Accidental Rivals_An Office Romance Read online

  “Who else could carry off a ring like that one?” he asks.

  “The ring is one thing.” I finally pry my eyes from it and focus on him.

  He’s kneeling in front of me now.

  “It’s what the ring means.”

  “The ring means I love you, and I want you to be my wife.”

  “Zack…”

  He watches the emotions flicker over my face. “Marry me,” he urges, his voice is thick with feeling.

  I can’t speak. My hands are shaking. I’ve never seen him quite like this.

  He’s always so cool and confident. Now he looks as if he’s unsure. As if his very life depends on my answer. “Marry me, Sienna.”

  “Are you sure about this?” I whisper.

  “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. You’ll make me the happiest man alive by saying yes.”

  “Oh Zack,” I say, and my voice breaks. Tears that have gathered without my knowledge slide down my face. I swallow the frog in my throat.

  “You’re supposed to be happy, you idiot.”

  Filled with overwhelming joy and happiness, I start to laugh.

  He watches me for a second, then he too, starts to laugh. “Okay, now I’m starting to worry about your answer,” he says.

  My arms go around his neck and I rest my forehead against his. “Do you really love me, Zack?”

  “I’m only going to say this once, because you know, street cred and everything. What I feel for you, Sienna cannot be described. Even love is too weak a word for it. I need you like I need air. I would kill for you. That would be too easy. I would die for you. I know I can live like this with you for eternity, but I want to claim you. I want you to be just mine. I want every man who looks at you to understand immediately that you belong to me. You’re damn well taken. I want to see your belly grow big with our children. I want to hold you while your hair turns and your skin wrinkles. For better, for worse, through sickness and pain I want you by my side. I want everything with you, or nothing with anyone else. You are everything to me, Sienna. Everything.” He pauses. “Now, for fuck’s sake, will you marry me?”

  I look into his beautiful eyes and my voice is hushed with the wonder of the moment. “I love you, Zack. Like I’ve loved no one.”

  I see the relief come into is eyes. He wasn’t kidding. He really was worried I might say no.

  I tangle my hands in his silky hair and pull his head down. The kiss is slow, deep and passionate.

  “Can I take that as a yes?” he asks with a grin, when our lips part.

  I laugh. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, a million times over,” I shout.

  He glances around. “This is not the most romantic of scenarios, but I just couldn’t imagine waiting another minute. That ring has been burning a hole in my pocket all weekend. I just had to give it to you.”

  “Oh, Zack.”

  Everything goes blurry as he takes the container from me, sliding the ring up over the chopsticks. I can’t believe I’m holding out my left hand for him to slide the most beautiful, perfect ring I’ve ever seen… over my finger.

  He kisses the back of my hand.

  Suddenly, I’m glad that we’re not at the top of the Eiffel Tower, or the Empire State Building, or some other wonderful place with a terrific view, candles and flowers, that we’re not both dressed to the nines and enjoying a gourmet meal. What matters is right now, the two of us, being together without anyone around to see what I am going to do next.

  And that I love him more than I thought possible.

  “Of course, I will,” I whisper, and anything else I have to say is lost when he kisses me.

  That’s all right. I have the rest of my life to say everything that’s in my heart.

  And they lived happily ever after… :-)

  Sweet Revenge (Sample chapters)

  Chapter 1

  Dawn

  “Wait. What? Are you…dumping me?” I gasp in disbelief, as I lean back against the cupboard to steady myself.

  “I guess so,” he mutters, his shifty eyes sliding away.

  “I guess so? What the hell does that mean? Are you, or aren’t you?” I demand incredulously.

  His sullen face swings back to me. His fists are clenched by his sides as though he’s forcing himself to sit there and not bolt out of the front door. “All right, yes. Yes, I am.”

  “That’s it? It’s over between us,” I say in wonder, just in case there is any doubt. It’s always good to be completely clear about these things. When someone says all right yes. It’s kind of a grudging agreement. It could mean no too.

  He rolls his eyes. I hate when he does that. It makes him look like a dork. “That would be a safe assumption to make,” he says, with a little snigger. He’s loving this. This position of power. He told me that he’s never been the one doing the dumping before. Every woman he’s been with was smart enough to leave him first.

  I shake my head as my brain tries to make sense of the thoughts flying through my head.

  James and I have been together for two years. In fact, only two months ago he told me he was so grateful he had found me. We were perfectly matched and there would never be anyone else for him. However, our anniversary last week was kind of a mess. I somehow, convinced myself he was going to propose. Well, what would you think if you saw a bridal magazine stuffed under his pillow in his apartment?

  When he didn’t pop the question, and came up with the lame suggestion we get chicken take-out and just hang out at my apartment for the evening, I was pretty gutted. But I’m not one to give up at the drop of a hat and I decided to somehow salvage the night. I slipped into some expensive lingerie and swayed towards the bed in what he used to call my sexy walk, but he turned out the lights and fucked me for five minutes. It could have been longer, but it felt like less.

  Not exactly the romantic night of my dreams. I had half a mind to flip on my vibrator and masturbate right there in front of him, but he started snoring next to me. Since I wasn’t turned on anyway, there seemed to be no real point.

  I stare at him now. “But it’s New Year’s Eve tomorrow.”

  He has the grace to look shamefaced.

  “Why?” I whisper.

  “Does it matter?” he snaps, flying upright and crossing his arms. Like a child who has been naughty and doesn’t want to be told off. I’m so used to dealing with his tantrums and moods that I automatically reach out to comfort him, to make it all better even though he’s a grown-ass man, and I’m the injured party here.

  He evades my touch as if it is a branch of poison ivy and moves out of reach. My hand falls back heavily against my thigh. The slapping sound reverberates inside my skull. Wow! He can’t even bear my touch. Okkkkkay. I take a deep breath and measure out my words slowly, clearly. “Yes, it does matter. I’d really like to know.”

  He snorts. “What difference does it make?”

  I swallow the pure rage stuck in my throat. This asshole thinks he can walk in here and break up with me after he’s wasted two whole years of my time, and not even give me a reason. I don’t know what gave him that impression because I’m absolutely determined to find out why. Heck, I’ll sit on his spineless back and squeeze it out of him if I have to. I straighten away from the cupboard. “Since it makes no difference to you, and as you don’t have anything to lose,” I point out through gritted teeth, “perhaps you will be kind enough to tell me what the fuck is going on here.”

  He turns back to me slowly, looking me dead in the eye, a nasty expression in his eyes.

  Suddenly, I know what this is about. When he arrived early this evening, I think I already knew what was coming my way. Especially, when he sat on the edge of the couch without taking his shoes or coat off. He had no intention of hanging around too long. He wanted to get in and out. Some confident part of me wishes that I could back out of hearing him say it. I would love to airily walk him to the front door, while telling him to keep his pathetic reasons and fuck off out of my life, I’m just not interested to
know.

  But I can’t do that.

  I’m someone who needs to know. I need closure. If I don’t get it out of him now I’ll be calling him in a month or six months and asking him why then. So I’ll be damned if I don’t get him to spit it now. I square my shoulders. I’m a big girl. I can take it. Besides, I refuse to give him the satisfaction of thinking he crushed me like a bug under his shoe. After two years that’s not how I’m going to let this end. Me splattered under his clumsy big left foot. Actually, for a man with such big feet he has a very small dick.

  “You really want to know?” There’s that ugly look again.

  I nod.

  He tosses his hands in the air in exasperation. “Just remember you wanted to go down this road.”

  “Just, spit it out, James,” I growl.

  “I met someone else, all right.”

  Chapter 2

  Dawn

  I was expecting it, but my stomach still drops. I look down at the ground in front of me. Yeah, I knew in my gut he’d been pulling away from me. I even briefly wondered if it had something to do with the new girl at his work he kept talking about. The girl with the lap-dancer name, but of course, I convinced myself that he was not that type of guy. He was faithful. He was in love with me.

  “The slut at work?”

  He flushes a deep red. “There is no need to get judgmental.”

  “Is it?” I demand, my anger boiling over.

  “As a matter of fact, yes. Her name is Candy and she’s not a slut. She’s a great gal. She has a really lovely personality. She’s always helping everyone.”

  My eyes widen. What is this fool doing now? He’ll be telling me she’s great in bed next.

  “The first time we had sex,” he confesses enthusiastically. “She went down on me an…fuck, Dawn, she blew my mind. It was so much hotter than anything we ever had together.”

  I feel as though I am going to throw up. I press my lips together determined not to show myself up. Anyway, vomit is murder to get out of cream carpets. He notices the horror in my face and resolves to rub it in, for reasons that I can’t quite figure out.

  “I guess it’s because she’s hotter than you,” he continues, getting into it now, apparently reveling in the power he has over me, the power to devastate me. “She’s at least fifty pounds lighter than you…”

  I can’t help wincing as those words come out of his mouth. I can’t believe he would say that to me. He knows how self-conscious I am about the way I look, and yet he can’t resist twisting the knife deep into the most painful of my insecurities. This is starting to feel like revenge. He doesn’t love me He hates me. An image of this woman pops into my head. She’s slim and tiny and cute, and next to her I am a great heaving mound of flesh. And he wants to have sex with her…with the lights on. For more than five minutes.

  I wonder how long he’s been sitting on all of this, how many times he’d wanted nothing more than to tear me apart this way. I should just kick him out. And yet, I don’t. Not yet, anyway.

  “What about our tickets for tomorrow night?” They cost an arm and a leg.

  “Uh, I thought since you probably won’t want to go on your own anyway, I’ll just take Candy.”

  I shake my head in wonder. What a bag of shit he turned out to be. I paid for half of those tickets. My brain shifts gear. I never knew him. Now I need to know if I should get tested for anything. “How long has your affair been going on?”

  “A month or so,” he replies, and looks at me so brazenly, I wonder if he is even a little bit ashamed. Knowing he cares so little, that he’s so happy to rub all this in my face, sends a flare of fury through my system. I’m not going to let him walk all over me like this. To be honest this man has been nothing but a burden for the last two years. I’ve done everything I could for him. I put his interest before mine, and now he’s standing in front of me telling me he’s betrayed me, and instead of being apologetic, he actually sounds victorious and proud of himself.

  I know for damn sure that if he was cheating on me he wouldn’t have used protection if he could avoid it. That’s just the kind of guy he is. I guess I had always seen it, but now that it’s laid out in front of me, so inescapably and utterly ugly, I have no choice but to accept that and try to protect myself as best I can.

  “Did you use protection?”

  He swallows hard. “No, but she’s clean-“

  “You’re such a fucking piece of shit,” I shout, rounding on him. Any sadness and hurt in my heart is replaced with burning fury. “Clean? How clean can she be if she didn’t use a condom with you?”

  “You’re just jealous,” he says smugly, and I think I see the hint of a smile on his face and it makes me so angry I actually want to scratch his lying eyes out.

  “What is there to be jealous about?” I fire back, my voice lifting in volume. I don’t want this to become a yelling match, but if he’s going to keep being such a prick…

  He frowns, as though caught off guard, and I decide to go in for the kill just the same way he did for me when he told me how much slimmer this new girlfriend of his happens to be.

  “You’re a cheater,” I begin, lifting my fingers and ticking off all his flaws one by one. “You’re so cheap you used to make me cringe. You’re rude to waiters. You snore worse than a pig. This new girl is welcome to you. Though maybe I should call her up first and let her know what she’s getting herself into? Oh, and I nearly forgot. You’re garbage in bed.” There’s a twist of triumph to my voice as I finish up all the ways that he’s failed me over the last two years, all the ways he’s been a shitty boyfriend to me.

  His jaw drops.

  I know I’ve hit a nerve, and it feels good for a moment, but I’m not a cruel person at heart and any kind of joy I might have gotten from seeing him so upset soon becomes a sour taste in my mouth and I find myself staring at him with more sadness than anything else. I should tear the shit out of him, and God knows that he deserves it, but for whatever reason it’s just not fun right now.

  I’m too hurt by his betrayal to really find any kind of consolation in the way he looks right now. I wish I could be a little more callous and cold and really go at him, chip away at his ego the way he’s done with mine for more than a year now, but I can’t. I’m just exhausted, and what I want more than anything in the world is for him to get the hell out of my apartment so I never have to see him again.

  “If I was garbage in bed it was because I had a lump of whale meat in bed with me. Who can get turned on by that?” he yells.

  “I hope I never see you again,” I say slowly, and I really mean it too.

  He opens his mouth to speak, but I’ve had enough. “You should leave,” I point to the door, leaving no room for discussion.

  “With pleasure,” he sneers. Turning for the door, he walks out, and slams it so hard the walls rattle.

  I close my eyes to quell the next wave of anger that overtakes me. I just want to run out there and scream at him for being such an asshole. The kind of idiot who seriously believes that slamming someone’s door at this time of the night was a good way to make a statement.

  What a fucking jerk.

  Chapter 3

  I stand frozen, listening to his footsteps echo down the corridor. As soon as the entrance door of my apartment building closes, I find myself sinking into the couch. I stare blankly into space.

  So this is what it feels like to be dumped. Well, I have been dumped before, but never by someone I’ve been with for so long, and not for another woman.

  To my surprise there is more anger than heartbreak pulsing through my veins. Maybe the sadness will come later, but for now, all I can feel is a deep sense of betrayal. I trusted him. I thought we were both society’s rejects who had found each other. Nobody wanted me and nobody wanted him and we had found a way to be good together. We once talked about making children. That was the first time I agreed to do it with him without a condom. I frown. Was he manipulating me even then? Because he never spoke about kids
again after that.

  God, how much time I’ve wasted on him.

  My mind drifts back to when we first met. I was fresh out of college and had just started the internship that would one day become my full-time job. I was so confident, so passionate, so ambitious, and then I ran into this guy who had seemed so perfect for me. I was in advertising, he was in marketing. I actually saw us as a power couple. What a laugh. Thinking back now, I can see clearly that we were only a perfect couple for the first few months. After that all those subtle comments started. About my looks in general, my unfeminine laugh, but mostly my weight. All the little jokes. Once when we were going on vacation, he joked with the airline staff to seat someone equally heavy on the other side of the plane so that I didn’t tilt the plane, and make it fly lopsided.

  Slowly, with every strike he chiseled away at my confidence. Over time I no longer felt like a full-blown raging fire, I hated it, but I was slowly but surely being turned down to a fickle flame of my former self. I can still remember how it felt to be so full of light and energy, even if I can’t muster up a drop of it for myself at this very moment.

  I sit forward.

  No, I’m not going to sit here feeling sorry for myself, and hope that somehow my life is going to get itself back on track. I’ll do something about this. It’s scary as hell, looking out on a life you never thought you’d face, but I can handle it. I can be single again. Maybe the lap dancer did me a favour when she went down on him.

  I force myself to my feet and sway with the strong emotions running through my body.

  Ignoring the voice in my head that seems intent on repeating the cruel words, specifically, about how much lighter his new girlfriend is than me, I begin to pace the floor of my apartment. I try to focus my mind on one thing at a time.

  But those negative words nag at the back of my head. I have to address them.