Page 50 of Between Takes
“I look nothing like Lily Tyler.”
Isla snorted. “Lily Tyler doesn’t look like Lily Tyler if you remove all the photoshop, but I’ll humour you. What does that have to do with anything?”
“He clearly has a type. I’m the opposite of that type.”
Lily Tyler was a five-foot-eight glamazon. She had stunning blond hair that flowed down her back and a face that would stop you in your tracks if you met her in the street. I wasn’t exactly tiny next to her, but I definitely didn’t have the same effect on men.
“Do you seriously think the man knew what his type was at sixteen? She was his first and only girlfriend. I’d say nothing is set in stone with him just yet.”
“Can you stop stripping away my defences? I need to work with him. It’s hard enough to do that when he’s inviting himself out with me and touching me at the most unexpected moments.”
Isla shrieked. “There’s been touching? You didn’t tell me that!”
“Honestly, what am I going to do with you? Prioritise. The. Facts.” If I could have clapped and held the phone, I would have. “He’s my boss. It’s not okay to lust after your boss.”
“If he wasn’t your boss, would you be holding off?” Isla asked, her voice subdued and serious.
“No,” I whispered, needing to say the words but also wishing I could keep lying to myself. “I’ve never had someone make me shiver with just the brush of a hand.”
Isla whistled. “Now I’m hot and I’ve not even got a man. Jeez, Mona, you need to do something about this.” I opened my mouth to argue, but she cut me off before I could so much as huff. “I don’t mean with him – although I still say there’s nothing wrong with following industry norms. If your lusting after him has nothing to do with him, then find someone else and scratch the itch.”
I covered my eyes and groaned. “Finding someone else” meant having a life, and having a life meant not working for Shaun. Because one, my hours weren’t sociable, and two, even if I did manage to “find someone else”, there was no way in hell I could go out without Shaun giving me grief about it, or worse, tagging along. He seemed to have a sixth sense for my making after-work plans. And what if I was drunk and Shaun fell off the wagon? I couldn’t exactly help him course correct if I was also drunk.
“Fastest way to get to the root of it all,” Isla said, her voice matter-of-fact, as if she knew the thoughts warring inside my head.
Why did she have to make sleeping with Shaun seem like such a good idea? Now it would be all I could think about.
I hung up more frustrated than when I’d answered. Actually, when I’d answered, I’d been living in blissful ignorance land. But that was no longer an option.
Damn meddling sisters.
