Suspiciously Obedient

Page 12

“I can’t say it enough,” he said quietly.

Silence hung between them like a condemned man, suspended from a hangman’s noose. There was a kind of death in the air, a ragged, jutted feeling that this rift between them could never be mended. Yet he was here, she had to give him credit for that.

“The second reason I’m here,” he stated bluntly, “is because I never expected to feel what I feel for you, Lydia.”

She opened her mouth to speak and he took one step closer and gently laid his fingertips against her lips. She pulled back as if he had shocked her with an electric bolt.

“Let me speak.” That was more the Michael Bournham she had seen from afar, and on rare occasion, up close. “I’ll give you plenty of time, I assure you,” he explained. “I most certainly did not join this reality TV show so that I could intentionally make love with the most stunning woman I have ever met in my entire life and then have it caught on video tape, so that it would go viral and ruin the one true thing that I most want.”

Although he hadn’t touched her again, it was as if someone had snapped a circuit breaker and jolted her with thousands and thousands of volts, burning deep into her brain. She stared at him, completely transfixed, his words pouring over and around her, and yet somehow also sinking in.

He ran a frantic hand through his hair and began to pace. “Lydia, here was the deal—you were never part of the deal.” A wry grin in his eyes floated up to the ceiling as he stopped and massaged the center of his forehead, as if in physical agony. “The producers of Meet the Hidden Boss came to me and explained that sales spike when CEOs do this sort of thing. I have, as you know, a deal with the board. Had, I suppose I should start to speak of that in the past tense, too, shouldn’t I?” he said bitterly. “I had a bargain, and I thought that this would be part of my strategy, that I would…” he said with a cadence that made it clear that he needed to speak his entire story. It made her less interested in interrupting and more attentive. He said that she would get her say, right? For now then, she would at least get the full story, even if she would never get that happily ever after that she had so carefully studied in her marketing proposal.

“When Jonah, Jonah Moore, the producer, proposed the idea, I was to become a middle manager.”

“Hence, Matt Jones,” she said flatly.

“Yes.”

“Director of social media.”

“Yes.”

“So, you took the job in order to—”

“Yes,” he cut her off, “I think you get the picture.”

“Oh, I do,” she said with extraordinary derision.

“It sounds so ridiculous now, but it is what it is and I have to make peace with it. I’ve never been one to flinch from reality.”

“Or reality TV shows,” she shot back.

“Touché,” he said, those sapphire eyes boring into hers. The skin underneath his eyes tucked up as he cocked his head and proceeded to explain. “I played the part, but you were there on day one. Day one,” he laughed, “in the parking lot, reading that damn book, in that tiny little red car of yours, all curves, and divine, and lush, and everything that I remembered you were two years ago.”

“Two years ago?” she rasped. Her hand went to the base of her collarbone, her fingers fluttering there in surprise. She cleared her throat. “Two years ago, what are you talking about?”

“Employee orientation,” he confessed.

“You remember me?” she gasped.

“You remember me?” he inquired. At a standoff, they just stared. “My God, what a fool I’ve been,” he said, closing his eyes, tipping his face up to the ceiling, and making her want him even more. God damn it.

Staying silent, she let her arms down, her hands loose at her sides, brushing against her hips. Listening to him was her only option at this point, short of storming out of the room. What good would that accomplish? At least now she got to understand more about why he did what he did.

“I have no justification for what happened.” He made a dismissive noise with his lips. “Has it really been just over twenty-four hours?”

“Yes.”

He nodded, pursing his lips. “It has, hasn’t it? So much has happened.”

“To you and me, both,” she said.

“Not yet,” he objected, though his tone was pensive.

“What do you mean, not yet?” Now the anger bubbled up to the surface. “Millions of people have already seen that by now. For God’s sake, my grandmother has seen it.” She gestured toward the back of the apartment.

He held a palm up to her in deference. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said, “hold on. All I mean is that you haven’t been identified yet.”

“As if that isn’t going to happen within the next few minutes,” she sputtered. “It’s already happening. People are going to figure out pretty damn quickly who I am, and when they do…” Oh, god, she hadn’t really thought through the implications of this. “And when they do, I’m ruined.”

That simple statement seemed to make him collapse. She had imploded the great Michael Bournham. Now it was her turn to get the information that she wanted. This wasn’t about him coming in here and giving her his narrative, it was about her taking back what little self-respect and integrity she could claw away. “You said two years ago”—she stared him down—“you met me at that orientation and you were attracted to me and you said nothing.”

“Yes,” he said simply.