Say You Still Love Me(22)

Crap, did I just guarantee myself enemies for an entire summer?

“I knew you liked him, by the way.” Ashley playfully jabs my ribs with her finger. “I could just tell.”

She could tell, but she doesn’t seem bothered or annoyed by the fact that I lied. She seems genuinely . . . giddy for me. It’s at that moment that I decide Ashley is a friend I need to have this summer.

Christa sits next to Ashley. “Seriously? Kyle Miller?” Her voice drips with disapproval. Her expression isn’t much better.

I’m immediately on the defensive. “And what’s wrong with him?”

“He’s a jerk.”

“Not to me, he isn’t.” I give her a knowing look. Judas.

“He’s irresponsible, he lies, he thinks everything’s a joke,” she says, listing Kyle’s supposed faults on her stubby fingers. “He shouldn’t have been allowed back here.”

“But he was.” I flash Ashley a wide-eyed “What the hell?” look.

“Something bad is going to happen one day, and it’ll be because of him. Mark my words.”

I can’t help it. I laugh. “Mark your words? What are you, ninety years old?”

“So . . .” Ashley leans forward to effectively block Christa’s face from mine and end a brewing confrontation. “What did you two talk about?”

I struggle to shake off my growing irritation with my new roommate. “Just . . . stuff.” As if I’m going to divulge anything within Christa’s earshot. “We made a bet, to see if he could guess my lie.”

Her eyes flash with excitement. “Who won?”

I look to the field in time to see Kyle peer over his shoulder at me, the sly smile touching his lips as infuriating as it is sexy. Ashley was right, he’s just . . . different, and I can’t put my finger on exactly how.

But I’m quite certain that I’m done for.

“Definitely me.”





Chapter 5



NOW


“Five copies, single-sided, two staples in each, a half-inch apart.” Mark’s voice is thin as he relays David’s scrupulous instructions sent to him last night.

“Ignore it. He can email the presentation to them.” David has had weeks to hire a new assistant and he’s dragging his feet. There is no way in hell I’m letting him dominate mine anymore.

I pause mid–pen stroke as the red light on my office phone flashes, indicating an incoming call. I muted the ringer long ago, the sound of it grating on my nerves.

“A. Calloway,” the display screen reads. It’s just like my mom to still dial the office line instead of my mobile. She’s no doubt following up on her email from last night to discuss the merits of damask versus brocade window treatments. She got the summer house in the divorce settlement and has taken to redecorating every three years. While I always enjoy talking to her, now is not the time for that thirty-minute conversation. Not when I have no valuable input to offer anyway.

Not when I’m anxiously waiting on an update on the city planner meeting from Tripp, hoping my power play has paid off.

I let her call go to voicemail.

“You know Tripp always has Jill call me to check your schedule, right?” Mark hovers over my desk, smoothly collecting one check requisition after another as I sign and approve payments to the various suppliers and contractors. “That way he can wait until you’re tied up in a meeting and just leave a message.”

I did not know that, actually, though now that I look back, he’s always leaving me voicemails. That way he doesn’t have to feel like he’s answering to me. I shouldn’t be surprised. Coward. “So he knows I’m going to be at The Port Room over lunch?”

“I’m sure Jill will tell him.”

The Port Room is a private members-only establishment of rustic wood floors and broad leather seats, where I sometimes like to hold meetings for its comfort. The downside is that phone conversations while inside are forbidden.

And Tripp knows that.

“I guess I’ll have to make sure to answer my phone then, won’t I?” Because I want to hear what the weasel has to say, live. “And, let me guess, he’s taking the afternoon off?”

“Jill moved his tee-time to one.”

In my rush to pass the requisition on, the corner of the sheet catches my skin, slicing through. I hiss, sticking my index finger in my mouth to quell the sting and stifle the unprofessional curse that wants to scream out. “I should ask her to cancel it,” I grumble bitterly. Though they’re calling for 98 degrees this afternoon. At least the bastard will sweat in the midday heat.

“I bet Jill would do it for you.”

“Care to wager five sour apple Fun Dips on that?” Not that I’d win that gamble. It’s no secret that Tripp’s assistant, a woman in her late forties who dons purple cat’s-eye glasses and a librarian’s bun, doesn’t enjoy working for him.

He frowns curiously. “Fun Dip?”

“Never mind.” I sigh, scrawling “Piper C. Calloway”—C for Constance, after my dad’s mother—across the bottom of the last approval, giving the numbers a second fleeting glance. “Please tell me this is it.”

“This is it.”