Read The One Nighter for Free Online

he was a t tractive.
    What a fool she had been!
    He obviously had a girlfriend.
    A girlfriend he’d conveniently forgotten to tell her about.
    He was probably one of those guys who thought an omission wasn’t a lie.
    Men were all the same. They all had a one-track mind, and unfortunately, it was in their pants. They should all come with a full disclosure rule so no woman would get duped into purchasing a lemon. If it worked for houses, it had to work for men too. Besides that, in her experience, men had a lot more to hide than wood rot and bad wiring.
    They had things like silent girlfriends.
    * * * *
    “Melanie, could you come in here for a minute?”
    She glared at the intercom. She’d like to tell him to go straight to hell, but she knew she couldn’t. Grabbing a ye l low legal pad and a pen, she reluctantly got to her feet. A f ter the little display he made earlier, she wanted nothing more than to avoid him.
    Preferably for another year.
    But unfortunately, she knew that that wasn’t an option.
    Once she reached the door to his office, she took a deep breath before lightly rapping her knuckles on the hard wood.
    “Come in,” she heard him call out.
    Opening the door, she entered his office. He sat behind his desk, his back to her.
    “I know,” she heard him say.
    Her eyebrows furrowed together in confusion until she saw the cord stretched around the arm of the chair. O b viously, he was on the phone. She started to turn to leave, but he spun around, his eyes meeting hers. He held up an index finger, silently asking her to give him a minute.
    “I have to go,” he said.
    Uncertain of what to do, she stood motionless in front him.
    “I know,” he said, a smile gracing his face. “I will. I promise. Bye.”
    With that, he hung up. Raising his head, he pinned her with an expectant stare.
    “Have a seat,” he suggested, motioning to the chairs in front of his desk.
    Walking across the room, she reluctantly took a seat in front of him. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to go back to her desk and pretend that he didn’t exist.
    But, unfortunately, that wasn’t an option.
    “Sorry about that. The call came through after I called you in here.”
    Refusing to meet his gaze, she looked away. “I’m just an employee. You don’t have to explain things to me.”
    “Melanie, I did want to explain about earlier…” he started to say.
    She held up a hand to stop him. “You don’t have to e x plain anything to me.”
    He let out a heavy sigh. “After what happened last night…”
    She pinned him with an angry glare as color crept into her cheeks. “What happened last night was a mistake.”
    He shook his head, scrubbing a hand across his face. “Now, this sounds familiar. It sounds a lot like the speech I got about what happened a year ago,” he chided.
    When she pursed her lips, he continued.
    “When are you going to admit that last night happened because we both wanted it to?” he prodded.
    Heat crept through her body at the images his words conjured. But she couldn’t give in to his subtle innuendoes.
    Not again.
    Not after what happened.
    So, she did the only thing she could do.
    She struck back.
    “And what does your girlfriend want?” she demanded.
    “Miranda is not my girlfriend,” he replied.
    The look she gave him made it clear that she didn’t b e lieve a word he said. “No?” she challenged, one eyebrow arched high. “Does she know that?”
    The guilty look on his face made her stomach turn. “Things between Miranda and I are complicated.”
    She held up her hands to stop him from explaining. “Save it. I don’t want to hear it. You can do whatever you want with Ms. Plastic. It doesn’t matter to me.”
    Narrowing his eyes, he tilted his head to the side. “It doesn’t?” he challenged.
    Anger rose up in her. “No, it doesn’t. Now, if this is the only reason you called me in here, I’d like to return to my desk. I have a lot of work to do.”
    She started to get up,