Page 74 of Tell Me All Your Lies

The tension between us is thick.

“What if I don’t want to be very professional with you?” He asks.

I gasp and fling a hand over my open mouth. Grant’s posture tightens as a tick in his jaw flexes.

“A joke, Collins.”

I lower my hand and place both of them in my lap.

“Didn’t seem like a joke to me.”

“It was.”

Grant looks down at his watch.

“It’s late. I think it’s time we call it a night this time,” he says.

“Grant…”

He sighs and then stands. With an outstretched hand to me, Grant grins.

“It was a joke, Collins. Don’t worry; I think you and I will be just fine on that front.”

“Okay,” I lie as I place my hand in his.

This song and dance will resume another night, but I don’t think I can let it continue forever.

I want Grant, only I need to know where he stands. And more importantly, I need to know about our pasts in order to attempt a future.

ELEVEN

Grant

To sayCara Collins has successfully messed with my head would be an understatement.

I’m not quite sure how this woman has gotten under my skin like she has, but I know I have to keep her at arm’s length. Ordinarily, I would have given in a lot sooner than this. The amount of blue balls this woman has given me is obscene, and she has no idea what she’s doing to me.

If this were anyone else, I would have left for a day to find a sexual partner out of state to help distract me from my situation, but alas, it’s not.

Instead, it’s the woman who has been distracting me for years.

This isn’t some flippant crush on a partner or someone I’ve come across a time or two; it’s Cara. The woman who has been haunting me day and night. The one I promised myself to protect. The one whom I can now admit the truth about.

She’s the woman I’m falling in love with.

It’s pathetic.

I can’t find love at my age with someone like Cara. I see the way she looks at me, longingly and with lust in her eyes. There’s no way that what she feels is real. It has to be because she hasn’t had sex either in the past couple of weeks.

When did I start caring about feelings all the time? I’m a shell of the man I was before this mission started. This woman has made me a complete and utter mess, and I’m the fool who thought that making her my wife on paper would help the matter.

If anything, it’s made her crawl under my skin more than ever before. All it takes is a whiff of her perfume or watching her study a file for hours, and I’m turned on.

Even her taking lead on the calls with Dodger has me falling more for this woman than I thought possible.

I should be paying attention to what Cara’s telling Dodger during this check-in call, but instead, I’m daydreaming about the way her mouth moves as she speaks with ease to him. She’s confident and sure of herself as she explains what we’ve found already and our upcoming plans.

I know there’s something between the two of them. Not a present matter but something of the past.

---