Corinne

This was a bad idea.

Though, of course, it hadn’t seemed that way when I’d agreed to do it.

Leaving Cooper’s office with my head swimming from that mouth of his, I wandered back to my desk and stared blankly at my computer screen for a long time, still savoring the heat of his touch on my skin. He was maddeningly sexy—a great kisser—and so freaking intuitive, he seemed to know exactly what I was thinking and feeling before I did.

I could feel Alyssa watching me from the corner of her eye, could tell that she was wondering what had happened while I was in Cooper’s office. But being the consummate professional she was, she’d never ask me about that during work hours.

Instead, she invited me to lunch, holding in her curiosity as we grabbed our purses and headed to the food court on the bottom floor of the building.

The second we stepped into the elevator, though? The inquisition began.

“Have you gotten a single thing done since you talked to Cooper this morning?” she asked, a knowing smile painted on her lips.

“What? No. I mean, yes. Of course I have.”

“Ooh, you’re all frazzled. That’s a good sign. Something happened,” Alyssa cooed with glee.

I rolled my eyes and tried to make a poker face, which I was pretty sure I didn’t have in my repertoire. “Don’t be silly.”

The elevator chimed as the doors slid open, and Alyssa switched the subject to ask which of the food stalls we should hit. When we’d finally decided on sandwiches and had gotten our food, I sighed with relief. It was only once we were seated that I realized the lull had just been a ruse to lure me into a false sense of security until she could strike again.

She held her tuna sandwich and stared at me expectantly.

“What?” I asked.

“So.” She wrinkled her nose. “Cooper.”

“God, that again?”

“Yes, that again. Is he a good kisser?”

“What?” I practically gasped. Was I really that obvious?

“You walk out of his office all flushed and dazed, and I’m supposed to think—what? That he gave you a glowing performance review?” She chomped on her sandwich, then flicked me a sassy look. “Spill.”

“You’re being silly. I barely know Cooper.”

“That doesn’t mean that you can’t bone down.” Alyssa shrugged.

“Ew, God. Is that what people call it nowadays?”

“So, you’re saying you think it would be gross to have sex with him?” Alyssa cocked an eyebrow.

“I never said that. I’m objecting to the phrase ‘bone down.’ It’s just so wrong, Alyssa.”

“Right. Prude.” She sighed. “So, you’re really not going to tell me anything?”

“There’s nothing to tell.” I pursed my lips, then thinking hard, added, “Though, it might be nice to know a little more about him.”

“You don’t want to tell me what’s up between the two of you, but want intel from me?” she said with a snort. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Just stuff about him, I guess. General sort of stuff.” I shrugged, toying with my food.

Alyssa shook her head. “You’re barking up the wrong tree there. I don’t know a whole lot about any of them except for Gavin, and even he’s a mystery to me sometimes. The person to talk to is Emma.”

“Emma?” The memory of everything Cooper had told me flooded back, and my stomach roiled with the thought of seeing the other woman, let alone talking to her.

God, did he still think about her? Want her? He’d said he didn’t, but maybe that was just a line.

I set my sandwich down, suddenly no longer hungry.

“She knows everything about all of them, and I hear through the grapevine that she’s a lightweight. Get a couple drinks in her, and I bet she’ll spill everything she knows.”

I wrinkled my nose. “That seems sort of wicked and conniving, don’t you think?”

Alyssa quirked her mouth to the side. “I don’t know. As wicked as not telling your best work friend why you suddenly want to know all about Cooper?”

“Alyssa,” I pleaded. “Look, I promise I’ll tell you if and when there’s something to tell. I swear, we haven’t,” I looked around and dropped my voice to a whisper, “boned down yet or anything, okay?”

“Fine, fine,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “I’ll set it up. We’ll have a girls’ night, and you can ask Emma everything you want in any state of soberness you choose. But if you guys do it, I’m the first to know. Deal?”

“I . . . I guess it would be good to get out for a while and hang with some girls,” I said, though I couldn’t deny the rush of excitement surging through my veins. Jeez, first a happy hour and now a girls’ night. My social calendar was suddenly exploding.

“Sure, that’s why you want to go.” Alyssa laughed and took another bite of her sandwich. After securing my promise to share if and when Cooper and I ever did the deed, she moved on to telling me about a to-die-for pair of pumps she’d picked up at Macy’s for a steal, and the matter seemed closed.

• • •

And that’s how I’d ended up here that same evening, waiting on my doorstep for Alyssa’s car and thinking over every last detail of what Cooper had told me about Emma.

The idea that he had had feelings for her in the past? It shouldn’t have bothered me, especially when we had no expectations in our own relationship, but I couldn’t help feeling . . . jealous. It was so stupid, but it was there—deep in my gut and impossible to ignore.

When Emma and Alyssa finally did arrive, I felt even more so. I was a whole foot down on the attractiveness totem pole. Emma was slim with perfect plum-sized breasts, and her formfitting dress did nothing to hide the fact that her body was one worth showing off. There wasn’t an ounce of fat anywhere on her. I tugged on my silk blouse, hyper-aware of how these skinny jeans showed off every curve and the thickness of my thighs. As I climbed into the backseat, I forced a smile I very much didn’t feel.

I’d never been so aware of my ample curves in my life, and as I glanced at her again, I wondered how it was possible Cooper had ever looked at me twice compared to her.

“Hey!” Emma said, her smile appearing genuine. “This was a fun idea. I was so glad when Alyssa called me. So, we’re going to this place Gavin took me a couple of months ago. It’s a little loud, but the bands are always good.”

“Sounds great,” I said.

“I hope you don’t want any quality time with me then, because I will be dancing,” Alyssa said from the driver’s seat.

Emma and I grinned at her, and together we chatted casually about work and how I was adjusting to my new job. Emma was really nice, and by the time we got to the bar, I was feeling like a royal brat for this plan to use her to get information on Cooper.

As Alyssa handed over her keys to a valet, I vowed to reassess my reasons for being here. I needed to let go of the idea that I was vetting the competition or using her to get information. This was going to be a fun girls’ night, and that was that. But if Cooper came up in conversation . . .

Jeez, Corinne. Play nice. She’s not the competition. Emma chose his brother—and she’s happily married now.

Shutting those thoughts down, I followed Alyssa and Emma to a table near the back of the club.

“We need something strong to get us started,” Alyssa announced, thumbing the drink menu. “A round of cosmopolitans and some shots of tequila too, please,” Alyssa called to the waitress before offering me a not-so-sly wink. Emma made no motion to protest, and when the waitress returned, we all downed our shots with a toast to Forbidden Desires.

Then, drink in hand, Alyssa flitted off onto the dance floor, bobbing her head along with the music as she moved. I laughed as she nearly tripped, but then Emma’s voice caught my attention.

“Alyssa tells me you’re curious about Coop,” she said, a tiny smile curving her perfect lips.

I froze with my martini glass halfway to my mouth and winced. “Alyssa has a big mouth.”

Emma laughed. “Not when it matters, usually. Is there something going on between you and Cooper?”

She didn’t seem angry or annoyed in the least. Just curious, and my nerves settled some. As irritated as I was at Alyssa for blowing my cover, I had to admit this felt better. Less sneaky.

I shook my head. I had no idea how much to tell Emma. The truth seemed like too much. I’d just met her. “Alyssa thinks there is. She’s just trying to help.”

Emma shot me an affectionate glance. “It’s okay, Corinne. You can trust me. I won’t try to cause any trouble for you. At work or otherwise, with Cooper.”

“Thank you.”

My gaze wandered to Alyssa, who had now found someone to bob alongside her to the beat.

“So, what do you want to know about Coop?” Emma asked, sipping her drink tentatively.

I shrugged. “I’m not really sure,” I said honestly. Everything hardly seemed like a good response. “What should I know?”

“Well, if you’re asking because he’s your boss, I would say you need to know that he loves his company. And for as awful as the woman was who did your job before, she was very good at it. They’ll likely be watching you closely to make sure you stack up.”

I considered this, then took a sip of my drink for courage. “And what if I was asking about him not as my boss? More like . . . as a man?”

Emma pursed her lips and seemed to consider that for a long moment. “That’s a tougher question. He loves and he loves hard. He’s loyal and sweet. I think he wants what he never got growing up.”

The “loves hard” part stung, but I refused to dwell on that part. If Cooper said whatever he and Emma had was over, I chose to believe him. I was more interested in the latter part.

“What do you mean by that? What didn’t he get growing up?”

She shifted in her seat, looking a little uncomfortable now. “Gavin doesn’t like people to know about their story, so I typically don’t tell it.”

“And Cooper? How does he feel?” I asked.

Emma sighed. “He’s always been more open than the other two brothers. And if you’re asking about him as a man, I’m going to assume it’s because you care about him.”

She considered her drink for a long minute, then looked me squarely in the eye.

“I think the best I can say is that they were raised in a tough situation in a rough neighborhood. Their mom spent her time with unsavory people, and she had an equally unsavory job. That’s shaped all of them in its own way. But at the end of the day? They all want to protect the people they care about. And Cooper, most of all, wants the kind of love between a man and a woman he never got to witness as a child.”

A knife slipped between my ribs at her words, then twisted as I noted the way her eyes softened as she spoke about him. It might be over, but damn it, she loved him. Maybe not in the way he’d wanted her to, but she did love him, even if it was now only a brotherly love. I would have to deal with that, even if Cooper and I were only going to be lovers for a short while.

More than that, though, I had to deal with the fact that this woman knew him in a way I didn’t. They shared a bond that he and I didn’t. And suddenly, I wanted that.

Desperately.

“The more time you spend with him, the more he’ll show himself to you. He’s an easy guy to like.” Emma smiled.

“He is. Thanks.”

I sipped my drink again, then shook my head to clear it. She’d given me a lot to think about. Too much, maybe. But what her words had convinced me of was that whatever I felt for Cooper was worth exploring.

“What do you say we dance?” I said, desperate for an escape from all the heavy thinking I had ahead of me.

Together we joined Alyssa on the dance floor, and I learned the lyrics to every song the band played as Alyssa shouted them in my ear. As the night progressed, one shot turned to two, and then three.

By the time midnight rolled around, I was finally feeling less like I wanted to fall on a sharp object every time I looked at Emma, but even if I did? I doubted I would feel any pain.

I was swaying back and forth even as the band took a break, and when we found our table again, the euphoria of my drunkenness shifted from mellow to reckless.

Feeling more certain by the second, I picked up my phone and stared at it for a second before doing the thing I knew I’d probably regret.

I drunk-dialed Cooper.

He answered, his voice tight with worry. “Hey, are you okay? It’s late.”

“Fine, fine. C-can you pick me up, though? I think I drank too much, and I want to go home but I don’t want to ruin the girls’ night.”

“Of course. Where are you?” he replied without hesitation.

I told him the name of the bar, and I heard rustling in the background. Had he been in bed?

“Stay right there. I’ll find you,” he said and clicked off a second later.

When I returned to the table, Emma and Alyssa had three glasses of water waiting for us.

“Here you go,” Alyssa said. “We’re gonna have one last dance and then head home. You cool with that?”

I shook my head. “No, no, I called a ride. But thank you.”

Emma gave me a wobbly thumbs-up. “We’ll wait with you until they get here.”

“No, go ahead. You guys dance. I swear I’m fine,” I said, and though I had to assure them roughly twenty more times, they eventually left just in time for Cooper to text me that he was waiting outside.

I recalled getting to my feet and making it to the sidewalk, and then a strong pair of arms closing around me.

And after that? It was all blackness.

• • •

Morning came in like a wrecking ball, pounding against my skull, demanding entry.

I cracked my eyes open to find I was still fully dressed and now surrounded by a sea of white. The down comforter and feather pillows surrounding me were luxurious and inviting.

In the distance, I heard the sizzle of something on a stove, and I forced myself to find my bearings, despite the fact that I felt like I was moving underwater. When I finally got to my feet, I stepped through the bedroom door to find Cooper at the stove in his light blue pajama bottoms, cracking an egg into a hot skillet.

“Good morning. How are you feeling?” He grinned at me as I slipped into a chair at the breakfast bar in his kitchen.

I forced myself to look away from his glorious body—because, holy shit, my boss had a six-pack and the sexiest muscled chest I’d ever seen outside of one of those men’s fitness magazines—and scrubbed a hand over my face.

“Not great,” I confessed with a pained chuckle. “Should I be embarrassed about anything I said or did last night?”

“Well, you told me my bed head looked cute, and patted my butt. Other than that, though? You passed out the second you got in my car. I carried you in and put you to bed. That was about it.”

I groaned. “I’m sorry. God, I didn’t realize I’d drank so much.”

Cooper shrugged. “It’s not a big deal, Corinne. I was happy to come pick you up.”

Suddenly realizing things felt freer, I looked down at myself, noticing for the first time my lack of a bra. “Um.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “What happened to my bra?”

Cooper let out a chuckle, his gaze raking over me. “Oh yeah. I forgot about that.” A smile tilted up the corners of his mouth. “When I laid you down in bed, you tugged at the straps like you were uncomfortable, so I removed it. Women don’t usually sleep in them, right?”

I swallowed. “Oh. That’s . . .” Awkward.

“Trust me, it was no problem at all. And I didn’t even steal a peek.”

I pursed my lips. “Aren’t you a saint.”

“Fuck yes, I am. You’re so sexy, Corinne.” His voice went husky as he watched me. “All those curves. You’re stunning.”

My gaze focused on the floor, I mumbled something of a disagreement. I was so not, but I didn’t want to argue with him. “Thank you again for last night, but you don’t have to babysit me,” I said, rising to my feet. “Let me get out of your hair so you can—”

“No, not before you get some food in you,” he said, shaking his head.

Another panicked thought crossed my mind, and I groaned. “No, really, my roommate is probably a wreck with worry. I always come home, and I didn’t even call. I have to go.”

Cooper shrugged. “So, call her now.”

“Him,” I said as I stood. “And I can’t. My phone is dead.”

“Him?” Cooper flipped the egg and then turned to face me. “You have a male roommate?”

“Yes.” I tried to sound as casual as possible despite the fact that my stomach felt like it was going to rebel. That was probably something I should have divulged before now, but mentioning it brought with it a whole other can of worms.

“So . . . are you sleeping with him?” Cooper asked, his voice deceptively soft.

“What? No.” I frowned, shaking my throbbing head.

“I had to ask,” he said with a clipped nod, the concern on his face clearing. “But good. I trust you. And while we’re involved, I want you to know you can trust me too. No fucking unless it’s between you and me. Deal?”

I refused to meet his gaze and searched for my purse, which I found hanging on the back of one of the high-backed chairs. “I just need to get home. Can we talk about this later?”

His face tensed again as he stared at me. “Do you have a history with this guy or something?”

I let out a long sigh. “Will you just please tell me where my shoes are?”

Cooper frowned. “Foot of the bed.”

“Great. Thanks.”

After I slipped into my bra and gathered my shoes, Cooper plated his eggs, leaving them to grow cold while he called me a car.

“Thank you again. And I’m really sorry for bothering you last night.”

He nodded, watching me warily. “You didn’t bother me.”

I’d just gotten things back on a good footing with him the day before, and now, less than twenty-four hours later, here I was running again. Like a child.

But even that shameful thought didn’t stop me as I slid on my shoes and bolted out the door.