Page 22 of Jason
Wow.She didn’t know he felt that way, and by “that way,” she meant guilty.What did he have to be guilty about?She was the one who’d climbed on his lap.
“I could ask Nana to come up and—”
“No!”This was escalating quickly.“I would never ask you to fetch your grandmother in this storm,” she said, biding for time so she could think.“And besides, you have it all wrong, Jason.I’m not afraid of you.That’s, like, the exact opposite of what I am.”
His brow furrowed, as if he didn’t know what she meant.
Okay, there was clearly no way to get out of this, exactly.So she would have to be very vague.“Think about it.I climbed on your lap, remember?”
Jason’s gaze flicked over her body.He swallowed.“Actually, I remember very clearly,” he said in a low voice.
A strange little sizzle shot through her.She remembered, too.“We both had too much to drink, and while you were a full participant, it was me.All me.”
“I don’t think—”
Mallory threw up a hand.“Can we just let it drop?I feel bad enough about it, obviously, and I’ve tried to be very respectful since.”
“No, we can’t let it drop.Because I need to know if you really thought it wasall you, why are you so reluctant to stay here tonight?I thought it was because you didn’t trust me.”
She didn’t want to confess that it was herself she didn’t trust.She didn’t want to come off as a sex-crazed lunatic.She was not a lunatic.
“And if you don’t trust me, then this arrangement is not going to work.We’ve danced around it long enough, Mallory.You’ve been different with me since that night.You act like it never happened but we both know it did.”
“Okay,” she said, holding up a hand.“Okay, that is true.I know I did that, and I…I wish I could explain it, but it’s hard to explain.”
He waited for her to say more, but she couldn’t think of what to say.“Try,” he insisted.“Because all this time, I’ve believed you were too afraid to confront me and tell me I acted inappropriately, because maybe you thought that I would somehow threaten your job if you did—”
“I never thought that!”
“It’s the only explanation that has made any sense.”He was talking more to himself than her.“I mean, unless you had a real thing for me.”He chuckled as if that was a ridiculous assumption.“You joked about having a crush on me, but that was the wine talking.”
Mallory stood frozen with alarm.
Jason’s grin began to fade.He studied her a moment.“Jesus.Mallory?”He shifted toward her, his hazel-eyed gaze locked firmly on hers.She could feel it surging through her.“Mallory,”he said in a whisper.“Are you…Doyou have a real thing for me?”
“No.”She laughed.Jason didn’t laugh.He kept looking right through her.And she could feel the heat rising in her like a hot summer day.She laughed again, but too hard, and there was no mistaking that laugh.That was a-guilty-as-charged laugh.
Jason’s expression changed, morphing from realization, to curiosity, and then to confusion.“But—”
“Yeah, okay,” she said, waving her hand at him.“Don’t get it twisted.I don’t have athingfor you, Jason,” she lied.“But I’m a healthy woman, and you’re a very good-looking man, and I didn’t expect you to look like that when you opened the door.That’s all.”
“Like what?”
She jumped at another loud clap of thunder.“Shirtless.And…” She gave him a bit of a shrug.“Half-naked.”The heat was in her neck and her face now.
A grin slowly began to curve his lips.
“You think I’m good-looking?”he asked, terribly pleased with himself.
“I swear to God, Jason, if you make a big deal out of this, I’m going to go allGame of Throneson you and stick my fingers in your eyes.”
He grinned, clearly pleased with this turn in their professional relationship.“Okay, Cersei.Well now that the cat is out of the bag, I think you’re pretty good-looking too.So now that we know the landscape…”
“Stop, Jason.We should never have gone down that path.”
He didn’t agree or disagree, but held up the bottle of whisky again.“How about that drink?”
“I don’t really drink whisky.But I’d like a double.”
