Alex scoffed.
‘Come on, don’t tell me that you don’t still want to jump his bones?’
‘What business is my personal life of yours?’ Laurel was frosty. How goddamned unprofessional. Exactly what had Nate told him?
‘Oh none, none at all,’ he said. ‘But if you want my advice…’ She did not want his advice. ‘I wouldn’t bother.’ Alex picked at his short nails. ‘I mean, you’re not exactly his type, are you?’
She knew he was winding her up, but she couldn’t help herself.
‘Oh?’
‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ he said, conspiratorially, leaning towards her, ‘but you’re just a small town girl. You work on a farm.’
Laurel crossed her arms across her chest, fighting to keep her eyebrows down. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Well, Nate’s a big picture kind of guy. He’s after exciting, exotic, unusual.’ Alex was describing Lucia. ‘You know, and that’s just not you, is it?’ She did know, and it wasn’t her.
‘I mean, you’d be a great little diversion.’
Her jaw dropped.
Alex whipped a hand to his mouth mockingly. ‘Oops, sorry, can’t say stuff like that, can I?’
Laurel cleared her throat. What was even happening here? It was all so surreal.
‘I’m just saying, you’re not really…’ he looked around for inspiration, ‘his type.’
Alex gave her a condescending, closed-lipped smile.
‘He goes for stunningly attractive, intelligent women.’
What. The. Fuck.
This was a horrifying repeat of the last conversation she and Alex had had ten years ago. Except last time, Alex was sitting opposite her in the student union bar. He had been disgustingly, shatteringly harsh. So had Nate for sending Alex to talk to her, rather than having the guts to talk to her himself. But she and Nate had put things behind them and started getting to know each other. Alex didn’t seem inclined to do the same.
But Laurel wasn’t twenty anymore, and she didn’t have to put up with Alex’s shit. She did, however, have to get him onside for his financial recommendation. She ground her teeth.
‘I think it’s so admirable how far you go for your friend, admirable that you look out for him so much, after all this time,’ she said, laying it on thick. ‘I mean, what an amazing person you must be to be constantly thinking of Nate and his life.’ She shook her head slightly. ‘I don’t know how you do it, you must love him very much.’
Laurel pushed up from the desk and turned to grab some papers and her phone, her heart a military march in her ears. Didn’t matter what papers, just some papers, anything.
Alex made some kind of throaty, choking, coughing sound. ‘I’m not gay, you know,’ he said, wide eyed and shocked.
‘Oh.’ Laurel looked at him with feigned surprise. ‘I would never presume to know you that well,’ she said with a smile.
‘I like women,’ he said scathingly. ‘I’m just looking out for my friend.’
What a fragile little man Alex Woollard was.
‘Just doing what any good friend would do,’ Laurel commented and headed for the door, turning back to Alex before opening it. ‘I’ll be around if you want that tour, or if you need anything else. I really want to make this work.’
Laurel gave him a genuine smile. She desperately needed his recommendation, but he also needed to know that he couldn’t get away with saying things like that. It wasn’t the fifties, they weren’t twenty, and there was no tolerance for that in the workplace. Although, she was just as bad as him, goading and baiting him, being petty and immature.
Little Willow Farm needed this funding, and Laurel hoped to God that she hadn’t fucked it up.
Chapter Ten
Nate
