Read why readers are calling Defining Love a refreshing different spin like none they'd ever read in a romance novel.
Henrietta, aka Henri, isn't gay or in love with her gay best friend and lover, Edi. But because of her deep-seated abandonment issues she gives into the relationship out of fear of losing her. Then she meets Aaron and is instantly drawn to him.
Aaron is torn between his high school sweetheart—now fiancée—and what he's feeling for his young employee Henrietta. The instant connection he feels with her is like none he's ever felt.
Cheating is not an option for either. So what happens when that draw, the connection, becomes impossible to ignore?
When we’d arrived at my house, I’d been more than relieved to see Bea and Henrietta weren’t there. Since Bea’s car was out front, I figured Henrietta must’ve gone with her on one of her walks. It wasn’t as if Henrietta working for me was a secret or that Mia had never met her. Since I’d brought Henrietta on, Mia had dropped by exactly two times. As far as I knew, she didn’t have an issue with Henrietta, my sister’s friend, working for me.
Mia knew me well enough to know I’d never cheat on her. I’d never given her reason to be insecure about Henrietta or any other girl in the entire ten years we’d been together, but she’d since made a few telling comments about Henrietta: “She’s very pretty.” or “She must be single or her boyfriend would be picking her up instead of you having to drive her to and from work so often.” Each time I responded with an indifferent “I guess” or a disinterested shrug. I could’ve told her I knew she wasn’t single—that she was actually in a relationship with another girl. I know it would’ve relieved Mia from any doubts she might be having about my spending time around my young pretty employee. But I had to respect Henrietta’s request that I not share with anyone about her personal life. So I hadn’t.
Technically, I had nothing to hide. I’d done nothing wrong. It just made me nervous to have her around Henrietta too much. Mia was too perceptive. So when she called earlier to say she and her cousin Ruth were stopping by my place during business hours, I wasn’t thrilled. But what could I say? I’d jumped the gun before she even explained why she was calling and said I had to go home to get started on work ASAP. My haste to avoid delaying my time with Henrietta further backfired on me. Mia and Ruth were working on a collage for her cousin’s wedding reception and wanted to stop by and search through some of the old photos I had.
I was now standing behind them at my desk, looking over their shoulders as they opened my box of old photos when Henrietta suddenly rushed in my office with a huge smile. The smile noticeably waned the moment she saw Mia and Ruth.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted, freezing at the door. “I didn’t know you were—”
“That’s okay,” I said before she could apologize further. “Something going on?”
“No.” She shook her head as her face flushed. “I just . . . it’s about the EPG. I had an idea.” She took a step backward. “But I can tell you about it later. I didn’t mean to—”
“No, no,” Mia said quickly before I could. “If it’s about work, by all means, go right ahead. Don’t mind us. We’re just looking through some old photos. Pretend we’re not here. We’ll be quiet,” she added with a whisper.
I would’ve suggested we leave and talk somewhere else, but Mia’s comment was too obvious. She wanted us to stay. Had we left my office, she would’ve wondered why.
“What is it?” I asked a bit curious.
Henrietta had only come to my office a handful of times. None of those times had she rushed in there as she had today, smiling so big. If Mia and Ruth hadn’t been there, I likely would’ve been smiling just as big.
“I, uh . . .” she started a bit apprehensively. “I was watching the news this morning. There was a fire at an apartment building in Lansing . . .”
She explained about the guy replacing her smoke detectors and what he’d said about being sure the apartment likely had no working smoke detectors and why. It had reminded her of my dilemma.
“I remembered you saying one of the biggest selling points of the EPG to big companies is the tax breaks they get and the discounts they get on their insurance,” she added as that smile she’d walked in with resurfaced. “It got me thinking. If smoke detectors being ripped out in these apartment buildings is a big enough issue for the property owners, since the EPG can be installed in undetected areas of the building and most tenants wouldn’t even be aware what they are or that they’re even there . . .”
Most of what she was saying about making the tax and insurance breaks selling points were things I’d already begun to look into. Though I hadn’t thought as broadly as she was thinking: the value to a property owner of the anonymity of the EPG versus a smoke detector. Replacing a smoke detector was relatively cheap but not for real estate investors who owned hundreds of buildings around the country that could add up to tens of thousands a year. She’d actually started to research other things I hadn’t looked into, such as how to get on counties’ and states’ lists of approved products that would satisfy certain mandated safety measures in commercial buildings.
It was fucking brilliant, and I knew now why she’d been smiling so big when she first walked in, but mostly I couldn’t get over how excited this made her too. Seeing her beautiful eyes shine so bright actually made me feel giddy. Giddy.
I was a grown ass man. I’d never even used the damn word in my life much less felt it. And so profoundly. I had no business feeling giddy!
When she said she could show me some of what she’d found online, I excused myself from my office immediately. I didn’t miss the way Mia and Ruth exchanged glances, but there was no way she could turn this into anything more than what it was—one hundred percent business. Never mind that I’d never been so tempted to hug and kiss someone in my life.
Henrietta spoke excitedly as she typed and clicked on different pages and quoted articles regarding safety regulations in different counties in Michigan alone.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” she said as she clicked on a spreadsheet with different data from all the different counties and states.
She stopped when she noticed I was staring at her. It was the strangest thing. “You did all this?”
The excitable smile she’d been wearing all this time flattened into more of a timid or embarrassed smile and she nodded. “I could hardly wait for you to get here, so I had to keep myself busy somehow. I figured it’d be easier to show you if I had it all in one place.”
Then something happened, the same thing that had been happening all too often lately. I was instantly distracted at the sight of her teeth sinking into her bottom lip. My eyes dropped to her soft wet lips and stayed there too long, but I couldn’t look away. When I finally did, it was only then that I realized how close I was now sitting next to her. So close I could smell the fragrance of whatever shampoo she wore—her skin. My hand was next to hers on the desk. Without even thinking, I grazed her finger with mine. The touch was so miniscule, so insignificant, yet I could see it in her eyes—eyes that tried as desperately as I mine did to hide something.
And then the words spilled out of my lips before I could give it another thought.
“I could hardly wait for you to get here too.”
My sister, walking out from the bathroom in the hallway, snapped me out of my trance. If it hadn’t been for that, even with Mia in the house, I might not have been able to fight the temptation to cradle her face in my hands and kiss her.
The door to my office opened, and Mia’s and Ruth’s voices further pulled me out of my trance, and I gulped in a big chunk of air. I turned to Mia and Ruth as they entered the back room.
“We got the ones we need.”
Mia waved a stack of photos at me even as her eyes bounced back and forth from me to Henrietta. The reminder of just how close I’d been sitting to her had me scooting away slightly.
“Don’t worry. I’ll get these back to you as soon as I make copies,” she said.
I stood up, pushing the seat I was sitting in back to the other desk where it belonged.
“You don’t have to,” I said, glancing up at her. “You can keep them.”
She gave me a strange look, glanced at Henrietta one last time, and then turned back to me with a lift of a brow. “Walk me out?”
I nodded and followed her out. We weren’t even out of the house when she turned to me with a purpose.
“She cheered you right up.”
That confused me. “What?”
“I’ve never seen you switch gears so fast,” she hissed in a lowered voice as we hurried out the front door as if maybe she didn’t want Ruth to hear her. She stopped out on the front porch and glowered at me. “It was disgusting. My stomach literally turned watching you two.”
“Cheered me up? Switched gears?” I asked, doing my best to sound as clueless as I could because not only was my heart still racing, my stomach was turning now too. “Who said I was in a bad mood before she got here?”
“Well, you haven’t been that happy to see me in years.”
And there you had it. Mia was officially on to me. Fuck! “What? Stop.” I put on my best soured expression, shaking my head, and reached for her hand, pulling her to me as she tried to walk away. “Mia, don’t, okay?”
“Don’t what?” she asked even more annoyed.
“Don’t do this. She’s my little sister’s friend.”
“Do you think I’m blind?” she asked, and I pulled her even closer to me even as she tried to squirm away. “Do you know how humiliating that was for me?”
“What was?” I asked, pulling back.
Had she seen my exchange with Henri? But before she could answer because I was almost afraid to hear it, I tried to explain.
“She had a good idea. A damn good one. You know how I feel about this business, Mia. You know anything that’ll move it forward excites me. Her idea excited me, babe. Not her.”
She stared at me for a moment without saying anything then pulled away. “I’ll see you tonight. Unless”—she turned back to contemplate me then toward the front door—“you’re working late again.”
“I’ll pick you up early,” I countered.
Without another word, she got in the car with Ruth, and I watched them drive away. The inevitable was happening already. After what happened inside between Henrietta and me and with Mia being upfront and honest as usual about her feelings, two things were clear. Whatever it was that I was feeling for Henrietta—happening between us—it wasn’t going away. If anything, it was intensifying in a way I no longer had any control over it.
In answer to Mia’s question earlier, she wasn’t blind and that meant one thing. I’d have a big decision to make a lot sooner than I anticipated before things really got out of control.