Page 48 of By All Accounts
I took a drink of my soda, hoping it would be enough to clear the desert out of my mouth. It was a shame we both had to go back to work, a shame we had lives that required anything other than whatever Finn wanted from me.
“And I think maybe we should talk about what our plans for the weekend are.”
CHAPTER 17
FINN
It was hard to not be consumed by Daniel and Sophie, but I’d gotten a text message from Smith on Thursday morning asking if I’d made any headway with Marshall for Riggs. I hadn’t. I hadn’t even thought about Marshall since dinner the week before, and I’d left the meal so mad at him I entertained the idea of skipping the next meal entirely. I liked to think it would teach him a lesson about meddling in other people’s business, but I doubted that would be the realized outcome. A career spent in finance meant I was logical about most things, at least about work-related things. Relationships, I was clearly a lost cause. I decided to ignore Smith’s message until I would have a better reply for him, but when I was on the way out of my office at lunch, I walked smack into the problem.
“Where are you headed?” Marshall asked me when the elevator doors opened.
I snaked my finger beneath the collar of my shirt, pulling it away from my neck.
“Lunch,” I answered.
“You have a lunch meeting.”
“No, I don’t.” My phone was already in my hand, and I swiped through to my calendar, ready to show Marshall thatwhile he knew plenty about me, he wasn’t privy to the comings and goings of my work life. Unfortunately, there was a meeting in my calendar that did in fact block out my lunch hour.
“Are you sure?”
“Seems you’re right.” I waved my phone at him and shrugged. “Guess you and I will have to chat another time.”
I turned to head back to my office to deal with whatever this surprise meeting was, but Marshall cleared his throat in that annoyingly authoritative way he had, and it was enough to stop me in my tracks.
“What do you want, Marshall?”
“Your meeting is with me.”
“I doubt that.” But as the words left my mouth, so did the aforementioned doubt.
“If you won’t make time for me, I’ll make you make time for me,” he said flatly.
I spun on my heel and closed the space between us, stalking forward until Marshall had the decency to step back. His shoulders hit the wall, and he stared up at me, expression unreadable.
“You act like I’ve been avoiding you.”
“Haven’t you?”
“I don’t have any missed calls or texts, so no.”
He arched a brow at me, and the elevator door slid open again. “Lunch, Finn?” he asked.
Heasked.
“Fine,” I grumbled, brushing past him and walking into the empty elevator car. “But only because I was already on my way to eat anyway.”
“Where were you going to go?”
He followed me in. The doors closed.
“Just the cafe in the building next door.”
“That’s perfect.”
Marshall shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned against the back wall of the elevator, staring at our reflection in the closed doors until we reached the lobby and they opened.
I walked out without checking to see if he would follow; I knew he would. We walked in silence through the main lobby of my building and out onto the sidewalk. It was a warm day, the sun beating down into the concrete with little to no mercy. Sweat had broken out against my temples by the time we made it to the building next door, but I had no plans to say anything about it. The thing with Marshall was you couldn’t show weakness or he would attack.
