The Allure of Dean Harper (The Allure #2)(59)

With a usual breakup, we’d part ways and stop seeing each other. With Dean, that wasn’t possible. He was still my boss and I still had to see his name pop up in my email every morning. His messages always pertained to work and they always made my heart sink. I’d hold my breath, read through them, and then spend half an hour constructing a single sentence that I thought came off as equal parts bitchy and aloof.

Seeing him in person was the real danger, something I’d tried my hardest to avoid but could no longer put off.

He’d scheduled a meeting for early Monday morning. Zoe, Julian, and I were sitting in his office in the back of Provisions, waiting for him to arrive, and I swore my lungs weren’t working.

“Is it hot in here to anyone else?” I asked, waving a hand in front of my face to get some airflow. Why was it so hard to breathe?

Zoe glanced over at me. “You’re being weird.”

“Am not.”

Julian fired off an email he’d been typing on his phone and angled his body toward me. “You good, Lil?”

I didn’t look him in the eye. I couldn’t. It’d be like looking my dad in the eye when I was on the brink of tears. The floodgates would open whether I wanted them to or not.

“Peachy.”

The A/C unit kicked on and I sighed with relief. At least I wouldn’t be sweating buckets when Dean arrived.

“Jo said you might still be feeling sick,” he offered.

We both knew sick was a euphemism and a poor one at that.

I shrugged. “I think I’ll be sick for a while.”

Zoe blanched. “What the hell do you have? Ebola?”

I laughed. “No.” I began to clarify, and then Dean’s office door opened so I paused.

He walked in…and I could hear my heart thumping in my ears…and I gripped the arm of my chair…and I inhaled his cologne. It’d been three weeks since I’d last smelled it and no department store sample could compare.

I knew I wouldn’t last another day working for him. Working with Dean had been a dream come true, but now it felt like living through a nightmare. His intensity would never dull. His dark eyes would never lighten. His sharp mouth would never cease to amaze me. It’d been a foolish fight from the very beginning.

“Lily,” he said.

I’d wanted so badly to fall in love with him. I’d wanted it so badly that I’d ignored the warning signs. I was the naive girl from Texas, swept up in a man who’d only ever thought of her as a stepping stone along the path to success.

“Lily,” Julian said, shaking my hand on my chair.

I blinked and glanced toward him.

“Dean’s trying to get your attention and you’re completely zoned out,” he said with a laugh. “Have we ruled Ebola out?”

I smiled halfheartedly and glanced at Dean, trying to guard my heart as best as I could. “Sorry about that.”

His dark gaze held mine as he leaned over his desk. His mouth was pulled into a thin line. He was a statue of a man, unyielding at his core. “I just need you to hang back after the meeting for a few minutes. Is that okay?”

I nodded, not because I relished the idea of having alone time with him, but because it would give me the perfect chance to put in my two weeks notice.





Chapter Fifty


Dean





Lily closed the door behind Julian and Zoe, but she didn’t turn to face me right away. We’d been there before, alone in my office. It was a recipe for disaster, and we both knew it. She rotated around to face me slowly, keeping hold of the doorknob behind her back like a lifeline. She rolled her lips together and I opened my mouth to speak first, but she beat me to the punch.

“I’d like to put in my two weeks notice.”

I took a deep breath, processing her request.

She wants to leave?

I shook my head, just once.

“No.”

Her eyes blazed with a new fury. “No?”

I glanced down and started to scroll through the calendar on my phone. I tried to focus on a specific date, but I kept scrolling through the months, right into the next year. “We need to plan a time to meet. The kitchen will be finished next week and I’m bringing Antonio out—”

“You’re not listening to me,” she argued, releasing the doorknob and stepping closer.

My gaze shot up to her and her eyes focused in, narrowing until I knew I had her undivided attention.

“Yes I am. I’m just ignoring you.” I glanced back down at my phone. “I don’t accept your resignation.”

“What the hell—”

“Now, what day can you meet for the menu sampling? Monday?”

She paused on the other side of my desk and put her hand over my phone, blocking next year’s calendar from my view.

“Dean. Let me go.”

“No.”

“Fire me.”

I shook my head and clenched my jaw to keep from saying something too soon.

She stepped back and threw her hands up in defeat. “What’s the point of this? Do you really want me working for you still?”

“Yes. I do.”

She put her face in her hands and shook it back and forth, so defeated.

What did she think? That I would let her walk away from me? After everything? She kept my goddamn medal around her neck and she was going to give up that easily?