I Won’t Be In On Monday (The Annoying Hot Bosses Club #3)

Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

J uniper

I cannot believe how quickly my heart is racing. I stand next to Remington Parker, and I can feel how tense he is. My lips are pressed against his ear, and I can feel his arms around my waist, holding me close. He pushes me back slightly, and I look into his face. His lips are dangerously close to mine. I want to kiss him. I want him to kiss me, but I don’t. I don’t even know what’s going on. I don’t even know why I’m so upset. Maybe I’m just frustrated from earlier. Maybe I’m ready for the games to end and the fun to begin. I can only take so much teasing.

Seeing him there in the office, talking and laughing with Liam Gallagher as if they didn’t have a care in the world, incensed me. Especially when he asked me if I was okay and they both looked me over in my exercise clothes and wondered what I was doing.

“Shall we get to work?” I say quickly, stepping back. Remington runs his fingers through his hands and blinks rapidly as if he's both frustrated and annoyed at the same time. Good!

“Yeah, I'm going to need you to bring up all the files that you have on the Fallon case and then on the Gilroy case and then on the Stevenson case.”

“Which Stevenson case?” I say, frowning. “You mean the Jasmine Stevenson case? That's not even related to Liam. Or should I say, Mr. Gallagher?”

“Please get the files that I asked you to get.” He stares at me. “I'm going to need you to print out every document on the Fallon case from last year.

“What?” I let out a deep sigh. “Fine, I’ll go and do that now, sir.”

“That’s more like it,” he says with a smirk.

“Excuse me?”

“I like it when you call me sir .”

“Don't get used to it.” I'm about to call him Mr. Parker again, but I don't. For some reason, even though he seems annoyed, I feel like it makes him feel as if he's got even more power over me, and I don't want him to feel that, even though he really does.

For some reason, Remington Parker is looking even more handsome tonight. His tie is almost completely off. The top button of his shirt is undone, and his normally immaculate trousers are wrinkled. He catches me staring at him and raises a single eyebrow. “What's going on?”

His dark eyes look brooding for a couple of seconds, and I shake my head wordlessly.

“Why were you looking at me like that? Is there something on my pants? Or…” He offers me a teasing smile.

“Or what?” I ask him.

“Were you trying to check out my package?”

“What?” I say, blushing furiously. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know, but your eyes were on my crotch for far longer than is normally polite.”

“I was just noticing that your pants were creased, which is unusual because they are usually immaculately ironed.”

“Oh,” he says, and I see a flash of what looks like disappointment pass through his eyes.

Why would he be disappointed? Is he that upset that his pants don’t look perfect? “I mean, it is Friday night,” I say quickly. “No need to be embarrassed or anything.”

“I'm not embarrassed,” he says. “I've been working all week. Of course, my pants are going to be creased. I mean, it's not like I've just been in a vacuum doing nothing all day.”

“So then, why did you—" I shake my head. “You know what, let me just go and get these files for you.”

I head towards the door, and he walks behind me. I feel his hand on my shoulder, spinning me around. “Why did I what?” he asks softly, gazing at me. That deep, dark, intense look is back in his eyes, and I swallow nervously. I feel his fingers on the back of my neck.

“What are you doing?” I whisper.

“Just taking it down,” he says, grabbing my hair tie and pulling it so that my hair goes cascading down my back. He smiles as he looks at me. “I like it when you have your hair down.”

I lick my lips nervously and push my glasses back up my nose.

“You look cute in your glasses, you know that?”

“I look like an owl,” I say self-deprecatingly. “I do have contacts. But I’m still not used to wearing them.”

“But maybe?—”

“But maybe what?”

“You don’t have to wear contacts.”

“I do if I don’t want to look like an owl.”

“What’s wrong with looking like an owl?” he says. “Not that I think you look like an owl,” he adds quickly.

“Oh, you don’t think I look like an owl? Do you know how many times I have been called four eyes?”

“Do you really feel that self-conscious about your glasses?” He frowns, touching the side of my face.

I nod slowly. “A little. I mean, it hasn't exactly helped me in the dating department.” Shit, I wish I hadn’t shared that with him.

He cocks his head to the side. “I mean, you got a date with this Marco, right?”

“Yeah.” I think of Marco for a second and smile. “True, I did.”

“And I guess you are looking forward to that?” he says, licking his lips.

“Yeah, I think it's going to be a lot of fun. He seems like a really nice guy.”

“I mean, you don't really know him. You don't know if he's a nice guy. Every guy seems nice at first.”

“True. I thought you were nice at first.”

He grimaces. “And now you don't?”

“No, I mean, you're a bit annoying at times, but I still think you're nice enough.”

“Yeah? If I were to have seen you in a restaurant and asked you on a date, would you have said yes?”

“What?” I ask, my heart racing.

“I mean, I'm just asking hypothetically,” he says, quickly. “Obviously, that's not a scenario either one of us would be in.”

“Of course, we would never be in that scenario,” I say quickly, my heart deflating. “But no, I don’t think I would accept a date with you if you asked me, especially if I didn’t know who you were,” I say lying, through my teeth.

“Oh.” He takes a step back. “And why is that?”

“Just not my type. I'm not really into attorneys or men that date a lot of women or seem to have too much of a flirt game.”

“You think I have a flirt game?” He grins. “Really?”

“I mean, I've never seen you in action. Well, not really, but yeah. I mean, you send roses and flowers. You always take them to nice restaurants. You buy expensive jewelry, and then you just disappear and ghost them.”

“What do you mean, I disappear and ghost them? I don’t do that.”

“Yeah, you do. Do you know how many different women call me, trying to get in contact with you?” He stares at me for a couple of seconds.

“I mean, when the relationship is over, it's over.”

“But you don't even really have relationships. You just do dates.”

“I don't sleep with all these women, if that's what you're thinking. I'm not some sort of manwhore who sends a woman flowers, takes her to dinner, fucks her, and then never speaks to her again.”

“I know you don’t,” I say quickly, even though I have no idea what he does or doesn’t do in the bedroom. I’m glad to hear that he doesn’t sleep with them all, though. I wonder if he touches them like he touched me. If he licks their juices off of his fingers like it’s champagne.

“I mean, I'm not a monk,” he adds quickly. “I have slept with some of them. But I'm not taking them to dinner to get some, you know. I'm not one of those guys that does whatever he can to get laid.”

“Well, I am glad to hear that.”

“So, would that make you change your mind?”

“Change my mind about what?” I say.

“If I were to ask you out, would you say yes?”

I swallow hard.

“Because there's something I wanted to ask you, Juniper.” I blink rapidly as he grabs my hand and pulls me into him.

“What's that?” I say, staring up at him.

“Well,” he says, leaning down towards me.

This is it , I think to myself. He’s going to kiss me. I don’t know why. I don’t know how. I don’t know what is happening. But I can feel it in my bones. He’s going to kiss me.And I feel like I might catch on fire. I’m so excited and hopeful. And then the door opens and Liam walks in.

“Hey, I just got a phone call from the other side, and they just said that they are backing down on everything.”

“What?” Remington takes a step back and frowns, running his fingers through his hair. “What are you talking about?”

“The other side. The reason why we had to work tonight.”

“Oh, the Fallon case?” Remington says quickly.

Liam nodded. “Yeah, well, old man Fallon just called me, and he said that he thinks we can work it out next week. And we don’t have to go ahead with the proceedings.”

Remington looks taken aback. And I blink at them both. “What is going on here?”

“You don’t have to work tonight anymore,” Liam says. “And I have to get out of here. Something just came up.” He shrugs and looks at Remington. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay, Liam. See you on Monday.”

“Sounds good. Nice seeing you again, Juniper. Don’t forget, if you decide you want to work for me, the offer is still open.”

“Thank you, Mr. Gallagher,” I say. “I may actually take you up on that soon.”

I look over at Remington, and he’s frowning. Liam walks out of the office and heads to the elevator while Remington and I just stand there, sizing each other up.

“What was that?” I frown.

“What do you mean? What was what?”

“I don't understand what's going on. You made it seem like we absolutely had to be here tonight and that you guys were working this weekend. All of a sudden, Liam gets some random call from old man Fallon? Who's old man Fallon? The plaintiff in the case is Evelyn Fallon. And that's an HR dispute. What is going on here? Did her dad call him?”

Remington looks at me for a couple of seconds and lets out a deep sigh. “Okay, fine. There was no actual work we had to do tonight.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about the fact that there was no actual work we had to do tonight. I just needed you here in the office for other reasons.”

“What other reasons? What is going on here?” I pause. “To fuck me?”

“I didn't think it was a good idea for you to go out with Marco.”

“Why not?”

“Because he didn't sound like the right guy for you.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I don't think he could make your heart race like this.”

“Like what?” I say. And before I know what's happening, he steps forward, grabs me around the waist, and pulls me into him. I look up into his eyes, and I'm about to ask what he's doing when I feel his head lower, and then his lips are on mine, and he's kissing me. I reach up and wrap my arms around his neck and play with his silky dark hair. I melt against him as his lips press against mine. His tongue slips into mine, and the warm feeling makes 100 fireworks go off in my stomach.

Now, this is a kiss. This was something worth waiting for. This is magic.