I can’t even speak. There’s a reason for the phraseboiling bloodbecause that’s exactly what it feels like. At least it feels like that for a second. One glance at Elle’s face of brows knitted with worry, and the feeling morphs into suffocating panic.
“I need that fucking money,” I snap. “Youneed that fucking money.”
She hitches both shoulders. “So go back over there and apologize.” She throws her empty hand in the air and lets it drop at her side. “Or hell, tell him the truth. Tell him we made it up to avoid drama.Or…” She points at me. “Throw the blame on me. Go tell him I blackmailed you and forced you to do this charade with you so they would—”
“I will notapologizeto him after he called youthatand humiliatedyou!”
Elle squints and tilts her head in that way she always does when she’s confused. I kind of hate that I know her mannerisms that well by now because it’s going to fuck me up as much as the rest of it.
“What does him talking about me like that matter to you?” She sets the iPad on the dresser and then folds her arms across her chest. “Youhumiliated me the first day we met and countless times after that. You suddenly deciding to defend my honor like this is just going to cost you a major deal.”
I take an aggressive step toward her, bringing our faces only inches apart. “Inevershould’ve treated you like that. I had my reasons, but they were wrong.”
Elle’s posture sinks slightly as she turns her face away. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Itdoesmatter,” I growl through my teeth, jaw clenched. “I was wrong, and he was wrong, and we need that money, and now we’refucked.”
I step around her to drop onto a large, leather bench at the foot of the bed and peel off my jacket, tossing it to one side. She does a small pivot to watch me as I roll up my sleeves and jerk my tie to loosen it.
“Okay, but, Colin.” Elle sighs quietly. “We’re not fucked. Worst case scenario, we’re no worse off than we were. Okay? You’ll close other deals and get that money eventually.” She lifts her dark brows placidly. “You’re the guy who can sell ketchup popsicles, remember?”
“Yeah, and what aboutyou?” I rake my hand through my hair and then flip it through the air in a gesture at her. “What about all your debt? What about all the stuff you were going to do with the money Isworethat I was going to get for you?”
“I’ll be fine.” She flits her fingers dismissively. “Don’t act like you suddenly have a moral imperative to look out for me.”
“Yeah, well, what if I suddenlydo?”
It’s a dicey-as-fuck remark, and Elle draws back her chin, eyeing me warily. She paces the width of the bench twice before pausing and kicking off her heels.
“You don’t need that,” she says, reaching for my jacket. “You know what you need?”
I merely stare at her with a deadpan expression.
She wafts the jacket in front of me as though she’s a matador preparing to fight a bull. “This is what you need.”
I turn over my palm questioningly. “My jacket?”
Elle twirls the coat through the air above her head before slipping her arms through the sleeves and draping it over her comparatively tiny frame. She holds up her hands in front of her, bracing them wide like she’s a magician about to perform a magic trick.
“Fat guy in a little coat,” she declares.
I arch a brow, and a wide grin spreads across her face as she points at me, the sleeve of the jacket hanging off the end of her finger.
“I’m forcing you back to your happy place, Colin.” Elle raises her arms at her sides again and starts swaying from side to side. “Fat guy in a little coat. Fat guy in a little coat.”
Pure stubbornness to avoid effortlessly abandoning my foul mood causes me to wipe my hand across my mouth to hide my smile.
She’s recreating the most iconic scene from Tommy Boy in an effort to cheer me up. And this is the exact moment when I take a headlong leap off a cliff and fall in love with her.
Fuck.
“Fat guy in a little coat!” Elle chirps with a laugh, still swaying. “Fat guuuy in a little coo-ooaat…!”
I manage to wipe my smile into a smirk and then gesture at her with an open palm as I stand up. “You are not a fat guy, nor is that a little coat.”
She snickers again. “Yeah, but ‘fat guy in a little coat’ was when Richard and Tommy were at a desperate point during their sales trip. After ‘fat guy in a little coat,’ it all started to turn around for them.” She punches her sleeve-covered fist into my left pec muscle. “So this is your new happy place, Colin. When shit hits the fan like right now, you need to remember ‘fat guy in a little coat’ and know that you’re gonna turn that shit right back around. Yeah?”
Elle looks absurd wearing my jacket, but wearing it over another of her pretty little cocktail dresses and with bare feet makes her look like we just got home from a date. Like she got chilly in the nighttime city breeze, and I put it on her to keep her warm. Like we’re everything I hoped we might become when I first saw her in that coffee shop.
