Page 32 of In Full Bloom

“I don’t think it’s in our best interests to break that arrangement.”

“I’m offering you zero-strings attached sex,” she says, crossing her arms and glaring up at me for a moment before dropping her gaze again. I take a millisecond to appreciate the way her crossed arms and that tiny cropped tank top accentuate her chest, then tear my gaze away.

“We have to work together,” I counter.

“We do alright.”

“I’d like to think we could do better,” I admit.

“Seriously, you want to turn this into a review of my job performance?” She sounds incredulous. No wonder, if that’s what I’ve just implied.

“That’s not what I meant. Not at all.” I rub at my forehead. I have a headache brewing. “This is the worst place for a conversation.”

She laughs at that. “Most people aren’t here to converse, cowboy.”

“I am aware that this appears to be a pick up bar, which is soweird considering how small this town is. Surely everyone already knows everyone.”

She shrugs. “You’d be surprised at the strangers you can find in a place like this.” The fiery spark is coming back to her. The one that dragged me into this corridor in the first place. The one that had me taking her home the first night we met.

“What I was trying to say before,” I say, trying to get back to the point before my mind goes on a trip down sexy memory lane.

But a commotion in the main room interrupts me.

“The party hasarrived,” a voice booms, somehow over the music.

“Oh, fucking hell.” Katie is frozen beside me. Somehow her fingers have found their way around my wrist, where she has me in a death grip.

“What is it?” I recognise the voice, but I’m too caught up in the last few minutes with Katie to place it, to understand what is happening.

“Max.”

Oh, shit. “I thought Olivia said he would be at Tilly’s birthday dinner.”

“Yeah, well, I guess she was wrong.”

“You want to go?”

She nods, as I expected she would. “My stuff is all over there though.” She gestures towards the table where her jacket is tossed over the back of the booth and her handbag is on the seat beside Olivia and the girl she’s still chatting with. To get to it she has to cross the entire room, going straight past Max.

“You get out. I’ll get your things and meet you outside.”

She nods again. Her confidence from a moment ago has vanished and her movements are shaky and unsure.

I step away and her grip slips from my wrist. I immediately miss the strength and heat of it, which is ridiculous.

It wasn’t a romantic gesture, it wasn’t sexy or sensual. It wasn’t even friendly.

It was her clinging to a life line.

It shouldn’t make me feel as good as it does that she was clinging to me like that, but here we are.

I skirt around the edge of the dance floor, keeping my head down and hoping Max doesn’t notice me.

Or maybe I should draw his attention so he’s less likely to notice Katie trying to slip out.

I glance over my shoulder and spot him waiting at the bar. There’s enough people around him. He shouldn’t notice either of us.

Olivia is alone when I reach our table. She has Katie’s jacket in hand, scrunching it in clenched fists.

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