Chase Me (Broke and Beautiful #1)(47)

“Order pizzas.”

Louis half-smiled. “Why’d you come all the way over here? You could have just called.”

“You’re right. I could have.” Fletcher shifted in his seat. “Listen, I wanted to thank you in person for not telling your sister about the stripper. She would have cut off my nuts.”

Louis forced himself not to jump down Fletcher’s throat for referring to Roxy as the stripper. Fletcher’s tone of voice made him feel sick, as if they were coconspirators. He wanted to get the guy out of his office as fast as possible, so he shrugged off the apology. “No worries. Nothing happened anyway.”

“You sure about that?” Fletcher tilted his head and gave him a sly smile, obviously not picking up on Louis’s hint to drop the subject. “You two looked pretty cozy. You hitting that?”

Blood rushed to Louis’s head, darkening his vision. When pain shot up his arms, he realized he was gripping the edge of the desk so hard it creaked. “That? Am I hitting that?”

Fletcher must have been trying to beat the record for world’s most oblivious man, because his sickening grin only widened. He still hadn’t picked up on Louis’s growing desire to launch himself across the desk and wipe the smile off his face with both fists. “Hey man, I don’t blame you. I’m thinking about ringing the agency back and getting a private show, maybe at the office. Did you see her ass? Jesus. You think she’d charge extra to let me slap it a few times?”

“Get out.”

Finally, awareness dawned on the other man’s face. He rose to his feet with an uncomfortable laugh. “I was making a joke, man. Take it easy.”

If Louis had to spend another minute in this *’s presence, he was going to need his own lawyer. A criminal one. Louis rounded the desk and opened the door. “Don’t tell me to take it easy. I said, get the f*ck out.” When Fletcher only looked incredulous, Louis grabbed him by the collar and jerked him toward the exit. “I swear to God, if you ever speak about her again, or call that agency for anything, Lena will be the last person you have to worry about. I will make you so goddamn sorry.”

Fletcher threw up his hands, dislodging Louis’s grip in the process. His movements were confident, but his expression was far from it. He’d gone pale. “See you at dinner?”

Louis slammed the door in his face.

Everything in his office was bathed in red. He paced to one end and back toward the other, breathing deeply against the urge to grab the signed Derek Jeter baseball bat off his wall and smash everything in sight. His skin felt itchy, crawling underneath his dress shirt, so he yanked off his tie and threw it in the garbage. He wanted to go back five minutes in time and un-hear everything his sister’s fiancé had said, but that was impossible, so it replayed over and over until he knew he’d never forget it.

Remembering the way he’d been fantasizing about Roxy’s body before Fletcher had walked in, he wanted to kick himself. When it came right down to it, he was no better than Lena’s fiancé, was he? Roxy had met him the morning after a one-night stand, for chrissakes. He’d never made it a secret that he wanted to sleep with her. Hell, he’d broadcast it to her friends before their first date. That was why. Why her knee-jerk reaction was to believe the worst of him. She wasn’t stubborn, she was just smart. It would take her a little longer than a couple weeks to trust him. So what? He liked that about her. He liked the fact that she made him work harder to earn it. Yet he shouted at her and walked out like an idiot? Dammit. Dammit. All he wanted to do at that moment was look at her face, smell her hair, and apologize. Not just for himself, but for every other prick in the world that had made her so wary.

A knock on his door did nothing to calm him down; it only made him angrier. Fletcher had probably come back to beg him not to tell his sister what he’d said. To give him some bullshit apology that should have been directed at Roxy. Not him. Louis surged to his feet and strode to the door. “I told you to get the f*ck out.”

He threw the door open.

Roxy stood on the other side with her hand raised midknock. Based on her wide-eyed look, she’d heard what he’d said. “Bad time?”

His heart started knocking against his ribs at one hundred miles an hour. He didn’t even want to question why she was there, it only mattered that she was there. After all the ugliness he’d just gone swimming in, the sight of her felt like the first breath when you breach the surface. Something about her appearance struck him as different, but he couldn’t look away from her face long enough to check. She looked tired, though, probably reflecting the exhaustion on his own face. He really didn’t like seeing her so tired. Hated knowing he was at least partially responsible.

“Um.” She gave a sideways glance down the hallway. “You’re kind of leaving me hanging here. Is there no room at the inn or something?”

The hint of insecurity in her voice snapped Louis out of his trance. “Get in here,” he growled, snagging her wrist and hauling her up against him. He kicked the door shut and wrapped her tightly in his arms, letting the scent of cherry blossoms clear away the remaining ugliness. “I just didn’t expect to see you here.”

Her body gradually relaxed. “I didn’t plan on coming here. I kind of just ended up outside.” She put a hand on his chest and pushed him away gently. He took that opportunity to figure out what was different about her, or he would drive himself crazy trying to figure out why she didn’t want to be held. If she’d come here to officially break things off. Louis took a bracing breath and studied her. Clothes. Her clothes were different. The high heels he’d never seen her without had been replaced by a pair of white Converses. She wore snug black pants and a thin, cream-colored sweater. Sexy as all get out, but conservative compared to her usual attire.