Friday and taken the elevator to his floor, hoping to run into him, but no such luck. Ella’s barbecue was only hours away, and she had no idea if he’d be there. Ella promised that she’d done everything short of threatening Declan to make sure that his friend showed up.
Updating the page one last time, she almost dropped her iPad when she saw a tweet from only seconds earlier on his page. “Too much of a good thing can be taxing.” Mae West. #Angel.
“What the hell?” she whispered as she reread the quote. Was he telling her that he didn’t have any interest in her? He’d never even given her a chance, so why would he assume that she was too good? She tossed her iPad down on her sofa in disgust. Screw the bastard. She didn’t have to prove anything to him.
Then she stalked around her apartment, raging over what assholes men were. Suddenly, she grabbed her tablet, and began frantically searching quotes, hoping to find one that would make him eat his words. She’d almost given up when she found it. The perfect way to let him know how wrong he was about her. She typed out, “I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.” Mae West. #Angel. She thought it sounded so much better than #kissmyassMark!
Crystal ran to her closet, more determined than ever to look her best for the barbecue. She wanted Mark to swallow his damn tongue when he saw her today. She needed to strike the right balance between casual and sexy without appearing to have dressed up for the occasion.
After ten minutes of frantic digging through her closet, she found something that she’d bought on clearance last year but never had anywhere to wear it. It was a white strapless sundress. She paired it with a jean jacket and a brown leather belt. She was reaching for sandals when a pair of cowboy boots that she’d worn only a few times caught her eye. She’d seen similar outfits in magazines and always thought they looked fun and flirty.
When she was finished dressing, she stared at herself in the mirror. She had to admit that she looked hot. Just the right blend of sweet and sexy. Before she could talk herself into changing, she quickly added a touch of pink lip gloss and ran a brush through her loose waves.
The dress was much shorter than she normally wore, and she could only hope there wasn’t a big gust of wind tonight. Just in case, though, she’d worn her sexiest underwear. A girl had to be prepared for anything when going to war, right?
Before the voice of reason could send her into the closet to change outfits, she ran out to her car and was on her way to Ella’s. She spent the entire twenty minutes of the ride trying to bolster her courage to knock Mark for a flip—and then leave him hanging, since that was essentially what he’d done to her with his Twitter flirting.
“Brace yourself, because you’re mine tonight, DeStudo.”
• • •
This is a mistake, Mark thought yet again, as he pulled into Declan and Ella’s already crowded driveway. He’d tried to decline the invitation with some halfhearted business excuse, but Declan had been unusually insistent that he attend. Mark socialized often, as was expected of someone in his position, but he wasn’t much for the smaller, intimate gatherings such as this. These people not only worked together, but they were also either related by blood or extended family by choice. Something that was almost a foreign concept to him. Denny was the only one who could even remotely fall into that category in his life.
He also hadn’t been too eager to face Crystal after his brush-off Twitter post—because that’s exactly what it had been. She’d been occupying far too many of his thoughts during the past week, and he’d needed to break her hold on him. At first, he’d decided not to reply to her last tweet. Then when it had become apparent that he’d have to attend the barbecue this evening or piss off his friend, he’d felt it might be better to let Crystal know where things stood before seeing her again. He had little doubt that she would be here, even though he hadn’t come right out and asked Declan.
Now, though, he felt a little guilty and wondered if he hadn’t perhaps been hasty in his dumping via Twitter. For fuck’s sake, I’ve reverted into a teenager. It struck him suddenly that he hadn’t looked to see if she’d made any reply to his tweet, so he hastily pulled his phone from the front pocket of his jeans and opened the application. What he read there made his cock jump and his hand cramp as his grip tightened. Holy fucking shit. Denny having nicknamed her “Snow White” was ironic, considering her post. But the part about her drifting was enough to have him crawling out of his skin. He’d essentially called her a good girl, and she’d come right back letting him know she no longer was.