Melt for You (Slow Burn #2)(16)

“And what,” he asks quietly, his eyes intense, “is so special about him that would make you flush a decade down the toilet?”

I glance away. Heat rises in my face, and I have to swallow around the sudden lump in my throat. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Aye, I would, lass. I understand obsession all too well.”

When I look at him again, arrested by the new tone in his voice, the darker, more complicated tone, he meets my stare unflinchingly. A flicker of something crosses his face—longing or loneliness, some bottomless despair—but it’s gone so quickly I must have imagined it.

I shift my gaze to the oven timer. Three minutes. Then I cross my arms over my chest, close my eyes, and decide on a whim to tell him the truth.

“He’s just . . . perfect. In every way.”

Cam sounds irritated by my dreamy tone. “Barf. Can you be more specific?”

“He’s educated. Cultured. Sophisticated. Kind. Brilliant. Gorgeous.”

“Gorgeous?”

I nod, keeping my eyes closed. “He looks exactly like Christopher Reeve in his Superman days. Heroic. Cleft chin and everything. And he’s a gentleman. His manners would put the queen of England to shame. And he dresses beautifully. And he knows all about literature, and opera, and ballet, and art—”

“So he’s gay.”

Outrage flares through me, hot as the surface of the sun. I open my eyes and stab Cam with a look. “He’s not gay! He’s been married for years!”

“To a man?”

“No! To a model, if you must know—some airheaded Amazon with a thigh gap and a twenty-inch waist!”

“Huh.” He matches my fierce gaze with one of his own. “So he’s superficial.”

“What? No!”

“Yes, he is. Just like you are.”

I gasp. He might as well have stabbed me in the gut.

“Don’t gimme that look,” says Cam, slowly shaking his head. “You’re in love with some bloke based on nothing more than his résumé and his pretty face.”

“That is not true!”

The cat jumps off his lap and trots into the living room, sensing the fountain of magma about to explode from the top of my skull. Cam rises and moves toward me.

“No? How many conversations have you had with him?”

“A lot!” That’s a lie, but I’ll be damned if I’m backing down.

“That don’t involve work,” he clarifies.

I open my mouth to answer but snap it shut and turn back to the oven. “Forget it. Your pie’s almost ready. Take it and get lost.”

“The answer’s none, right?”

I refuse to answer. Cam correctly takes my silence as a yes and presses on.

“And how much time have you spent with this ‘perfect’ man away from work? Or work-related functions?” he adds quickly when I turn to speak.

My face throbs with heat. “You don’t have to spend years in private conversations with someone to know they’re a good person.”

“No, but one date would be a good start. It seems to me you don’t really know anything about him other than that he’s pretty and has rich-boy tastes. Ballet, opera, art . . . sounds like things someone who was tryin’ real hard to impress other people would put in a bio.”

That bit of insight stings especially badly because under Michael’s smiling picture on the company website is his bio, which is where I’ve discovered most of the fascinating facts of his life. The other places of discovery being Wikipedia, the social pages of newspapers, and overheard conversations around the office.

And the one holiday party where I hid behind a cluster of potted palms and eavesdropped on his table.

I stare right into Cam’s eyes when I answer. How is he suddenly so close?

“I’ve worked at his company for ten years of my life. I’ve seen how he treats people, how he speaks to them, how he interacts with his employees, vendors, and guests. He’s an incredible man. An exceptional man. And yes, he’s beautiful, but it wouldn’t matter if he weren’t because he’s so good. He’d never make someone feel small, or put them down for their beliefs, or heartlessly mock their feelings.”

My voice is rising, and my hands begin to shake. Cam and I are somehow now standing almost nose to nose, but I keep going because I’m so damn mad.

“He’d never have sex with a stranger he met in a bar and then throw her out like garbage! He’d never aggravate his neighbors with loud music, or wander around half-dressed like a psychopath, or steal someone’s cat!”

“But he would marry an airheaded model with a thigh gap and a twenty-inch waist.”

I scoff in disbelief. “Oh, you’re saying you’re above marrying a beautiful model, is that it?”

“No,” he says quietly, his jaw hard. “I’m sayin’ if he were the altruistic, benevolent demigod you make him out to be, he’d marry a woman who more closely reflected his true heart.”

I’m momentarily impressed by his use of several big words in that sentence but quickly return to outrage. “Rich men marry women for their beauty every day.”

“Aye, they do, and those rich men are the same superficial fuckers who dump those beautiful girls once their looks fade and swap them out for a younger replacement.”