Page 5 of An Inconvenient Plan
Back to that, are we?“Listen, you cad, I am never, ever stepping foot in your place again.” And he knew very well why.
His lips twitched. “Never ever?”
She seethed. He never stopped giving her a hard time. Like she had no feelings at all, like she was his personal entertainment system or something. Poke her here, see the reaction; poke her there, watch her go nuts. If she wasn’t such a mess right now, she’d march right out of his office.
Josh leaned forward. “Can you keep a secret?”
She eyed him suspiciously. There were always layers to what he said, subtle innuendoes and digs just waiting to come out. On the other hand, Josh had never shared anything remotely private with her, and she was intrigued. No. He was just trying to reel her in and thenwhammo!Some twisted joke at her expense. She refused to take the bait.
She crossed her arms, feigning indifference.
His voice dropped to a nearly inaudible whisper that had her leaning in.
“What?” Dammit! He’d reeled her in again!
He didn’t smirk like she thought he would. Instead he raised his voice a little. “That shoebox of cash has been nothing but trouble. Not just between us. Clarissa and I had a huge fight over it.”
Clarissa was his ex-girlfriend, a beautiful bohemian yoga instructor who always seemed to be underfoot. She’d run into the woman absolutely everywhere for a while there. It was hard not to take it personally that Josh happened to get a serious girlfriend just as Hailey announced to the world that she was newly single and open to a relationship. Kind of like he was thumbing his nose at her:I have what you want and you have nothing. Not that she’d wanted to be in a relationship with Josh at the time. Back then she’d been sure they’d kill each other. She hadn’t seen past the sparring like she did now to the kind of man he was at a deep level. She almost wished she didn’t know the real deal with Josh because here he was helping her through a personal crisis in his irritating but strongly supportive way, and she had to fight to keep her walls up for her own self-preservation. She needed to move on with her life. She couldn’t keep letting herself get sucked in by Josh. He’d given her a clear message—not interested.
Josh didn’t elaborate further over his and Clarissa’s fight, just sat there like there was nothing more that needed to be said. She needed details!
She clamped her mouth shut for a good ten seconds before blurting, “Why did you fight over the money?”
Josh shrugged his big muscular shoulders. He was extremely fit like he’d stuck to his soldier-training regimen, an attractive trait both for the hard work it took and the results, which she’d admit to him only with a knife to the throat. “She found the money and thought I was into strip joints or something crazy like that. I told her the truth. It was yours and I planned to give it back one day.”
“You did?” She couldn’t hide her surprise. Until very recently, she’d thought he’d lord it over her forever. The truth was he’d earned that money fair and square as her paid escort to the many weddings she planned. She couldn’t very well show up alone to weddings when she was supposed to be a Love Junkie. Back when they’d made that arrangement, she’d been a little desperate. The guys her age at the time, early twenties, kept flaking on her or showing up really late to the weddings. Josh lived and worked in town and had been very dependable and punctual. It was a business arrangement—she got a wedding escort; he got money toward his dream bar. But after their falling-out, he forfeited all rights to that money. She’d demanded it back. He’d taunted her for years that she’d have to go to his place to get it in a tone that screamed sexual innuendo. Hmm, in hindsight, her naked offering wasn’t so out there. He’d been hinting at exactly that if she ever had the nerve to show up at his place. Clearly he’d been messing with her because he didn’t even touch her once she was there. The cad.
Josh gave her a look she couldn’t interpret, and she was usually excellent at reading people. It was somewhere betweenyou’re an idiotand offended.
“Yes, I planned on giving the money back,” he said in an aggrieved tone like she was supposed to know better. It was bothyou’re an idiotandI’m offended. She was good at reading people after all. “I never should’ve taken it in the first place. You needed it to build a stable foundation for your business. Peace of mind, security, and all that.”
She sucked in air. She’d been right about him. He truly understood the value of a stable foundation and understood what it meant to her as well.
Josh went on. “After our fight, she was done with me. She even got a new job and moved to a different town.” What an extreme reaction. Hailey would never pick up and move over a man.
Well, that explained why she’d stopped running into Clarissa all over town. They broke up over her money? How strange. And delightful. Damn, Josh had turned her into a terribly petty person. Only he brought out this side of her.
She tried to hide the secret enjoyment from her voice. “That was rash of her. She sounds like an idiot.”
Josh regarded her seriously. “She made me a better man.”
She tensed, irritated with Clarissa all over again with her laid-back, mellow, la-di-da attitude. Nothing would ever get done in the world with that kind of attitude. “I can’t believe you broke up over a shoebox.” So stupid. What a stupid couple.
“She said I was hanging onto you.”
She shot straight up in her seat. “What? That’s ridiculous. We were fighting like cats and dogs at the time.” Was it true? Had Josh had feelings for her back then? What happened? Had their fighting gotten so out of hand that they’d squashed any chance they’d had to connect?
He inclined his head. He’d shaved today for the special occasion, his square jaw pronounced. His dark brown hair was rumpled like always, but he wasn’t wearing his usual flannel shirt over a T-shirt, faded jeans, and sneakers. He wore a light blue dress shirt, unbuttoned at the collar and rolled up at the sleeves, revealing corded muscular forearms. Dark blue dress pants with a brown leather belt and dark brown leather shoes too. Dressy but still true to his casual self. She tore her gaze away and stared at his desk. He cleaned up nice.
“I told her that,” Josh said. “How could I be hanging onto you when we have no history?”
Her head jerked up. “Well, we have gone on some wedding dates.”
“Escort service. You paid me. Exhibit A, the shoebox of cash.”
“And we did have one boring dinner at that fancy restaurant in the city.” Not like he’d asked her out. She was supposed to be having a business dinner with his identical twin, Jake, and Josh had pulled a switcheroo to teach her a lesson. Jerk. She still couldn’t figure out what lesson she was supposed to have learned.
“Boring!” he barked. “I thought you lived for that stuff. Limo, posh restaurant, drooling over Jake’s yacht.”
