He stops having sex with you.
Embarrassing, but nonetheless true. I scroll to the next one.
He stops spending time with you.
This one, I read.
You remember when you were first together. The blush of new romance, the way he couldn’t take his eyes off you. Now you’re in the same room with him and he’s checking his phone for incoming texts while you read on your tablet—maybe you’re reading this very article. Truth time: He’s not working late. He’s cheating. And those texts he’s waiting for are probably from the woman he’s cheating on you with.
“Ouch. A cheater.” A low voice rumbles in my ear.
I slam the lid of my laptop shut and whirl my chair around, coming face to face with Barrett Fox.
“Sneaking up on me now?” My voice is a little crazed, probably because he’s better looking than I remember him being yesterday. An odd observation to be sure. The printer stops spitting papers and I make a show of pulling them from the tray and stapling them together.
“You’re not the only one quiet on your feet, Kitty Cat.”
I call up North’s advice to not let Barrett rile me. It’s a smart tactic. I don’t have to react to everything he says. I don’t have to let him under my skin. He can’t burrow under there without my permission.
I stand from my chair. Barrett straightens from his bend to stand with me. He’s tall—six-one, I’d guess. North is six-five, so I’m used to looking way, way up. At five-seven and wearing four-inch heels, I stand nearly eye to eye with the former Miami Dolphins running back.
“I always had a chick willing to cheer me up when I split with my girlfriend, but I was never a cheater.” He makes a tsk sound out of the corner of his mouth. “Shame if that’s what your boyfriend’s doing.”
“He’s not doing that. He’s not doing anything.”
“Which is one of the signs. I was reading over your shoulder and spotted the no-sex thing. Is that the issue? Did he stop pleasing you between the sheets?”
My blood isn’t quite boiling but it’s definitely on simmer. Don’t let him get to you. I affect a neutral expression for Barrett’s sake, and for mine, too. I have to spend the next month-plus with him, but I refuse to give him attention for behaving badly.
“It’s astounding you have any ‘chicks’ willing to cheer you up given your inability to speak to a woman with a modicum of respect. It seems your vocabulary is terribly limited, Mr. Fox.” I add coolly. “This is the wrong industry for you.”
A shadow stretches over his blue, blue eyes, so brief I wonder if I imagined it. Then his cocky smile snaps into place like it never left, and I’m convinced I did imagine it. Am I supposed to believe that there is a deep well of emotion under his paper-thin exterior? Yeah, right.
He leans close, and then closer. “I asked out of concern for you and me and our dating assignment. I’ve never gone on a date with a woman that didn’t end with her hands all over me.”
North’s cologne smells good, but Barrett’s musky, clean-man scent smells better. I blink out of the unsavory thought and retort with, “You mean to slap you in the face? That can be arranged.”
I sit at my desk again, opening my laptop and reminding myself it doesn’t matter if Fox stands over my shoulder and reads every word of this article. I am not letting him get to me.
He doesn’t linger, instead swaggering past my desk to his, which happens to be next to a window. Two tall cubicle walls block him from the rest of the office, but lucky me, I can see him as plain as day. When he sits in his desk chair and smiles sweetly, no one but me is the wiser.
I roll my eyes and return to the article, scrolling down to the next header about cheating boyfriends.
He buys new cologne, soap, or starts scheduling manicures.
One of those isn’t cause for alarm, but if your guy is going out of his way to smell great, look fantastic, and step up his manscaping game, look out. Usually that means there’s another hen pecking around where she shouldn’t be...
Damn. I shake my head and close the article without printing it.
No. No way am I letting this idea take root and bloom into an accusation I’ll later regret. North is selling an apartment building to Japanese businessmen. Period. He doesn’t have time for another woman. And if our sex life is lacking, I am partially to blame. I’ve been working longer hours over the last month. Plus, we were in a rut before that month. A boring sex rut. It went from hot and fun when we met to predictable and routine within a few months. If I want some spice, I can step up my game.
I search through my documents and find what I should have been looking for in the first place. An article I wrote last summer when I’d met North, but we hadn’t started dating yet.
“Summer Sizzle! Keeping It Hot In the Bedroom.”
I click PRINT after a perfunctory glance to make sure Barrett is still at his desk.
He’s hunkered over his own laptop, a look of deep concentration on his face. We’re supposed to be coming up with lists of dating ideas—him half, and me the other half. How much do you want to bet he’s looking at porn?
I give myself one point for the smug quip as I watch my printer spit out papers.
“Your mood’s improved,” Mia says from behind me.
“I’m making everyone here wear bells around their necks from now on.” I tuck the articles into a manila folder to avoid more awkward questions. “Also, I’d like a few cubicle walls. I feel very exposed.”
“You requested no walls in the first place, darling.” Mia gives me a slow blink. Darling. She’s as bad as Fox is with the sweet talk. She hands me a glossy, folded brochure. “Here’s an idea for one of your dates with Barrett.”
“Art in the Park.” I slide her a disbelieving look. “I highly doubt that a Neanderthal would appreciate art or a park let alone the two of them together.”
“Good.” She pulls a smile. “The less compatible these dates are, the better. It’ll add to the allure. Everyone will be hanging on your every word—and his—about how my star reporter and the bad boy of the NFL are figuring out their relationship. Their fictional relationship, of course.”
“Mia...”
“Don’t give me that tone. I have championed you from the start, Catarina. You know I adore you. After all, I let you write an entire article on farm animals in a local sanctuary despite the fact it had nothing to do with your column.”
“It was a passion project. I like pigs. And not for dinner,” I say, my voice small. Mia has championed me. I was passed over time and again by my former editors. She alone believed in me.
“Think of this as your new passion project.” She gives me a rough pat on the arm and then sends a pointed look over her glasses to Barrett. “He’s as yummy as they come. If I were twenty years younger and had your tight little body, I’d be all over that.”
“I have a boyfriend,” I remind her. She acknowledges that statement with a grunt. “You can’t expect me to pretend to date someone when I’m already for-real dating someone.”
“Someone as exciting as crepe paper.”