Thirty-two

THE DRESS WAS killing him.

Not only did Victoria look incredible in it—the cream color showing off her silky, golden skin—but it looked like the kind of dress a woman would wear on a date. And he didn’t want to think about Victoria going on dates, because that got him wondering, again, where she’d been on Friday night. Or more important, who she’d been with.

His jaw tightened every time he thought about another man touching her. But what bothered him even more—if she had, in fact, been with another guy—was the fact that she’d spent the night. Because not once, during the entire time Ford had been sleeping with her, had she done that with him. Sure, she’d stayed late, but after they’d had sex every which way and were both so spent they could barely move, inevitably she’d gotten dressed and had made some excuse about sleeping better in her own bed. And he hadn’t pushed back, because on some level it made sense—her bed was only ten feet away, after all—and also because, at the time, he’d figured that her not sticking around until morning would make everything less complicated in the long run.

Yet here they were, nevertheless. With her wearing a dress that some other guy might be unzipping later tonight and Ford gripping the sink so tight at the mere thought, he was lucky he didn’t dent the stainless steel.

Still, he kept his tone light. “So, you did it, Ms. Slade. You brought your first family together.”

“We did it,” she said.

“Right.” They had made a good team, and the proof of that was in the next room over. But that was done, and now, apparently, the only thing that he and Victoria did together was make small talk. And while he could fake his way through a short conversation as they passed each other in the hallway, or at the mailboxes, he had a feeling that if he stayed in this kitchen with her for much longer, he would say something he’d regret.

Their eyes met across the room.

Did you moan his name the way you used to moan mine?

Yep. Something like that.

“So, it seems like everything’s going well here.” He pushed off from the sink, careful to keep his expression neutral. “Since you guys don’t need me, I think I’ll head out.”

Victoria pulled back in surprise. “You’re leaving?”

He shrugged this off. “You’ve got this covered, Slade. I’m not sure why Nicole even asked me to be here in the first place.”

She took a step toward him. “But . . . I was thinking we could share a cab home together.”

Good for her, that she wasn’t fazed by all this polite small-talk. But the idea of sitting next to her in a car for twenty minutes, pretending that everything was just peachy, held zero fucking appeal for him.

So he lied.

“Actually, I’m not going home. I have plans.”

“Plans. Oh.” For a moment it looked like Victoria was going to say more, but then she bit her lip and fell silent.

Right.

Moving past her, he walked into the living room and smiled at Peter and Melanie, both of whom seemed surprised by his unexpected appearance. “Peter. Melanie. Good to see you again. Don’t mind me, I’m just on my way out.”

“You’re going?” Nicole stood up from the couch, holding Zoe, and shot a look at Victoria, who’d just come out of the kitchen.

“I think you all can manage without me,” he said, with a light chuckle to underscore the fact that he was fine—of course he was—everything was cool, he just had places to be.

Then he opened the door and left, taking the stairs down and exhaling as soon as he got outside. He ran a hand over his mouth as he walked along the sidewalk in the direction of his parked car, and made it almost a block before he heard someone call him.

“Ford.”

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Victoria following him, walking briskly in her dress and heels and carrying a small leather purse. The sight pissed him off, because whatever this was, whatever she wanted to talk about—his semi-terse behavior, or perhaps the fact that he’d left without saying more to make Peter and Melanie feel “welcome”—he didn’t owe her any answers. “Go back inside, Victoria.”

When she kept right on following him, he shook his head and turned into the alley that led to the side street where he’d parked his car.

“Ford, hold on.”

He spun around. “What?” She stopped at his brusque tone, and stood a couple feet from him in the alley. When she hesitated, he gestured impatiently. “What, Victoria?”

She lifted her chin. “Are you dating that woman who was with you in the elevator?”

Fuck that. All his frustration boiling to the surface, he took a step closer to her. She had no right to ask him that, not anymore. She had kicked him out of her life. “Would it make any difference if I was?” he asked sharply.

Victoria held her ground, peering up at him and taking a moment before answering. “No.”

His shoulders slumped.

Well. He’d asked.

“That’s what I thought,” he said tersely. He spun around and started walking toward his car.

“Because I’d fight for you anyway.”

He stopped.

His heart pounding, he turned around to face her.

She stepped toward him, speaking determinedly. “This was not supposed to happen. My whole adult life I have avoided exactly this happening. I had things all mapped out, I knew what I wanted, and I was set. But then you came along, and you messed up all of that, with your little quips, and your jaw that twitches when you get protective, and the way you somehow manage to always be so infuriatingly unfazed no matter what I throw at you. And now I’m stuck. I can’t get back to my old life and, even crazier, I don’t want my old life anymore.” She held his gaze. “Because that life doesn’t have you in it.”

She moved closer. “These past two weeks without you have felt . . . wrong. And I miss you. So much.” Her lip began to tremble, but she swallowed and kept going. “I know I pushed you away. But not because I don’t care. It’s because I care so much that it scares me.” Her voice softened. “But losing you scares me even more. And I thought, maybe, if you felt the same way, that we could start over. Only this time . . . we’d do it for real.”

She fell quiet then, standing still as she waited.

His throat feeling tight, Ford needed a moment before he could answer.

If I ever were to go down this road, and let myself fall for someone, it can’t be halfway. I have to know that she’s in, too.

And that speech, coming from her, said everything.

He moved closer and cupped her face in his hands. “I love you.”

Her eyes filled with tears, her expression suddenly so hopeful and vulnerable it made his heart ache. “Really?”

“Yes.” He smiled softly. “Like, crazy, awful, miserable-without-you kind of love. Hell, even Tucker was trying to cheer me up.”

Victoria bit her lip. “But the blonde in the elevator—”

“—was just a co-worker.” Ford stroked his thumb across her cheek, wiping away one of her tears. “See, apparently, that’s how these crazy, miserable-without-you things work. It means you’re the only one I think about. Ever since the day I first knocked on your door.”

She smiled and touched his cheek. “You weren’t the only one who was miserable. Friday night, I had to sleep at Rachel’s because I couldn’t stand the thought of you with another woman.”

“Ah . . . Rachel’s. That’s where you were.”

In his head, he did a little victory dance.

“Where else would I have been?” She cocked her head. “Wait, did you think—”

He cut her off. “Still don’t want to think about it. Ever.”

Her lips curved. Then she looked at him for a moment, her expression softening. “You know I love you, too, right?”

He pulled her closer, his voice thick with emotion. “I do now.”

He bent his head and kissed her, tenderly at first, and then more heatedly as they leaned against the building, her purse falling to the ground, and his forearms pressing on the brick as he held her face in his hands.

When she finally pulled back, her cheeks were flushed. “I think we need to get out of this alley.”

His thoughts exactly.

Ford scooped up her purse and they hurried through the alley. But then Victoria stopped in her tracks when they got to his car. “Shoot. I forgot about Nicole. She’s still with Peter and Melanie.”

“Nicole will be fine.”

“I was so distracted when you left, I’m not sure I even said good-bye. Not my usual level of client relations,” she said with a sheepish grin.

He took out his phone. “I’ll text her and explain everything.” He read out loud as he typed. “‘Victoria left with me. She says good-bye.’” He hit send and winked at her. “Now can we go have make-up sex?”

A guy passing by them on a bicycle looked over sharply and nearly crashed into a parked car.

“Seriously,” Victoria said to Ford.

But he noticed that she climbed into his car lickety-split.

“I got a funny vibe from Nicole earlier,” Victoria said as she buckled her seatbelt. “Do you think she knew something was going on between us?”

As Ford got behind the wheel, his phone buzzed with a new message. He shook his head while reading it. “Well, at least now I know why she asked me to come tonight.”

He held out the phone so Victoria could see his sister’s reply.

You’re welcome. Now stop brooding.

*   *   *

IN HIS BEDROOM, as the evening summer sun filtered in through the shades on his windows, Ford kissed the back of Victoria’s neck. He slowly inched down the zipper of her dress, thinking how, a mere hour ago, he’d been going out of his mind at the thought of some other man doing exactly this. But now here they were.

And she was all his.

He pressed his mouth to the top of her shoulder as he pushed the dress down her arms and let it fall to the floor.

“Ford,” she murmured, leaning against him.

He picked her up and carried her to the bed. After setting her down, he stripped off his clothes as she kicked off her heels and took off her bra. Then he climbed onto the bed and swept his mouth over hers in a long, possessive kiss. When his hands finally moved to her underwear, she sighed. But instead of yanking them off, he pulled them down just an inch and slowly kissed his way down to her stomach.

She groaned. “You’re driving me crazy.”

He smiled wickedly against her skin. “Better get used to it, Ms. Slade. I have two weeks’ worth of driving you crazy to make up for.”

Afterward, they lay face-to-face on their sides, looking at each other as the fading sunset cast a soft orange glow around the bedroom.

She reached out and slid her hand over his.

“Don’t even think about asking me for brownies,” he growled.

She laughed. “I was just going to say that I’m really glad those assholes broke into my town house. Because that led me to you.”

He slid a hand down her back and pulled her close once again. “You slay me, Victoria. You know that, right?”

She sunk her fingers into his hair and smiled.

“I do now.”

*   *   *

LATER THAT NIGHT, Ford woke up to the sound of his front door creaking shut.

He sat up and saw that the other side of the bed was empty. Frowning, he quickly threw on his jeans and went out into the living room.

No Victoria.

Then he noticed a dim sliver of light filtering in through a crack between his front door and the wall, and realized that someone had left the door propped open with the deadbolt.

Seconds later, that someone tiptoed back in, bare-legged and wearing his shirt.

Victoria smiled when she saw him standing there. “Sorry. I was trying not to wake you.” She held up a skinny travel container. “Toothbrush.”

Ford’s mouth curved. Saying nothing, he walked into the kitchen and opened one of the drawers.

She rested her hip against the counter, watching him. “You are awake, right? This isn’t some creepy sleep-walking thing, is it?”

He gave her a look as he walked over. Then he set something down on the counter in front of her.

A spare key to his place.

She smiled softly, looking down at it for a moment, and then picked it up. “Well. I guess we’d better alert the cavalcade that unit 4F is officially closed for business.”

“Had to get that in, did you?” He scooped her up as she laughed, and set her on top of the counter, liking this look of her in his shirt and not much else.

She looked again at the key in her hand. “It’s been years since I’ve had an actual boyfriend.”

That made him go soft on the inside all over again. “It’s going to be even longer before you have another one.”

Her expression turned almost shy. “This happily-ever-after stuff . . . marriage, two-point-five-kids, and the minivan . . . I never thought those things were in the cards for me. This is all very new.”

It was new for him, too, but it also felt very right. He wrapped his arms around her. “We have plenty of time to figure out those things. And we always have the frozen eggs.”

She peered up at him. “We?”

“Yes. We.” No hesitation.

“We,” she repeated, not a question this time. Then she slid her arms around his neck, her voice husky. “I like the sound of that, Ford Dixon.”

He lowered his head and kissed her, not worrying about what would happen tomorrow, or three months from now, or even thirty years down the road. All that mattered was that she would be by his side.

And that was the happiest damn ever-after of them all.