“Just give me one second,” I said. I found it. I took out the card, rubbed it between my fingers for luck and courage, and set it on his desk. “Here.”
He picked it up. A grin spread across his handsome face as he recognized it. “You still have this?” He laughed. “I always figured you would have thrown it away as soon as you passed a trash can.”
“I still have it.”
He looked up at me, then checked both sides of the card. “No expiration date. That was foolish of me.” He looked every bit the professional businessman while looking over this contract, and it turned me on even more. “Okay, well I’m a man of my word. What do I owe you?”
I tried different ways of saying it in my mind, all of them sounding strange, artificial, wrong. But as the silence drew out I gave up, and just said what I felt. “You,” I squeaked.
“Me?” he said.
“I want you,” I said again. “That’s why I came here.”
It sounded silly, like some over-wrought scene from a badly directed movie. I waited for him to laugh, but he didn’t. He played with the card in his fingers and stared at me. Finally he stood up and walked around his desk. He handed me the card.
“You want to tel
l me what’s really going on here?”
“What happened in the car…”
“That was a stupid mistake,” he said, his voice darkening. “And I’m sorry for it. I crossed a line with you I had no right to cross.”
I shook my head. “That’s not what I meant.”
“There’s nothing else to say about it.”
“Of course there is. I know you’re my…”
“Your brother,” he finished for me, his mouth forming a cruel hard line.
“…stepbrother.”
“Does that really make any difference?”
“It does for me,” I said, standing up a little straighter. I was getting angry, and it was giving me a little courage to stand on. “It’s not like it's incest.”
James seemed to flinch at the word, then laughed. “Are you listening to yourself?”
“Stop it,” I snapped. I pushed his chest. It was hard under the oxford shirt he was wearing. He didn’t move. “Don’t try to make this a joke.”
“I’m not,” he said, seriously. “But you’ve gone off the deep end, Allie.”
“So what was it, then?”
“What was what?”
“The kiss, you jerk,” I said, swatting his chest.
“I already told you what it was. It was a mistake.”
“It didn’t mean anything? You don’t feel anything?”
“Jesus, Allie. Are you listening to yourself? And besides, aren’t I the guy who ruined your life?”
“Just tell me, then. If you tell me that it was really just some mistake and you don’t feel anything for me, I’ll leave right now.”
I swallowed, cursing myself for being so direct. I was practically forcing him to reject me.