The Dating Experiment (The Experiment, #2)(5)

Getting out of bed this morning had apparently been a bad idea, too.

I shut myself in the kitchenette and drowned out the sound of Ruby flirting her way out of the door with the coffee machine. I’d never really appreciated the noise of the machine before it drowned out the grating sound of her fucking laugh.

God, I was petty and jealous and possessive when I had no right to be.

He wasn’t mine. He never had been. He never would be.

I pulled my coffee cup from the machine before it was fully done. The remaining spits of coffee fell into the drip container, and I added my one sugar and milk, stirring it a little too vigorously.

Coffee spat onto the sides from over the rim of my mug.

I wiped it up, then grabbed the mug and leaned against the counter in front of the sink. I cradled the hot mug, blowing on the equally hot liquid in almost a steady rhythm.

“What the hell is wrong with you today?” Dom demanded, standing in the doorway of the kitchen. “Seriously, Chloe? Are you on your period?”

I put the mug down a hell of a lot more gently than I wanted to. “I’m pissed, so I’m on my period? Jesus, Dom. Not all my anger is down to my hormones! In fact, ninety percent of it is down to you.”

“Here we go again.” He moved to the coffee machine.

“Are you for real? Dom, you didn’t show up to work yesterday, and you purposely didn’t come home. I had to take your client on because you didn’t call her to cancel.”

“Shit,” he muttered.

“Exactly. Shit!” I kicked my foot back at the cupboard. “And the first thing you do is come in here with some random woman?”

“Client,” he said. “Client.”

“Right. Where did you meet her? On the corner of Jackson Square while she flogged her wares? And by wares, I don’t mean her artwork.”

“Chloe.”

“No. Don’t Chloe me. I don’t want to hear it, Dominic.”

He turned around, lifting his arms up. His eyes were a devastatingly dark green, and they met mine with an intensity that sent a shiver down my spine.

A shiver I bit back.

“All right,” he said. He pulled his cup from the coffee machine and looked at me without finishing making it. He needed milk and three sugars before it was close to anything he’d drink. “Shoot, Chlo. You’re pissed. You’re not on your period. Let go on me. Tell me all the things I’ve done wrong.”

Well. I was never one to back down to a challenge.

“Where the fuck were you yesterday? You weren’t working. You weren’t home. You didn’t answer your phone. You didn’t answer emails. You avoided Facebook. You have responsibilities. I don’t care if you’re sick like I told your clients or if you’re feeling like shit. You at least need to have the balls to tell me that you’re not showing your ass the fuck up here.” I folded my arms across my chest as he had the dignity to drop his gaze to the side. “Then, this morning, you show up with a half-price hooker and tell me she’s a client? Are you soliciting now?”

“We met in Starbucks,” he said wearily. “She started to hit on me, then when she asked what I did, got all interested.”

“Of course she was interested in the fact you run a dating website. Except all she wants to date is what’s inside your pants.”

He quirked a brow. “You know that, do you?”

“Do I look like a woman?”

Dom’s eyes ran over my body, lingering on both my chest and my hips a little too long for it to be accidental.

“Knock it off!” I turned, grabbing my mug. “You’re an idiot!”

“You asked!” he yelled as I walked past him. “And the answer is yes!”

“Goddamn it!” I shouted back, storming through his office and into mine.

Not that it did any good. He followed me. He followed me right through his office until he’d joined me in mine. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I know she wants that, but she wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“Now you just sound egotistical and self-absorbed,” I said.

“Look, she either wants me, or she doesn’t. That doesn’t change from your opinion to mine.”

“Actually, it does. That’s the definition of an opinion.”

“You’re starting to piss me off, Chlo.”

I tilted my head to the side. “Oh, are you on your period, too? I hear the male period is so much worse than the female one.”

Dom stared at me. “Why haven’t I killed you yet?”

“Same reason I haven’t killed you. We haven’t got life insurance on each other.”

He went to say something, then stopped. “You’re right. And even then, you wouldn’t be worth it.”

“That’s all right,” I said, leaning back. “I’ll kill you on my period. PMS has been successfully used for insanity pleas in the past. Win-win.”

“Thank God we use security cameras in here.”

“Awesome. They’ll see just how much you provoked me.”

“Fuck me, you’re like a shark with blood, aren’t you?” Dom folded his arms over his broad chest. “One fucking sniff and you turn into a savage.”

“I guess your bullshit is to me what blood is to a shark. And by bullshit, I mean every time you speak. The bonus is that I can smell it miles off.”