The Other Marlowe Girl (Marlowe Girls) (8 page)

“Uh-huh. Luke, you wouldn’t be lying to me, would you?”

He was quiet for a minute. “If I am, I have a good reason that involves no culpability on my part, so could you just go with it? Trust me?”

“You know I don’t like just trusting things, right?”

“But I wouldn’t ask you to if it weren’t important, would I, Tiffany?” His voice was so soft when he said her name I could barely hear him. She placed a hand on his shoulder, leaned over, and pecked him on the head. They made me sick.

Enrique came in. 

“I’m going to start charging you rent,” Luke said.

“I’ll pay it as long as Tiffany cooks for me.”

She smiled. “The food can’t be that good.”

“No, it’s the blonde.” He put a hand on my shoulder, but I shirked away.

“I thought you might need a ride since my car is in the shop.”

“Luke’s taking me,” I said.

“It might be uncomfortable,” Luke said. “I have a car seat in the back.”

“It’s okay. It’s cold on the bike.” Yeah, right. I could think of no place hotter than the back of Enrique’s bike with my arms clasped snugly around his waist.

“It is cool out. Do you want a ride?” Luke looked to Enrique.

“No, but I want a waffle.” He grabbed a waffle from the plate.

Tiffany slapped his hand. “Use a fork. I’m telling your mom.” 

“You sure, Enrique?” Luke asked.

 
What was this? I thought I wasn’t good enough for Luke’s brother anyhow. Why was he trying to get me stuck in the backseat with him?”
 

As we walked the stairwell to the double doors of the law firm, Luke stopped and said, “Senora, Hernandez?” She turned to look at him, and he pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and pulled her face to him. Their lips locked, and her body curled around him in a way that was uncomfortable to watch. I cleared my throat, but they ignored me. “Gross, can’t you take it to your office or something?”
 

They broke apart chuckling. “Once we get inside, we’re colleagues,” she said.

“Anything else would be inappropriate,” he said.

“That’s why we never stick around for lunch.”

“Oh, that was way too much information,” I snapped.

I heard a familiar laugh behind me that put goose bumps on my arms. Enrique. “You’ve been staying with them all week, and this is your first brush with their happy marriage?”

“I thought they would act like old people in public.”

Enrique laughed harder. “I’m not that much older than you!” Tiffany shrieked.

“Three years is a long time, but whatever. I’m going in. I have to work while you stand outside and make out with the boss’s son.”

“You could too, you know?” Enrique said, turning my face crimson. 
 

I gasped. I couldn’t believe he’d said something so blunt in front of Luke and Tiffany. The thought of making out with Enrique on the stairway was way too tempting, but I was still angry with him for telling on me. I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I kicked him.

“Oh, you’re going to pay for that.”

I ran for the door.

“No running in the building. It’s a liability,” Tiffany called.

“Luke can’t fire me,” Enrique said, chasing after me. I ran for the elevator and hit the up button, pausing to wait for the car. When the door opened, I stepped inside, and he came up behind me, grabbing my waist. The laughing was gone, leaving a mixture of desire and emotion. 

“Let go of me. I am mad at you.” I struggled to get out of his hold with no success.

“You’re safer this way, so I don’t regret it.”

“We’re at work. Just drop it.” He let go of me now.
 

“Can we talk sometime today?”

The door opened, saving me from answering.

Chapter 10

I hadn’t been in my cubicle for ten minutes when Luke stepped in my cloth covered box and slid the plastic screen closed.

“I heard you think I’m the reason your sister doesn’t talk to you.”

Wow! So Enrique told him that, too. 
I shrugged. “You don’t like me and you don’t make much effort to hide it. I can’t imagine Tiffany holding this kind of a grudge for so long.”
 

“I told her not to talk to you the night I met her because she was worried about paying for the hotel rooms, and all of your friends, and getting you out of jail. I haven’t said it since. Tiffany doesn’t always put up a fight with people because she doesn’t like conflict. She thinks for herself though. Did you ever even apologize? And I don’t just mean for what you did that weekend and never paying her back, but,” his eyes darted to the sides of my cube as if to make sure no one was on the other side, “you slept with her boyfriend in her house.”

“Why are we still on that? I loved him. She didn’t. And shouldn’t it bother you that your wife is still angry about a break up that happened years ago?”

He shook his head. “Kammy, grow up.” He sounded like my sister just then. “I just came to tell you that I would like for your sister to have a relationship with you. I’ve never done anything to harm that. If I’m not so friendly sometimes, it’s because I don’t trust you. I’m sorry.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“I don’t care, but now you know.”

“What have I ever done to you?”

“I love Tiffany.” He paused for a minute. “Look, you’re her sister and Lucí’s aunt. I’ll try to be nicer, but don’t make me regret it. And what are you and Enrique fighting about?”

“None of your business.”

“You’re right, but he—don’t hurt him, okay?”

“Can’t. We’re not talking. You only get to be my brother-in-law after five, so unless you need something, get out of my cube, please?” I picked up a stack of papers I was supposed to sort for Sylvia and laid them out in front of me.

He nodded. “You did a good job yesterday.” That was the nicest thing Luke had ever said to me. He walked out of my cube, closing the screen behind him.

I wasn’t about to try to get a ride with Tiffany at lunch, so with nothing else to do, I decided to watch “So You Think You Can Dance” on my computer. This girl was overambitious, mixing ballet steps into her salsa, and almost fell. Twenty comments talked about how elegant she was. It was so stupid. She couldn’t even dance in her heels, and I was about to tell them that when my phone buzzed against my desk. I never answered numbers I didn’t know, but I decided to on a whim. The manager of Burgers N’ More near Tiffany’s had called to set up an interview for that night. Before I got off the phone, someone tapped on my screen while opening it. “We could get lunch,” Enrique said.

“If you’re opening the door while knocking, what’s the point of knocking?”

“I’m sorry.”

“What do you need?”

“To talk to you.” He took a seat in the chair across from my desk.

“Fine. Say what you have to say.”

“I didn’t tell him what you think I did.”

“But you told him I think he’s the reason Tiffany hates me.”

“I asked him about it. He laughed at me. He said that Tiffany rarely listens to him, and he would never tell her what to think about someone even if she did.”

I glared at him. “I asked you not to.”

“I did it to help.” 

I crossed my arms. “What else did you tell him?”

“That you have a stalker, and I’m worried about you. I mentioned the text in front of his house.”

“You didn’t mention that my stalker is a—”

He brought his finger to his lip, shushing me then whispered, “Don’t say it here.”

I nodded.

“No, I didn’t give him any details.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“For what?” he asked.

“Making such a big deal out of it.”

“Can I take you out tonight?”

The screen of my cube whipped back and Luke came in, glaring at me then his brother. “What the hell are you doing in here? If you don’t have enough work to do, I can give you more.”

“What’s wrong?” Enrique asked.

“I cannot believe you!” he shouted at me. “If you didn’t want to do something, or couldn’t do it, you should have told me.” 
 

“What are you talking about?”

Tiffany appeared in the open space of my cube where the screen should have been. “Luke, your secretary said you needed to see me, and the receptionist said you would be here. What’s wrong?”

“Did you send her here?” Luke asked.

“Send who here?”

“Tiffany, I know you want to help your sister, but this was not the way to do it,” he said.

Tiffany put her hand on her hip. “I don’t know what we’re talking about.”

“Did you send her to talk to Angie?”

“No, I didn’t even know you had an opening,” she said.

“
Anjel, 
are you busy today?” he asked.
 

“No more so than usual. What do you need?”

“I have to go to court, and it has to be me because no one else can handle this. I’ve got twelve boxes of copies in my office that I can’t use, and I’ll need them tonight. Can you help my secretary? There is no way she can do it herself, and no one else is available.”

“Sure, but I’m charging you overtime.” She smiled.

“Give yourself a raise while you’re at it. I’ll help when I get back.”

“I don’t think you’ll need to. I think I can probably loan out a secretary and an accounting assistant, but I have to ask. I won’t make them do it. Why can’t you use the copies you have?”

He shook his head and shot me a glare before answering her. “Because they were copied single sided, meaning half the pages are missing.” 

Tiffany nodded before rushing off.

My heart sank. I stood at that copy machine for six hours, skipping lunch to get it done. Of course, I would screw it up. I managed to do that with everything I touched.

Luke was seething. “Kammy, tell me you didn’t do that on purpose.”

“I didn’t.” 
I actually thought I did something right for once.
 

“How did you not see the copies were two sided?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t really look. I just picked up piles, made the copies, clipped, stapled, and stickied them, the way the originals had been.”

He laughed. “You didn’t look. Of course you didn’t. Why am I not surprised?”

I’d gone from being stressed over this fiasco to angry. “I did exactly what you asked me to.”

“No. You did about half of what I asked you to.”

Standing, I pushed my chair back and leaned over my desk. “You never mentioned they were two sided.”

“Everyone else in this building can read. I didn’t know I had to.”

“Luke, calm down. It was her first day. She made a mistake,” Enrique said.

“And that mistake cost money.”

“You’re being a jackass.”

“As soon as I saw you were mixed up with her, I told you to think with your head. If you had listened, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

That pissed me off. I didn’t like what he was insinuating because our relationship was the most innocent relationship I’d had since the eighth grade. And seriously, I was so tired of people assuming someone couldn’t be interested in me for any other reason. But before I could respond, Enrique did. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“If Tiffany didn’t send her here, you did. Because you were thinking with the wrong body part, and this incident aside, just get a nice girl.”

Enrique popped up from the chair across from my desk where he had been sitting and swung at Luke’s face. Luke caught Enrique’s arm with his hand before it connected.

“Point proven. 
Papa’s 
going to find out about this.”
 

“Whoa. What? You’re telling on me because you don’t like my girlfriend?”

Luke laughed. He picked up a tablet and pen from my desk and handed them both to Enrique. “I’m going to say this one more time slowly, so write it down. Think. With. Your. Head. Angie says I can’t even fire her, because it was her first day and she has no experience. I have to write her up three times just to get rid of her. Paper and ink cost money and so does time. We’re losing money, so you could see your girlfriend at work. I think I should write 
you 
up.”
 

Who was I kidding?
 I’m a twenty-four year old dance school drop out. I have no skills. 
I thought about quitting. It would make him happy and probably save Enrique a lot of trouble. But I owed a drug dealer ten thousand dollars, and this seemed like a good way to start paying him back.
 
“Luke, if you’re through
 
yelling at me, get out of my cube, please.”
 

“Done. Find some work to do, because if I see you not working, I’m writing you up.” He looked to Enrique. “You’re at work. Don’t waste too much time.” 

“Actually, I’m taking the rest of the day off. I have more than enough vacation time to cover it, so call your broad and tell her to make it work.”

“Don’t disrespect my wife.”

Enrique shrugged. “How did she get her job again?”

“It saved me money to hire her.”

“I’m sure it didn’t have anything to do with that fat rock on her hand either.”

“Leave my wife out of this!” Luke growled.

“Has she ever worked a fourteen-hour day here? I think her life has been a lot better since she married you. She even traded her Honda in for a Lexus, didn’t she? But that was before you got married.” He shook his head. “Probably weren’t thinking with your head, Luke. I bet you don’t even have a pre-nup. Could be why she married you.”

“It is not!” I said.

Now Luke swung at Enrique who ducked to avoid the punch. “There’s that work place violence again,” Enrique said. I couldn’t take anymore. I got up and walked around them to get out of my cube. “Where are you going?” he asked.

“To help my gold digging sister if she wants it. She probably won’t though. She knows I’m a screw up.”

Enrique followed me out of my cube. “Wait, let’s grab a taco. I need to talk to you about something.”

“Sure,” I said flatly. I had no idea what he wanted to talk about, but he was right. We did need to talk. I cared about Enrique more than any guy I’d ever dated. I thought I loved him, except I knew there was no such thing as love. I found that out the hard way and made my sister hate me in the process. But this thing between us was getting way too complicated. It needed to end.