Loathe to Love You (The STEMinist Novellas #1-3)(54)

“I should put on the brakes, but I have zero self-control when it comes to her, so I say yes. We spend a night together, and we fuck, a lot, and yes, Sadie, it’s really fucking phenomenal in a life-altering way I never thought I’d need to elaborate on. It’s obvious that she doesn’t do this often, there’s some hiccups, but . . . yeah. You were there. You know.” He presses his lips together and looks away. “She falls asleep and I watch her and think, This is like nothing else. Scary, almost.

“But then it’s morning and she’s still there. And when I say good-bye to her she actually runs after me, and we’re at work, there’s people around—we can’t really kiss or do anything like that, but she reaches out and takes my hand and squeezes it hard. And I think that maybe I don’t need to be scared. It’s going to be all right. She’s not going anywhere.” He turns back to me. His eyes are cold now, dark in the yellow lights. “And then night comes. The following day. The one after. And I don’t hear from her. Never again.”

I stare at Erik for long moments, absorbing every single word, every little pause, every unspoken meaning. Then I lean forward, and through gritted teeth I say:

“I despise you.”

“Why?” He is icily, quietly furious, but I’m not afraid of him. I just want him to hurt. To hurt as much as he hurt me.

“Because you are a liar.”

“Am I?”

“Of the worst kind.”

“Right. Of course.” Our faces are about an inch apart. I can smell his scent, and I hate him even more. “And what did I lie about?”

“Come on, Erik. You know exactly what you did.”

“I thought I did, but apparently I don’t. Why don’t you spell it out for me?”

“Sure.” I abruptly pull away, leaning back against the wall and crossing my arms on my chest. “Fine. Let’s talk about how you used me to steal clients from GreenFrame.”





Ten


Two weeks, six days ago

Did I just see you with Erik Nowak?”

Gianna’s voice startles me out of the semi-comatose state I’ve been in for the past five minutes, which mostly involves staring at the Megan Rapinoe Funko Pop! on my desk and . . . mooning.

I feel drugged in a sweet, delicious way. From lack of sleep, I assume. And the fluffy, syrupy waffle Erik bought me at the diner near my apartment. And the hilarious story he told me while sipping his coffee, of how two weeks ago he fell asleep on his couch and woke up to Cat licking his armpit.

I want to text him. I want to call him. I want to take the elevator and go downstairs to smell him. But I’m not going to. I’m not that weird. Overtly, at least.

“Glad to see you’re back.” I smile up at Gianna, who’s leaning against my desk. She must have come into my office while I was mooning. “How’s Presley?”

“Better. But now Evan and Riley have some kind of bug that involves a superfun amount of diarrhea. But I saw you in the lobby with a tall guy—was he Erik Nowak?”

“Oh. Um . . .” I think maybe I’m flushing. I don’t really have a reason to—Gianna is cool and very much not the judgmental type—but what happened last night feels so . . . private. And fledgling. I haven’t even told Hannah and Mara (if one doesn’t count the eggplant and heart emojis I sent in response to the seventy How did it go? texts I found this morning on my phone). It feels weird to talk about it with my boss. Though lying about it would be even weirder, right? “Yes. You know him?”

“That Erik Nowak? ProBld’s Erik Nowak?”

I cock my head. Are there any others? “Yeah?”

“Are you guys friends?”

“We only just met.”

“So you’re not, like, buddies.” She seems relieved. “Okay. Good. You were laughing together, so I just wanted to make sure.”

“Why . . . Would it be a problem if we were?”

“Not quite, no. I mean, I wouldn’t dream of telling you who you should and shouldn’t hang out with. But the two of you seemed a bit . . . chummy, and I just wanted to make sure . . . you know.” She waves a hand dismissively. “If you were friends and talked regularly, I’d want to remind you to be safe and very, very discreet when talking shop with him. But since you’re just casual acquaintances, then—”

“Why would I . . .” I frown, swiveling my chair to better face her. This conversation is very odd, and I’m wondering if I should chug down another coffee before it continues. “What do you mean by safe and discreet?”

She opens her mouth. Then closes it, looks around to make sure that none of the interns are here, and opens it again. “A while ago ProBld made me an offer. Basically, they wanted to buy GreenFrame and its client portfolio, and sort of incorporate it as a division of their company.”

“Oh.” I blink. Erik didn’t mention it last night. Then again, neither has Gianna, ever. “I had no idea.”

“Well, it was before I hired you. Two, three years ago? Before the kids. And to be honest, it wasn’t the first nor the last offer I got.”

“Right. I knew Innovus offered.”

“And JKC. Yeah. But ProBld was kind of . . . insistent.” She rolls her eyes. “The reason they wanted us on board is that they’re trying really hard to expand into the ecologically sustainable market, but they haven’t had much success luring in really qualified people like . . . well, like you. Since most of them would rather go to more specialized firms. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve been hiring some promising engineers, but they don’t have the expertise they need yet. So they made me a really good offer, I said no, thank you, I would rather be my own boss, and for a few months it looked like everything was going to continue as usual.” She pauses. “Then it started.”