Chapter 7

      How was this her life? Most people never saw their random hookups again. Not Elina. Her hookup was sitting there, in a meeting with her boss. And of course she was supposed to smile and nod at him. Which she barely managed.

      As soon as the meeting was over, Elina tried to book it out of the office. “I’m just going to make a quick coffee run. Anyone need anything?”

      Willow called out, “I’ll take my usual from the coffee cart off Porter.”

      Delilah called, “The same.”

      She didn’t really expect Gabe to have a coffee order. She also didn’t expect that he would come with her. “I’ll just go and help carry it all back. Plus, the least I can do is buy you guys coffee.”

      Shit. She moved faster. It didn’t matter that she was trying to avoid him; he caught up to her quickly enough. “You don’t have to follow me. Why don’t you just go back to the office and I’ll bring you whatever you need.”

      Gabe kept his voice low as she stormed onto the downtown streets. “You are what I need right now, or at least, an answer. Did you know you abandoned me?”

      “I didn’t abandon you. I had to catch the jitney back to the city.” Mostly true.

      “Are you serious right now?” He glared at her.

      Okay, that was a flimsy excuse. But it was all she had at the moment. There was no way she was telling him she ran because she couldn’t handle the connection she’d felt. “Look, these things happen.”

      He sputtered. “These things happen? Not to me they don’t.”

      “What are you doing here?” she spat. “In case you didn’t know, when you hook up with someone, they’re not supposed to turn up the next day. That’s like a rule or something. Or it should be.”

      “Maybe you should stop having random nights out with random dudes.”

      “Don’t do that.”

      “Do what?” Exasperated, he threw his hands up.

      She stiffened her spine, turning back and marching towards Delilah’s favorite coffee cart. “Look, what happened, happened. The best we can do is to pretend it didn’t. We’re gonna go back and act like we don’t know each other, because we don’t when you think about it.”

      He blinked at her. “That’s what you seriously want?”

      “Maybe you don’t know Delilah, but she has a full-disclosure policy and she doesn’t mess around with it. From what I just heard in there, you need her. If she finds out that we slept together, she’ll drop you, given your reputation.”

      “What will she do to you?”

      Elina didn’t want to think about that. “Well, then I can just kiss the career I worked so hard for goodbye. You need your film and I need my job. So we don’t know each other.”

      He pulled her into an alley by the coffee cart. “You can do that? Pretend? That Saturday night never happened?”

      She tilted her chin up. “Yeah, and given your rep, I know you can.”

      His brows snapped down. And then before she knew it, his lips were on hers. Harsh and firm and demanding. His tongue delved into her mouth and demanded she respond. Traitor that her body was, she melted as if today was a continuation of Saturday night and Sunday morning. She knew that when it came to him, she was weak. She wouldn’t be able to stop.

      Gabe pulled back. “Still want to pretend we don’t know each other?”

      Elina scowled and pushed his broad shoulders back. “Yes. As far as you and I are concerned, we’ve never met.” Now all she needed was to tell her body that.