Sarah Mayberry - One Good Reason

“You heard me.”

“Sweetheart, you have got to be the most uptight chick I have ever met in my life.”

“My name is Gabby, thanks. And I want your word that you’ll stay out of the showroom. If Dino’s prepared to put up with you stuffing him around in the workshop that’s his business. But Tyler and I handle sales and I won’t have you screwing with our clients. Literally or figuratively.”

Something fiery and dangerous flashed in his dark gray eyes. He grabbed her by the upper arms, forcibly picking her up and moving her to one side as though she were a piece of furniture. Then he was gone, and she was left gaping at his audacity.

“How dare you!” she said to the empty kitchen.

Good lord, she sounded like a Victorian maiden. An hysterical, outraged Victorian maiden on the verge of the vapors. Any second now she’d be reaching for her smelling salts or calling for her maid to burn some feathers.

How on earth had he managed to turn the tables on her so effectively? He’d been utterly in the wrong, yet somehow she was left feeling like some uptight morals campaigner. He was the one who’d taken advantage of Tyler’s generosity, not her. Jon was the one who should be feeling stupid and wrong and out of sorts.

You’re an asshole, Jon Adamson .

Damn straight he was. That was why she’d been so prickly and bristly around him right from the start—her instincts had simply been ahead of the game, recognizing his essential asshole-ness way before he’d shown his true colors.

Which was great, except for one thing—she worked with him now. For the foreseeable future, she had to face him every day from nine to five.

Relax. He’s a screwup. He’ll mess up again. And next time Tyler will notice and then it will only be a matter of time .

She took a deep breath, then let it out.

Tyler was a good guy and a generous employer, but he was also an astute and passionate businessman. Once he realized his brother was deadwood, Jon would be gone.

It couldn’t happen soon enough.

JON DIDN’T CONSIDER HIMSELF A tough guy to get along with. Sure, he wasn’t a cuddly, let-me-be-your-instant-best-friend kind of guy, but he usually rubbed along okay with most people. He had a handful of good mates. He managed to end most of his romantic liaisons without tears and recriminations.

So why had Gabby taken such an instant and steadfast dislike to him?

He punched the table saw on and lined up his first cut, feeding the timber slowly into the blade.

He’d apologized for using her computer. He’d bitten his tongue last night when she’d been all bent out of shape about him locking up. He’d even sought her out to explain that she hadn’t seen what she’d thought she’d seen when she’d come into the showroom. And she’d still looked at him as though she’d scraped him off her shoe.

It had to be the lesbian thing. Maybe she saw him as competition. Maybe she’d had a bad experience with a man that had tainted her view of his gender for all time. Whatever, he was done with worrying about her prickly sensibilities. From now on, it was every man—or woman—for himself.

You’re the one who’s taking advantage of Tyler, taking his job offer and then arriving late on your second day .

He frowned, shaking his head in an attempt to dislodge her words. As he’d explained to her, he’d called Dino, let him know he was running late. He’d been up half the night, unable to sleep, pacing the floor of his apartment and staring at late-night TV like a zombie. And when he’d finally fallen asleep in the early hours he’d been so out of it he’d slept through the alarm. But it wasn’t as though he hadn’t put in the hours yesterday—it had been nearly midnight when he left the workshop, bone weary and covered in sawdust—and it wasn’t as though he wouldn’t make up for the time today. As for taking advantage of Tyler … Jon’s conscience was clear on that one, too. He and Tyler had an understanding, and it was none of Miss Prissy’s business.

Jon lined up his next cut. Sawdust and wood chips flew as he ripped the length of the wood.

How do you think it looks to the other guys, the boss’s brother strolling in whenever he feels like it?

He told himself to concentrate on the matter at hand, but Gabby’s words continued to eat at him. He could tell himself she knew nothing and that her words held no weight. But the truth was that if he had an employee who’d turned up late on the second day of work, he wouldn’t be too impressed, either. Not that he was Gabby’s employee … but he could see her point. Considered objectively, it had probably looked bad. And it definitely didn’t send a great message to the other staff members.

He swore under his breath, then hit the stop button. Pulling the ear protectors from his head, he faced the inevitable: Gabby was right. But only about the late thing. He’d go to his grave defending his conversation with Fiona-the-blonde in the showroom. They’d been flirting, for Pete’s sake—hardly a crime against nature. It wasn’t as though he’d been about to club her over the head and drag her to his cave. They’d had a few laughs, eyed each other approvingly. Maybe, if things had warmed up, he’d have gotten her number. That’s it.

Miss Prissy needed to get a life.

He glanced toward her office. She was visible through the open doorway, her head bent over her work. A small frown wrinkled her forehead. She was so serious . Did she never let her hair down? He tried to imagine it and couldn’t. She was too stiff and distant and uptight.

She glanced up and he looked away before she caught him staring. God knew what she’d make of that. Sexual harassment, probably.

He smiled faintly. The idea of him trying to get it on with her was too absurd. She would probably kick him in the nuts then take photos of him writhing on the floor to show the rest of the sisterhood.

Dino walked past and gave him a questioning look. “You all right there, mate?”

Jon realized he was standing in the middle of the workshop with a piece of wood in his hands, staring at nothing. And that he’d wasted the past half hour thinking about Gabby Wade.

“All good,” he assured the other man.

Then he collected the other pieces of timber and took them to where Carl was waiting.

GABBY LEFT WORK BEFORE SIX o’clock that night for the first time in months. Tyler and Ally had invited her for dinner to celebrate her birthday. Technically, it wasn’t until the weekend but Ally and Tyler were hosting the firm’s delayed Christmas party on Saturday night—they’d been so busy in the lead-up to Christmas that everyone had voted to postpone the party until a time when things were less hectic. Gabby would have been happy to combine the two events—or, better yet, forget her birthday altogether—but Ally had insisted they have a separate dinner to mark Gabby’s special day.

Normally Tyler forgot her birthday, then made up for it by buying her something expensive a month or so later. Times had changed. He had Ally to remind him now.

Gabby parked close to their double-fronted Victorian home and fumbled in her bag for her lipstick. She found a roll of mints and two tampons, but no lipstick. Damn. Maybe she should have made the time to swing home and freshen up.

Who are you trying to impress, anyway? It’s just Ally and Tyler .

Her hand stilled in her bag. It was a good question. Who was she trying to impress? Not Tyler anymore. That horse had well and truly bolted. As for Ally, right from the start she’d embraced Gabby has a friend.

Yet there was no denying the fact that Gabby found herself playing the comparison game whenever she spent any significant time with Tyler’s wife. It was hard not to, given the superficial similarities between the two of them. They were both on the petite side, and they both had short, dark hair. Sure, Ally was much curvier than Gabby, and her hair was curly instead of dead straight, but it wasn’t as though Tyler had gone off and married a six-foot-six redhead. Then there was the fact that both she and Ally were not exactly shy, retiring types …