No Love Attached

chapter three : a-grade-ass

"Wow."

"Why? What did he say about me?" My inner girlish freak asked.

"Oh, there's not much to tell..." she mocked.

"C'mon, now you have to tell me."

She hesitated for emphasis, a thing she routinely did when she deemed something exciting. "Well, he said that you were the most interesting and rudest woman he's ever met. Mentioned that your insults were solid and entertaining. Oh, and a lot of comments about your ass that I pretended not to hear. So, basically, he can't wait to take you out again."

Take me out again? He never even took me out in the first place. Since when does showing up for a few minutes count as being taken out?

"What? Oh, no. Not happening. Ever. I'd rather gauge my own eyes out with spoons," I exclaimed, running my hands through my ratted sleep-hair.

Her familiar loud laugh filled the room. The laugh that always somehow managed to brighten my moods over the years.

"And how dare he call me rude? If anything, I was completely civil until he whipped out the period jokes."

    Okay. We talked about it once. Now, the conversation is over. Cancelled. Done. Bye.

    I left out whatever that strange lingering almost-kiss-but-really-cheek-kiss thing was. No need to get Penney all excited. Plus, I'd never hear the end of it.

   Out of all the women who probably throw themselves at him, how was I the one who caught Leo Wells' attention? The one who wanted it least. The one who didn't and still doesn't even know who he is or what he does.

   Well, that's probably exactly how.

   You know what? He's probably just telling Damon that. I'm sure whatever thoughts he had of me were washed away by some bimbo's mouth.

      "You didn't um, tell Leo about --"

       She immediately cut me off without me having to finish the sentence. "No! I didn't think you'd want me to."

       There was nothing more dreadful than standing there, speaking with someone you just met asking yourself these questions:

"Does she know my finance is dead?"

"Can he tell I'm damaged goods?"

"Does my face scream 'wounded'?"

   "Alright, we should get to work. We need to pick at least a few manuscripts," I grabbed the pile of books on the coffe table. "These are ones my assistant thought we'd like. And I have a stack in my room. They need to be great. I have to show Lewis this is going to work."

"How is Lewis?" She asked quietly.

I thought of the once tough businessman, now trapped in the skin of an old, somber, grieving father. "Doing as well as he can, I suppose."

"Yeah, well that's what you'd expect -- hold up. Your assistant thought we'd like a book about a horse who's a double agent?"

    A laugh escaped my lips, "Well, they're goes my fifth assistant this month."

   "You're going to fire him?"

   "Yep. He always smells like onion rings, anyway." I replied, grabbing another manuscript from the pile as she did the same. Wow, a book about forbidden vampire love. Like that hasn't been done a million and one times.

   "I like the way onion rings smell," she said as her phone starting ringing. Penney's ring-tone wasn't just a normal buzzing. It was a cringe worthy, high pitched alarm sound. Each second she let it ring was another moment I was contemplating punching my own face.

"Oh, it's Damon, do you mind?"

"Anything you have to do to stop that ringing!" I chuckled and dove into another endless book from the pile. Penney didn't bother to move to another room for her phone call. Which is something I would do.

I tried my best to start the book but couldn't help but listen to her conversation.

"Hey babe...oh, you know Vera. She's putting me to work already," she turned her gaze towards me. "Damon wants to talk to you."

That kind of caught me off guard. She seemed just as surprised. I suppose Damon and I were sort of close. After all, we were friends before he started dating Penney. Lucky for me, he probably wanted to talk about the worst blind date set-up in history.

I reluctantly grabbed the phone. "Um, hey Damon?"

"Vera!" His smooth, confident voice radiated through the speaker. "How are you? It's your Cupid speaking."

I rolled my eyes at his remark. "Why the hell would you think I would possibly like that man?"

"Leo? C'mon, he's great and wants to take you out again."

     My eyes rolled as if they were on a timer whenever the name Leo was heard. "You can tell him to kiss my ass."

    A low chuckle came through the line. "I think that might turn him on."

    Before the conversation could continue, I handed the phone back to Penney. Then, I tried my best to dive back into the manuscript and drowned out any of Penney's baby voiced nicknames.

Knowing I needed to focus, I pushed away all thoughts of Penney and Damon's love-fest, that idiot Leo, and even Josh. My sweet Josh. If I was going to make this London firm work like we had always wanted, I needed to find an amazing novel. And fast.

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Author's note: hi everyone! I hope you enjoyed this. It'd mean the world to me if you voted and commented what you think!