“That doesn’t work for me.” She stepped away, her jaw stiff and her eyes narrowed. He thought she was angry until tears started tracking down her face. “I don’t want to be your pity friend.”

His chest constricted at the sight of her tears, and he quit breathing. “Who ever said anything about pity?”

She swiped at her cheeks as her chin quivered. “You did. You said you were done helping me but I still wasn’t enough. You said it, and you meant it. You can’t take it back now.”

“I never said you. I said we.” He swallowed hard. “You never once thought I meant me? That I’m not enough for you?”

Guileless eyes searched his face, wide from her lack of understanding. “Why would I ever think that?”

“Because I’m a prostitute, and my dad is a criminal.”

Her lips turned down, and she took a step away from him. “I don’t care about those things. None of that impacts who you are or how you treat me. You’re using those things as excuses because you don’t want to hurt me. But I want you to know I can handle the truth. If I’m not enough for you, that’s fair and I accept it. I’ll get over you eventually. I don’t want to be coddled or lied to because of what I am. I don’t need your pity friendship.”

With that, she breezed past him and sailed down the street. Her walk was fast and all business. There was no seductive swaying of hips, no grace; this was no runway walk. He loved it.

He loved her.

And she was trying to get over him.

In order to get over him, she had to have fallen for him first. She knew about his escorting, his financial situation, his education, and his dad, and she still loved him.

That changed everything.

Determination coursed through him. He’d been so blinded by his insecurities that he’d pushed her away and hurt her. What he should have been doing instead was fighting for her.

The fight started now. If she could trust and accept him as he was, then he could, too. She deserved that kind of man. For her, he was going to be that kind of man.

He followed Stella from a distance to make sure she made it into her house safely, and then he ran to find Quan. He needed help devising a battle plan.

Chapter 28

A knock on her office door distracted Stella from the new algorithm she was formulating. As she swiveled around, the door opened, and an enormous bouquet of calla lilies walked into the room.

Their lead receptionist, Benita, a curvy brunette in her early forties, set the vase on the desk and exhaled through her mouth. “Okay, that was heavy. It looks like you have an admirer.”

Stella plucked a card out from between the blooms. She recognized Michael’s bold scrawl immediately.

For my Stella. Thinking of you. Love, Michael.

“I don’t know what this means.” She stared at the note sitting in the palm of her hand.

Benita craned her head to the side to read Michael’s script and grinned. “Michael is the honey you’re dating, isn’t he? He’s quite the looker.”

“We broke up.”

Benita’s grin turned sly. “Looks like he wants to get back together. Are you going to give him another chance?”

Before she could reply, Philip stalked past her door. After a split second, he reversed and glowered at the bouquet on her table. An impressive black eye decorated the right side of his face.

“That son of a bitch.” He barged into her office, headed for her flowers.

She threw herself in front of them. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to throw those in the Dumpster where they belong.”

“No, you’re not. They’re mine.” This was her first bouquet from a boy ever.

“I’ll get you better ones,” he said through his teeth. “Those have to go.”

“I don’t want you to get me flowers.”

“We’re dating, remember?”

“We’re not dating. We went on one date, and I don’t want another. We’re not compatible at all.”

Benita pursed her lips and watched Philip with raised eyebrows, obviously enjoying the drama.

He approached Stella with tensed shoulders and clenched hands. “And you’re compatible with him?”

She curled her fingers around the card. Was it still compatibility if it was one-sided?

“I was really happy when he and I were together. He’s a good listener. More than that, he wanted to know about me, my day, what I was doing, and—”

“All I care about is whether or not he’s good in bed,” Benita interjected.

Stella bit her lip and blushed down at the carpet. The word good didn’t do Michael justice. Phenomenal was more like it.

“You lucky duck.” Benita turned to Philip and grabbed his arm. “Come on, PJ, let’s go to the kitchen. You need to ice that eye.”

PJ?

Philip grumbled under his breath and stared a few daggers at her lilies before he allowed Benita to pull him out of Stella’s office. As the two of them walked down the hall, he settled his hand at the base of her spine, slipped it lower, and squeezed. Instead of smacking him as Stella thought she would, Benita brushed the light hair from his brow and clucked over his bruise.

That was . . . interesting.

Apparently, Benita didn’t care that Philip was a complete hound when it came to women. That worked out just fine for Stella. She didn’t have to feel bad for not asking him out again.

She rotated the flower vase and fiddled with the stems. Flowers had always seemed pretty senseless to her. They stank, they wilted, and then you had to clean them up. But these were from Michael.

Her phone buzzed repeatedly, and when she retrieved it from her desk drawer, she saw it was him. She considered letting it go to voice mail, but her thumb hit the talk button on its own.

“Hello.”

“Did you get them?” he asked.

“Yes . . . Thank you.”

“How’s Philip Dexter’s eye looking today?”

“Purple.”

He made a satisfied sound, and she could almost see his evil smile. She barely refrained from sighing like a schoolgirl. His barbarism shouldn’t please her like this.

“It’ll start turning green in a few days,” he said.

“You really shouldn’t have given him a black eye.” But she loved that he had. It made her feel special in a way she’d never known. She was a bloodthirsty villainess.

“You’re right. Next time, I’ll double-punch him in the balls. If anyone’s going to kiss you, it had better be me.” After an awkward pause, he asked, “Will you have dinner with me tonight?”

Her foolish heart leapt at the thought of seeing him again, but she forced it into submission. She didn’t understand why he was doing any of this, didn’t trust it. “No.”

There was a long silence before he said, “Good. I like a challenge.”

“I’m not trying to challenge you.”

“I know you’re not. You’re trying to get over me, which is worse.”

“Michael . . .”

“I have stuff to do. Talk to you later. Miss you.” The call disconnected.

She paced about her office with increasingly agitated steps. He didn’t want her to get over him. How irritating. What was she supposed to do? Pine over him for eternity?

This burst of outlandish courting had started immediately after he saw Philip trying to kiss her when she didn’t want it. Michael was trying to warn Philip off because he didn’t think she could protect herself.

She was still his charity case.

Breathing heavily, she picked up his note, crumpled it into a misshapen ball, and tossed it in the trash. That was what she thought of his pity.

If she wanted to get over a man, she was going to get over a man.

She sat down and read over the last few lines of code on the programming screen. Her brain was too distracted to concentrate. She kept thinking about Michael. Her body still yearned for his caresses and his dirty words. More than that, she missed him and the routines they’d made together.

He couldn’t really want her back, but it would be wonderful if he did. When she noticed the hopeful direction of her thoughts, she scolded herself and told herself to focus on the data. It didn’t work. Making a frustrated sound, she fished his note out of the trash, smoothed it out, and stuffed it in one of her drawers.