Page 25 of Forget Me

8

MIMI

I was settingout copies of the gala budget when Natalie stomped in, ten minutes early, her knee-high boots clomping on the wood floors of Synergy’s first-floor conference room. I’d have looked like a little girl playing dress-up in them—if they even made a wide-calf size—but Natalie looked impossibly tall and elegant.

“Bring it in,” she said, waggling her fingers. “I need a hug.”

I wished I could hate her, but I couldn’t.

“Hi, Natalie.” I straightened the copy of the budget at Larissa’s seat and reached up to hug her. She wasn’t as bony as she looked, and the hug felt good. I hadn’t realized how much I missed Ben and his generous hugs since he’d moved out.

Natalie gripped me tight and then relaxed. After a few seconds, she released me, and we stepped apart. With what seemed like a lot of effort, she smiled. “Good afternoon.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Just my pigheaded brother. He…never mind.”

“Who, Jackson?”

“Of course. Andrew is the sweetest, most reasonable guy you’ll ever meet. Well, except for his disaster of a love life. My brother Jackson, on the other hand, makes me want to scream sometimes.”

“Is it about the gala? Do we need to make a change?” I snatched up the copy of the budget. It wouldn’t do to anger the founder with a wrong choice. I was doubly exposed. He could take it out on me at my actual job and at the one I hoped to get. Not that I thought Jackson was vindictive. So far, he’d been nothing but supportive of me.

Byron had been like that, too, though, until he’d bit me like a snake.

Natalie shook out her hands. “No, there’s nothing we need to do. It was something I wanted himto do. But it’s fine. We’ll work it out.”

“Okay. If you’re sure.” I laid the papers back at Larissa’s place.

“Here you are.” A deep voice came from the hall outside. Mateo filled the doorway with his broad shoulders and impossible height. He held a brown paper shopping bag in each hand, the tendons taut in his exposed forearms.

Why the hell was I looking at his forearms? The danger was with his mouth. What would he say to embarrass me in front of Natalie?

Looking at his mouth was a mistake, too, as I’d learned last week in my kitchen, the night I’d agreed to take him to the gala as my date. His lips were full and lush, and when he’d flashed me that sexy, tilted grin, my sensible brain had gone offline. Instead of remembering all the reasons it was a bad idea, I’d focused on his lips and whether they’d feel soft as they looked if I reached out a fingertip to touch them.

When they curled up into a smile, I blinked away. No looking at his mouth! When I gazed at the crushed paper in my hand, I remembered what we were there for: a gala committee meeting. And Mateo didn’t belong.

“What are you doing here?”

He lifted the bags, his arms flexing. A delicious smell wafted into the conference room. “Ben said you had a meeting tonight. I brought food.”

Having a one-on-one dinner with Mateo was one thing, but exposing Larissa, who already didn’t like me, to Mateo’s bumbling was a terrible idea. No matter how kind he’d been the other night.

I set a hand on the sleeve of his painted-on black compression tee and nudged him back outside the door. God, his arm was like a rock. A lickable one.

“We talked about this,” I hissed. “You were supposed to text me.”

“I did,” he rumbled.

I snatched my phone out of my pocket. “You texted me,In being sonnet.What the hell did that mean?”

He grimaced. “Autocorrect and I don’t get along. I meant to say, ‘I’m bringing dinner,’ but—”

“No. We’re fine. Thank you. I’m sure you can take that to Cooper and Ben. I’m not hungry.” As I moved toward him to escort him out of the building, my stomach protested with a growl so loud everyone on the floor had to hear it.

“Ah. But you don’t know what I brought. And you don’t want to be hangry at your meeting.” He shook the bags slightly, and the smell of onions and peppers beckoned to me.

My stomach growled again, but I cut it off with a fist pressed to my middle. I wished he wasn’t so tall and I didn’t have to bend back my neck so far to look him in the eye. “I’m not hangry.”

---