Page 69 of The Matchmaker
“Yes,” I tell him, abandoning all my adult plans. “Yes, I’m freaking out. Because the other day you kissed me right outside the pub that your brother wants to tear down. The brother that you conveniently forgot to tell me about.” Dumb. I am so dumb. “Are you spying on me?”
“Spying?”
“Digging up dirt? Finding something that could bring me down? Well, you’re not going to find anything. Do you know what I’ve done? Nothing.That’s the great thing about being boring. I’ve donenothing. I mean, yes, one time at the self-checkout I paid for one banana instead of two, but I just wanted to see what would happen. I was testing the system and the system failed.”
“Katie—”
“It’s because you shouldn’t trust people. You shouldn’t trust people with their bananas, and you shouldn’t trust people with their kisses.”
His phone goes again, and I glare at him.
“Do you need to get that?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you tell me he was your brother?”
He sighs. “Because you’ve made it perfectly clear how you feel about him, and I wanted to know how you felt aboutmefirst. And before that, I didn’t tell you because I don’t tell anyone. Neither of us do. I’ve worked with some of these guys for years and they still don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s their boss? Because I’d like to do my job and be friendly with the guys and not have them be on edge around me the whole time? We don’t make a thing of it. I use my mother’s surname whenever we’re working on the same project. I always have.”
“Sure,” I scoff, and his jaw tightens.
“Whatever nefarious plan you think I’m involved in, Katie, it’s not happening. I swear to you. I wasn’t spying. I wasn’t scheming. I came to the pub the other night because I wanted to see you. Because that’s all I’ve wanted to do since I met you. And I—” He breaks off with a curse as his phone rings for the fourth time.
“Just answer the damn call.”
“No,” he says. “You wanted to talk so let’s talk.” But almost as soon as he’s said the words, footsteps stomp up the metal steps outside, and a second later, Jack bursts through the door, almost whacking me in the face with it.
“Why aren’t you answering me?”
Alarm flashes across Callum’s features. “Jack—”
“And why I am getting petitions from a man who calls himself adruidabout the goddamn road proposal? Two months! We’re going to be behind two months because of this farce. Do you know how much this is going to cost us?”
“Jack—”
“I’m already going to lose half of Malone’s crew in September. What the hell are we going to do now? Gerald isn’t going to allow any more delays and—”
“Jack.”
“What?” he snaps, spinning around when Callum gestures to where I stand.
His eyes widen when he sees me, but any surprise he shows is quickly replaced by annoyance. “Christ, Callum, when I said you should seduce her, I didn’t mean on company time.”
“Woah.” Callum holds up his hands as the blood drains from my face. “Hold on a second.”
“Did you do this?” Jack asks me, waving a newspaper in my face. “Send the druids after me?”
The who now?
“Can you please calm down,” Callum begins, but his brother ignores him.
“This has gone on long enough,” he says. “You’ve had your fun. But we’ve got work to do. I’m buying your pub. I’m building my road. And we’re completing this hotel on time.”
“Over my dead body,” I snap, just as furious as he is. “I am going to make your life a living hell. Andyou.” I round on Callum, who looks like he has a migraine. “You can forget about ever kissing me again. No more truce.”
