Fire Inside (Chaos #2)(42)

The potential client was a heavy hitter and had a massive advertising budget. It could mean big things that didn’t only include more money but possibly more clients. This approach was good. No, fabulous.

I wanted that action.

That was the good news. The bad news was, they wanted a pitch on Thursday which was nigh on impossible with the current workload even if I had come to work ahead of the game.

This meant that by Tuesday afternoon, when Hop called again, I’d worked until ten the night before and had my mind on our pitch, not on my plan to end things with Hop.

“How you doin’, lady?” he asked when I answered.

“Crazed, Hop. We have a potential new client and to build the pitch, keep up with other stuff and be able to take off Friday afternoon to meet my folks, I can’t do lunch tomorrow.” After I delivered this, I lowered my voice to finish, “I’m sorry.” And I did it actually being sorry.

Even though I didn’t want to, I had to admit, I missed my fix.

“That’s cool. I’ll bring sandwiches to your office.”

I stared at my desk blotter.

Why did I think I might get away with a valid excuse?

“Hop, seriously. It’s nuts around here.”

“Lanie, seriously, with your work, my kids and your parents here this weekend, my time seein’ you is curtailed in a way I don’t like a whole f**kin’ lot so I’ll bring sandwiches, you work, I’ll see you and it’ll all be good.”

“You’re distracting,” I snapped and this was met with silence. When that lengthened, I called, “Hop?”

“Nicest thing you’ve said to me,” he answered, a smile in his voice I felt in the region of my heart. “When I’m not f**kin’ you, that is,” he amended. “And outside you askin’ me if I wanted to f**k you and all the shit you said with that the first time you asked me to f**k you,” he went on.

I rolled my eyes to the ceiling.

“Right. Leavin’ you to get back to work after you tell me what kind of sandwich you like,” he stated.

I rolled my eyes to my computer. “This conversation could go on for four hours and you’d still be here with sandwiches at noon tomorrow, wouldn’t you?”

“Yep,” he replied, another smile in his voice.

Ty-Ty was not wrong. These boys rolled right on through even if you didn’t want them to. How I found this both irritating and attractive, I had no idea. I didn’t process that, either, except the irritating part.

“You do realize that’s kind of a jerky thing to do when you know I don’t have time to fight with you,” I pointed out.

“Yep,” he replied, still with a smile in his voice, which also meant no remorse.

“You don’t care, do you?” I asked to confirm his lack of remorse.

“Means I have lunch with you, look in your eyes, hear your voice, check you’re okay.” He paused then, “Nope.”

I sighed, liking that he wanted to look in my eyes, hear my voice, check I was okay.

God.

There it was. The reason I found his macho stubborn streak attractive.

“I like pastrami,” I told him.

“Got it,” he replied.

“And turkey. Or roast beef but only if it’s rare and only with swiss on it. Provolone if it’s pastrami. I also like Reubens but you need to tell them to go light on the sauerkraut if you take that route. I don’t like meatballs or anything that could be messy and get on my clothes, except for a Reuben, that is. No onions. My staff would be forced to smell them all day and that’s not nice. Chips, plain, nothing that could stain my fingers—like cheese puffs—or flamin’ hot. And a cookie or brownie wouldn’t go amiss.”

I stopped talking and was met with silence.

“Hop?” I called again.

“Anything else, beautiful?”

No smile in his voice. It was vibrating with suppressed laughter.

It sounded really nice.

So nice, I didn’t have it in me to do more than whisper, “No. I think that’s it.”

“All right, see you at noon tomorrow.”

“Right, Hop. Have fun with your kids tonight.”

“Always do,” he muttered. “Later, baby.”

“Bye, Hop.”

He disconnected and I put my phone on my desk at the same time it occurred to me my staff was going to see a rough, badass, albeit hot, biker walk in and have lunch with me in my office.

With ease, I shoved this from my mind.

This, I didn’t care about. Everyone had wondered why I was with Elliott, too, and I hadn’t cared about that either. I had my way of doing things. I had my baggage. I had my issues. I had my demons. But I had few pet peeves, though one of them was anyone judging a book by its cover or judging anything at all, including anyone who might judge me or my decisions.

No, I had enough head space taken up by judging myself and my decisions. I didn’t need to give more over to what anyone else thought of me.

So I didn’t.

Wednesday rolled around and the pitch was in disarray. I knew I was facing another ten o’clock night but when I felt the vibe of the office change—this wafting through my wall of windows—my eyes went there.

I saw Hop striding toward me, smiling, carrying a white paper bag held in the crook of one arm, bags of chips visible out of the top and a six-pack of diet cherry 7Up in his other hand.