Folk Around and Find Out (Good Folk: Modern Folktales #2)(33)

“I knew for a few months they were messing around and I did nothing.” His smile gone, he leaned back slowly, removing his elbow from the desk and looking contrite, not an expression I’d ever expected to see on his face. And his tone was softer than I'd ever heard it. I half expected him to follow the admission with another apology. He did not.

I nodded mutely as I had no further follow-up questions. For the record, I didn’t believe marrying Kevin had been a mistake. I was glad we’d married. I now had four amazing children. My mistake had been hoping for the best for too long when all evidence pointed to the worst.

“Your kids are great,” he blurted, surprising me. His gaze dropped to the desk for a moment then returned to mine. “I enjoyed talking to them, to Joshua and Sonya, on Tuesday. They’re . . . really great.”

“They’re the nice ones.” I smirked. “Kimmy and Frankie are my hellraisers. If you see them coming, run—don’t walk—in the other direction.”

He chuckled, but I didn’t. I was serious.

For a protracted moment, Hank and I simply looked each other. He wore a new expression, one I’d never seen before and didn’t know how to read. And you know what? I didn’t want to. I was done trying to decipher looks that didn’t belong to my children. I surrendered to my Hank Weller illiteracy.

I only have four servings of sugar. I need to stop trying to scrape the bottom of the bag for another half cup.

“I’m sorry if I overstepped,” he said, still wearing that new expression I refused to interpret.

“Overstepped?”

“You seemed upset when you came over to get Joshua and Sonya from me.” Hank waved a hand through the air in a vague movement. “Like you didn’t want them talking to me.”

“What? No. I have no problem with you talking to my kids. Why would you think that?” I wrinkled my nose. “You must really think I’m a snob.”

“I don’t,” he said a little too quickly.

I raised an eyebrow in challenge.

He ducked his head a smidge. “All right, fine. I suppose I did think you were a tad snobby prior to this conversation.”

I lifted my hands a little way above my legs and then let them fall. “Well, I’m not. What you see is what you get with me. Feel free to engage my kids in conversation any time you like, but don’t say I didn’t warn you about Kimmy and Frankie. If you see us coming, you’re not going to hurt my feelings if you duck behind a dumpster.”

“Glad we cleared that up,” he said, an enigmatic, subtle curve to his lips.

I sensed myself wanting to parse through and interpret his expression, so I glanced at my laptop. “I better get back to work. My boss is a real butthead.”

He laughed and it quickly tapered into a version of that grin again. The one I used to be addicted to as a teenager. The one he’d never pointed at me until recently, and always while giving me the sense he wielded this grin without understanding the true nature of its power or lure. To Hank, he was probably simply smiling, not meaning anything by it. And I definitely wouldn’t read anything into it.

Yet, in an alternate, hypothetical, fantasy universe, one where Hank did mean to tempt and suggest with that smile, I still had no spare energy to give. Not to Hank, not to Dave, not to anyone.

I closed my mind to the temptation of his features, a temptation he wasn’t actually offering, and one which—even in that alternate, fantasy universe—I could never accept. Affixing a polite, business-appropriate smile in place, I said nothing and waited for him to leave. He was in my office, after all. And it wasn’t like I could say, Hey. Stop grinning at me so I can get back to work.

Drawing in a deep breath, Hank stood and stepped around his chair. “Hey. Thank you for asking and pushing the issue. And I’m sorry I’ve made things hard for you. It’s important to me that we have a professional environment here and I’ll . . .” His chest expanded again. He frowned. I suspected his dissatisfied expression wasn’t pointed at me but toward himself. “I haven’t been fulfilling my obligations as your employer. I’ll make myself more available for questions so you won’t have to push at all.”

His apology rocked my world more than his grin of temptation and I struggled for a moment to arrange my thoughts. Goodness. Was there anything sexier than a man who admits when he’s wrong? A man who’s giving you a foot rub while admitting he’s wrong.

Wait.

No, no, no.

These thoughts were not allowed. Hank was my boss, he wasn’t allowed to be this sexy. And I still planned to quit in one week. He’d probably start avoiding me again after. If I hadn’t forced him to employ me, he wouldn’t be speaking to me now. I would not permit the resurrection of my disastrous crush, not at my age. Not now, not ever.

He stood over me. It was my turn to speak, and the lull in conversation was on the edge of becoming noticeable.

I filled the silence with the first clumsy thing that came to mind. “Well, you know me.” I pointed to myself with my thumbs, managing to croak, “Pushy is my middle name.”

“Actually, Charlotte—” He breathed a light laugh, those pretty eyes scrutinizing and considering. “I don’t think I know you well at all.”





CHAPTER 9