Page 89 of How to Resist Prince Charming

But Braxton merely snorted. “You never give up, do you?”

“Hey, how do you think I get all the chicks?” was Greg’s cocky answer.

“Oh, ho!” Braxton replied and grabbed his stomach as if he were having a normal, everyday, carefree conversation with his bud. “So, your big secret is to harass a girl until she gives in, huh?”

Greg was quiet a moment before he came back with, “Well, I like to think of it as persuasive coaxing.”

Braxton snickered. God, he missed the sound of his own laughter. “Look,” he told Greg as he scratched the back of his neck. “I was wondering if you were up for some climbing.”

Yeah, that sounded good. He needed a nice laboring, sweaty day full of rock climbing. Maybe if he was lucky, he could fall off a mountain and put himself out of his misery.

“Am I up for rock climbing?” Greg snorted. “Dude. You name the time and place, and I’m there.”

Braxton bit his lip. “How about this weekend? Rose Ridge?”

“Sold.”

“Good,” Braxton said. Great. Now, how was he going to work his way into asking about Lenna without raising any flags? “How’s it been?” he asked. “Haven’t seen you in a few.” Okay, that was a lame attempt, but hey, he had nothing here.

“It’s going,” Greg replied. “Actually, I was starting to think you’d gotten yourself into a relationship or something since I hadn’t heard from you in a while.”

“No,” Braxton lied. “No, I haven’t been seeing anyone.” He cleared his throat. “But speaking of ladies...” Yeah, it was a bad segue, but he’d lost his patience. “How’s that girl doing? The one I recommended to you for the translating position. She told me she got the job, but I, uh, I haven’t heard from her since.”

His fib actually sounded believable. When he’d become such an accomplished liar, he had no idea.

“Lenna,” Greg sighed her name, making Braxton’s teeth clench. “Pretty Lenna is awesome, man. We’ve yet to send a website her way she hasn’t been able to translate.”

“Is that so?” Braxton said, hearing a smidgeon of disappointment slip into his voice. “She’s doing well, then?” Damn.

“She’s doing fantastic. You can tell she really likes what she does too, because she thanks me for hiring her, like, every day.”

Braxton slid into a chair, his chest burning.

That sounded like Lenna. Always so thankful.

He wished Greg would go on, tell him more about her. He was glad she liked her job. He really was. It’d been important to her to find something she would enjoy. Her happiness at ProTech made his inability to return almost worth it.

Jesus, he missed her.

“Yep,” Greg continued. “So, you should really give yourself a pat on the back, bro, because I never would’ve hired her without your approval.”

“Hmm,” Braxton murmured.

“Don’t you just feel like her fairy godmother?” Greg teased.

Actually, he felt more like puking.

“So...” Greg asked, almost evasively. “When are you coming back to ProTech again?”

Sure. Why shouldn’t he return? Then he could work alongside Lenna where they coul

d be one big, happy family...and then he could shoot himself in the head.

“I really need to form a partnership with you now,” Greg went on. “That way I can put Lenna under your supervision, and it wouldn’t be weird for me to ask her out.”

Braxton’s vision grayed. “Say what?”

“What do you think?” Greg asked. “Is it wrong to ask out one of your employees?”

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