Rolling my eyes, I proceeded.
“Judith.” The commanding tone found its way straight to my core, making my stomach swirl with delicious heat. Jesus Christ, what was he doing here?
Jesus: “Didn’t you say something a while back about hitting Sunday Mass sometime in the next decade? Maybe you could take your foul-mouthed, engaged boss with you.”
I turned around slowly, feigning annoyance, because the alternative was showing him how much I cared, how much it affected me to see him here. In Brooklyn. On a Sunday. Take that, Milton.
Célian sat in his silver Mercedes-Benz in a navy, short-sleeved sport shirt, his Ray-Bans tipped down to examine me.
“What are you doing here?” I narrowed my eyes. I hadn’t spoken to him since the phone incident. We’d talked business in the office, but every time he’d tried to pretend like that night hadn’t happened—like he hadn’t broken my phone just because I’d exchanged numbers with some random guy at a diner—I turned around and walked away.
“You can’t keep ignoring me.”
“Pretty sure I can. Exhibit A: this conversation.”
“I’m your boss.”
“Precisely, and you crossed a lot of lines.”
“You could have made a great lawyer.”
“Not satisfied with my performance as a reporter?”
“Quite the contrary. As a booty call, however, you do a lousy job.”
“Good. Consider this my official resignation.”
He lifted his hand, waving a brand new cellphone. It was the new model that had just come out a hot minute ago and was already out of stock.
“With twelve cases in different colors to suit your mood.” He shot me his devastatingly charming smirk. “Truce?”
“Never. But I do need a phone.”
This was a gift I was willing to accept solely because he was responsible for the untimely death of my previous phone. It’d been a rough few days without one, but I wasn’t exactly swimming in money to buy a replacement. I’d had to arrive at work even earlier and leave slightly later to make sure I wasn’t needed or MIA, and at home, I checked my email every half hour.
He clutched the new device to his chest, and mine tightened in response.
“Come get it, Chucks.”
He was blocking the traffic, and someone honked behind him. Three, long beeps.
“You want to get her number, park like a goddamn man and let us through!” someone yelled behind him.
Célian ignored the guy completely, ruthlessly entitled to the bone.
“No, thanks,” I resumed my walk to the subway.
He began to drive slowly beside me. Not unlike a creeper. I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t help but feel a little satisfaction at the way he’d been chasing me the last few days. He’d even come down to the fifth floor to fetch me from lunch with Ava and Grayson, muttering an excuse about an urgent meeting, when really, all he’d wanted was to ask if we could see each other that night.
The answer, by the way, had been a big, fat no.
“I want to show you something.” His car was blocking a long line of vehicles now.
“You already showed me plenty,” I muttered, secretly liking that people were still honking at him, and that for the first time in our relationship, he was the one out of sorts.
“Get your mind out of the gutter. I mean geographically.”
“Would you like to dazzle me with your rich-boy Hamptons house? Show me another glitzy hotel you own?” I made grand, hoity-toity gestures with my hands as I walked.
Four. You’re acting like a four year old. That wasn’t Jesus speaking. Just me.
“In the fucking car, Chucks.”
“Say the magic word.”
“My cock.”
I made a gagging sound.
“I agree. It is abnormally big, but I haven’t heard any complaints.”
“The magic word,” I repeated.
“Please.” The word rolled off his tongue like it was in a foreign language.
“Whoops. Still a no.”
My determined stroll slowed when his catcalling stopped. Had he given up on me? I took a few more steps before a hand grabbed my wrist. I looked up. He was smirking darkly, his thick eyebrows drawn together.
“Grayson was right. This is kidnapping…” I said as Célian yanked me toward his car.
He’d parked in the middle of the street, blocking approximately thirteen cars now, all of them honking. Some had tried to reverse and slip out of the road. To say Célian didn’t give a crap wouldn’t be a stretch. I got into his car and buckled up, mainly because I didn’t want anyone to put a bullet in his head for his behavior. He started driving and strapped in as he did, not wasting any time.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“You’ll see.”
“You never apologized for the phone.”
“I do. I am. It wasn’t my finest moment. I would say I didn’t mean it, but lying on top of breaking your shit would really be rude. You shouldn’t have exchanged numbers with another man. I’ve been dutifully faithful to you from the moment my tongue touched your crack.”