Seeing the two of them brought all those childhood insecurities rising to the surface. She’d been the ugly duckling all her life. No man ever wanted her for herself. Leila was everything she wasn’t. Tall. Blonde. Beautiful. Not to mention they shared a past. He loved her once, wanted to marry her. For all Emma knew, he still did. Maybe that was the real reason he didn’t want to get involved with her. She wasn’t Leila.
Standing there, she couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away. Before her eyes, Leila pressed her body along his length, leaned up on her tiptoes, snaked her hand around the back of his head, and pulled his mouth down to hers.
When Leila slanted her mouth over Dillon’s, Emma twisted away from the window. Tears welled in her eyes. She moved on numb legs to the desk and sank into the leather chair. She knew this day would come, when he’d move on and begin to see other people. She just hadn’t expected him to be so blatant about it. That hurt more than actually seeing the two of them together, that he would do it seemingly without concern for her. She’d come to expect more from him, thought him to be different. Apparently, she’d only seen what she wanted.
Well, that answered that. Now she knew she was in love with him. She couldn’t bear the thought of him with someone else. Her heart said he was hers.
She’d gotten herself into this mess, hadn’t she?
Chapter Thirteen
“You know, there’s a rumor going around he’s asked her out,” Amy said from behind him.
Standing at the back of the club, staring through the crowd at the bar across the room, Dillon could only grunt in acknowledgment. He’d heard that one, from damn near every one of his employees. The rumor mill flew with it. It didn’t help matters any that, for a good half hour every night, Emma took a break at the bar, keeping Ronnie company.
Exactly where she was tonight. Across the room, Ronnie leaned on the counter in front of Emma. Judging by the grin on his face and the way she tipped her head back and laughed, he flirted with her.
The sight irked the hell out of him.
She’d worked for him for a week now. His assessment of her had been correct. She was good for his club. She kept meticulous books, the employees all liked and respected her, and she’d already hired four people for the positions he needed filled. Emma was also a good judge of character, the people she hired did excessively well, which made his job easier.
The only problem was the tension between them. She barely spoke to him. If it wasn’t about business or Annie, she ignored him. The look in her eyes when she regarded him got to him, a mixture of sadness and anger. The look told him better than words could he’d upset her. Something had happened, that much he’d figured out. Not only had she rebuilt the wall between them, she went back to giving him those scornful looks he remembered only too well growing up.
Watching her with Ronnie made his chest ache. Night after night, she sat with him, flirted with him, and the entire idea had a hard knot of anger sitting permanently in Dillon’s stomach. It didn’t matter he was the one to end their relationship. It didn’t matter either, that he actually liked Ronnie, trusted him. Ronnie was a good guy.
Something deep inside insisted that Emma was his girl and the thought of her with someone else made him want to put a dent in something. Having to watch her actually respond to the obvious flirting made him sick to his stomach. He couldn’t do a damn thing about it. He’d asked for this.
“Oh, it’s not a rumor,” came a second voice behind him.
A glance back confirmed the voice belonged to Rhonda, another one of his waitresses. She and Amy stood behind him, both of them watching the scene unfolding before them. He turned back to the bar.
“I actually saw them out together yesterday,” Rhonda said.
“Ooh, where?” Amy’s excited, gossipy tone grated on his nerves.
“The coffee shop around the corner.”
Dillon jerked around to glare at the both of them. “Don’t the two of you have something you could be doing?”
Rhonda’s brow furrowed. “Somebody’s grumpy.”
Amy just grinned. After Rhonda wandered away, she picked up her drink tray off the table beside him. “If you have any interest in her, Boss, I’d move on it.”
She disappeared into the crowd moments later, leaving him to ponder how very much he wanted to hit something. Or march over there and plant one on Emma. Stake his claim on her right there at the bar, where everybody would be sure to see it.
* * *
“What happened to your hand?”
Seated behind the desk in the office, Emma stared down at the cuts and bruises lining the knuckles of Dillon’s right hand. He stood off to her left, leaning on the desk. She called him in to take a look at the surveillance videos. She found their company thief, caught her red-handed, and she needed Dillon to see the videos before she could take action.