The Dating Experiment (The Experiment, #2)(29)

“No,” her voice echoed through the ajar door. “I’m not willing to accept that, Jonathan. This is the third order y’all have messed up in the past three months. We’re not running a joke here; we’re running a successful hotel. Either y’all fix this and get us the missing items on our order in the next twelve hours, or I’ll be contacting the bank for a partial refund and finding another supplier who won’t let us down every four weeks.”

Wow.

I rapped my knuckled against the door lightly and poked my head through.

She looked up from where she was sitting at her desk and motioned me to come in. “That’s what I thought. I want the missing portion of the order at the back door by eight a.m.” She hit the button on the phone and put it back on the dock. “Hi! What’s—” Her gaze settled on me, and her brow creased. “Hey,” she said, standing. “What’s wrong?”

I swallowed, clasping my hands in front of my stomach. It was still in knots, and my throat felt as though it was closing up.

“Chlo?” Mellie rounded the desk to me.

“Dom kissed me.”

Her eyes widened. “He did what?”

I swallowed, desperately trying to wet my now-dry throat. “He kissed me.”

She pressed her hand to her mouth before quickly dropping it. “Like a kiss, or a kiss?”

“A kiss!” I fisted my hair with both hands. “Like a kiss, Mel. A real kiss.”

Her lips parted. “What the—why? What did he do that for?”

“I don’t know!” Still with my hair entangled between my fingers, I pressed my hands against my burning cheeks. “Last night, he said he wasn’t going to have another date with Rachael because she lied about being a single parent on her profile—”

“Oh, this sounds good.” Jake slid into the office behind me and pushed a sangria into my hand. “And this. Tequila. Clearly for your nerves.”

I took the tiny shot glass of clear liquid and tossed it back without a second thought. My chest was already constricting, and I didn’t want to get any tenser than I already was.

“Thanks.” I handed him back the glass and sat in his office chair.

“Welcome.” He half-smiled. “What’s going on?”

“Dom kissed her,” Mellie said so I didn’t have to. “And on purpose.”

“Aside from the fact you said that like you’re fifteen and sharing it with a group on girlfriends on the phone,” Jake said with one eyebrow quirked, “I caught something about a lie about being a single parent, and I find myself woefully interested in this whole situation.”

“You’re aware we set each other up?” I asked, stirring my drink with the straw.

He nodded and perched on the desk.

“My guy is away for work, but he had his second date last night. I was working and turns out, she lied on her stuff and has a daughter. That’s not something Dom is interested in, so…” I shrugged a shoulder. “I wanted to set him up with someone else, but he said no. Said there was someone he’d always compare them to and after a bit of a fight—”

“You trying to get it out of him,” Mellie snorted.

“—I gave up and he went to bed,” I continued. “But this morning, I realized I’d left my phone at the office, so went by to get it. He was working, and I asked again.”

She shook her head. “Of course, you did.”

“Hey, look!” I waggled my finger at her. “I thought about it last night in the bath and figured that if this mystery woman was the bar he was using to score all others against, she had to be pretty special.”

Jake smirked.

“So, when I was there this morning, I made my point. If she was that big a deal to him, he had to tell her. We went back and forth—”

“You fought like hell,” Mellie corrected me, earning herself a nod of agreement from Jake.

“We fought like hell,” I reluctantly agreed. “I think I pissed him off enough that he finally agreed to tell her, and the next thing I know, I’m grabbing my phone and keys to leave, and he kisses me.”

Jake let go of a long, low whistle. “Plot twist.”

“Not really. She started with that.” Mellie flashed him a grin, then turned to me. “Well? What happened then?”

“I kissed him back,” I said simply. “So, we kissed, then I realized what was happening, and I ran away.”

“Of course you did.” She smiled. “And came here?”

“I panicked. I still can’t make sense of it. All that, and he kisses me?”

Jake scratched the back of his neck. “What can’t you make sense of, Chlo? So, he has this woman he holds higher than anyone you could ever match him with, but he won’t tell you who that is or anything about her. You get to him enough that he agrees to tell her, and he kisses you. That’s pretty cut and dry from where I’m sitting.”

“Honey, she’s been in love with him for ten years. If this situation were cut and dry, she’d have lost her virginity to him on prom night instead of Alex Dupre.”

“Hey! Stop telling everyone that!” No matter that she had a point. “I get what you’re saying, okay? But it doesn’t make sense. How can I be that person to him? We don’t get along at all.”