But a crush wasn’t love. For fuck’s sake.
And it had to be Piper?
Piper Barry was amazing. She was gorgeous. She was smart. She was capable. She could do anything. She was funny and sweet and sassy and tough.
She was intimidating as hell.
What was he supposed to do with her now?
What was he supposed to do without her now?
Well, the solution seemed pretty obvious. She’d basically given him the answer herself—I can’t be in love with you and work for you. And the only one of those two things I can change is the working for you part.
So he needed to get her to not be in love with him anymore. Then she’d come back to work and all would be fine.
Now he just had to get her to realize she could do a hell of a lot better than him.
Of course, he’d been a pain in her ass for five years now. If that didn’t do it, he wasn’t sure what would.
He could get her an alpaca. She loved those things. He could buy one from Drew Ryan, the alpaca farmer north of town. Even though Ollie couldn’t stand the guy.
But she was living in a hotel at the moment. The hotel manager, Stan, liked Ollie a lot and Piper’s suite was huge, but he wasn’t sure Stan liked him enough to let him put an alpaca in one of the penthouses.
And if Stan did let him get Piper an alpaca, that wouldn’t make her fall out of love with him.
Though she would definitely think he was crazy to even think of it. That was run-of-the-mill Ollie craziness though.
Dammit.
He could… get arrested. That would remind her that he was impulsive and didn’t think through consequences and did stupid shit. Often.
Getting arrested was really not hard to do. He and Dax had done it accidentally twice. Surely doing it on purpose would be even easier.
Of course, Bernie, the Appleby town cop, was a really nice guy and super laid back. If Ollie did something like streaking across the town park or hot-wiring someone’s car, Bernie would probably think it was funny, laugh and slap Ollie on the back, and tell him to not let it happen again.
Well, shit.
He could punch someone in the face and get locked up for assault, he supposed.
Drew Ryan came to mind.
That would piss Piper off. She liked Drew, and Ollie hitting him would definitely not make her happy.
Yeah, maybe he’d see what Drew was up to and ask him to meet up for a beer or something.
Ollie started to pull his phone out, but then hesitated.
Piper wouldn’t be the only one mad at him if he punched Drew though. Whitney and Dax and, really, all of his friends liked Drew.
And Drew might hit him back. And Drew might be a better fighter than Ollie.
That wouldn’t take much.
Okay, so no streaking, stealing, or punching.
He could… hire a skywriter. They could write out… son of a bitch, what would he have them write? And how would he even find a skywriter?
See, this was the kind of stuff Piper did for him. She found the skywriters and helped him figure out what they should write.
Metaphorically, anyway. He’d never actually hired a skywriter.
Piper would definitely think a skywriter was over the top though. No matter what he wrote.
Ollie groaned and his head fell back against the headrest of his chair.
The guys were definitely going to kill him.
He dragged a hand through his hair. He needed to talk to her. He needed to fix this. Before the guys found out.
He shoved back from his desk and started for the door.
Fixing this meant convincing Piper that she was wrong to be in love with him.
He just needed to ask her how to do that.
An hour later, he was standing outside her hotel room door.
“Piper! It’s me!” He pounded on the door with his closed fist. Again. He’d already knocked. Then pounded. Now he was pounding again and wondering how much he’d have to pay the hotel manager, Stan, to get a key to Piper’s room.
They had the only two suites on this floor so he wasn’t bothering anyone else with his yelling. He could maybe get the heavy lamp by his window and knock her door down. That would probably bother Stan, but Ollie could deal with that later.
“Pi—”
Her door swung open in the middle of her name.
Piper stood there staring at him with wide eyes. “Somebody better be in the hospital or you’d better be bleeding from a major artery.”
He heard what she said. But he couldn’t process an answer. Because Piper was standing in the doorway in a robe, with her hair wrapped up in a towel on top of her head.
The robe was black. And silky. And short. Very short.
It wrapped around her and tied in the front, as robes did, and created a deep V between her breasts.
Her gorgeous, very generous—and did he mention gorgeous?—breasts.
Ollie was a little clueless—even he would admit that—but he wasn’t dead. Which meant that he’d noticed Piper’s very generous curves long ago.
The way she dressed would have made it impossible not to. Her dresses were bright and unusual and even the ones that didn’t hug her hips and ass, caressed her breasts. She also drew attention to all those curves with big belts and bright scarves and other accessories.
The woman liked to draw attention to herself and he always happily gave it.
This robe was nothing like any of those dresses. It wasn’t brightly colored. There were no earrings, no wedge heels, no bows. Just a lot of silk—both in the robe and the skin that stretched below the short hem.
He’d never seen her dressed like this. Not in any of the five years he’d known her. She was always put together, perfectly coordinated, looking kick ass, and untouchable.
Now she looked… very fucking touchable.
Except for the look on her face. And the way she propped her hand on her hip.
“Oliver,” she said firmly.
His gaze lifted to her face. Away from her legs.
Damn, the girl had some great legs.
That shouldn’t be a new revelation. She wore skirts and heels every day. He’d definitely noticed her legs before.
But there was something about this robe or her hair being up in a towel or the way she smelled or this doorway or… he had no idea, but this was different. Her legs had never looked like this.
“Oliver,” she said again, snapping her fingers in front of his face.
“What?”
“What?” she repeated. “You’re beating on my door, scaring the hell out of me, making me get out of the shower to come see what was wrong with you, and you’re asking me what?”
He blinked at her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“You can’t be in love with me.”
She sighed and her hand dropped. “That’s not how it works.”
“Yeah, well, that screws everything up,” he said crossly.
Everything had been fine that morning. Everything in his life had been fine. Normal. Easy.
And now Piper had quit, and she thought she was in love with him, and she was standing in front of him in a skimpy little robe, and he was noticing her legs and… everything was a mess now.
And Piper was the one who fixed the messes in his life, not the one who caused them.
“Sorry,” she said, lifting her shoulder.
She didn’t seem sorry at all. He frowned. “Can you put some clothes on?”