****
"No. I don't accept it." My boss, Sarah Mayberry, leaned across her desk and smacked her hands on the polished cherry wood. "You're not leaving us. Period."
I chuckled. "I am, Sarah. I need to have more opportunity and take a risk while I can. This is a good move for me."
"No. It isn't. It's a horrible move. You know as well as I do that Luke Taylor is a fucking idiot." She got up and growled. "He's a heartless idiot with a brilliant brother and a silent partner with deep pockets. You need to stay here. Shit, Olivia... it's been a little over a year. What are you expecting? Partnership before you're thirty? That doesn't happen. Surely you're not so-"
"Naive? I'm not, but there are unconventional ways of creating success before society deems you worthy." I kept my voice even and non-confrontational. Luke was a bastard and kept a lot of his life hidden from me, which was fine. I honestly hadn't wanted to know who his partners were or what products they sold when we'd first started dating. It was a hot fling and he was insatiable in the bedroom. I'd grown that way because of him, so as far as I was concerned, he could have three clowns and Daddy Warbucks working for him. He owned the top firm in New York. I was thrilled to be the woman he chose to show off from time to time.
"I agree, but this guy isn't the real deal. His brother is, but he's an idiot." She stopped in front of her desk and leaned toward me. "Reconsider. This is a mistake in the making. You're going to go over there and come crawling back in a few weeks."
"You were my sponsor-advisor in college. Do you think I'm the kind of woman who crawls back to anything?" I stood up as anger raced up the center of my chest. I was a baby in the game they played in Corporate America, but that didn't mean I wasn't capable of growing up - fast. I'd already outsold all of the members of my start class ten times over and was labeled one of the most successful employees in our company at the close of the last year.
"No, but you know that I'd take you back." Her expression softened. "I don't want you to go. You belong here."
"I belong wherever there is an opportunity for growth. You know as well as I do that Frank isn't going to support another woman to rise up the ranks. You're it." I moved toward her floor-to-ceiling window and looked out across the city. "I want to take this risk, Sarah. I just want to see if it will lead somewhere."
"I get that." She stopped beside me and crossed her arms over her chest. "But who's going to be looking out for you over there? You know they have mostly men in their firm."
"I do, but Luke isn't all bad. He's got his faults, but so do you and me." I gave her a tight smile. She had plenty of recognizable faults that she did a piss-poor job of hiding. When she was happy, you knew it. Mad, sad, pissed, thrilled... you knew it. The woman had no filter.
"Fine. Let me at least put in a call to Caden and tell him to watch out for you." She brushed her hand over the top of my back. "Have you met him yet?"
"No. Who's that?" Tingles of white-hot fear raced through me. Surely there wasn't another Caden Taylor in the city. How stupid had I been to not ask Luke for more information? Was he Caden's brother? No. That wasn't possible. My Caden didn't have any siblings that lived with them on the ranch. His father had another son from a previous marriage, but Caden never really talked too much about the other kid.
"He's Luke's partner. You should do your research, Olivia. I'm a little surprised that you haven't. You trust Luke that much? What, are you sleeping with him?" She laughed as if the thought was audacious.
"Yes. He's my boyfriend." I turned to face her as she walked back to her desk and dropped down.
"Why am I not surprised to hear that? He's the type of bastard that would steal the heart of my most prized up-and-coming investment manager to turn her against me."
I scoffed and walked over to stand in front of her desk. "He didn't even know where I would end up when we started dating, Sarah. I was a junior in college."
"And I was your sponsor. A Google search would have revealed that." She glanced up and gave me a stern look. "I'm asking you as someone who truly cares about your future to reconsider. This guy isn't who you think he is."
"No. He's exactly who I think he is." I let out a shaky breath and walked to the door. "This is my two weeks’ notice."
"You don't get two weeks and you know it." She turned to face me as I glanced over my shoulder and held back tears. "You have to clean out your stuff and turn over your accounts today. Are you sure this is what you want, Olivia?"
"Yes. I've been thinking about it for a while now. I have to try."
"All right, kiddo." She stood up and walked toward me, surprising me by pulling me into a hug. "When you realize that the world is a heartless place to invest your time and talent, come back to us."
"I hate crawling though." I smiled as tears filled my eyes.
"No need to crawl, though I might ask for you to grovel a bit." She laughed, gave me another quick hug and closed the door behind me.
As emotional as I was over leaving the firm, I was far more destroyed by the thought of my Caden being Luke's Caden. It wasn't possible... right?
I closed my door behind me and grabbed a handful of Kleenex before sitting down at my laptop and pulling up Luke's website. I'd never looked into him because it didn't matter. We had two separate lives, and I almost preferred it to stay that way. I'd only been at my firm for a year and wasn't at the level to worry much about the competition. I was too busy juggling ten new clients and meeting investment forecasts for the next month.
The website popped up, and I navigated to the about page where information about Luke popped up at the top of the page. I scanned through it and let out a yelp as an image of Caden Taylor popped up below Luke's. My Caden. The boy I'd sworn I'd never see again. Not in a million years.
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I reached out and touched the screen, dragging my fingers down his handsome face. He was beyond handsome, by far the most beautiful man I'd ever seen.
Memories of us laughing in his daddy's barn as he chased me up to the loft assaulted me. The warmth of his arms around me, the sweetness of our innocence all those years.
"Why? Why the fuck are you here in my life again?" I pressed the Kleenex to my face and let myself have a cry that I'd been denying myself for far too long. Luke was Caden's brother. There was no way I could go work for them now, and I would have to break things off with Luke too. I could start over with someone else and rebuild whatever arrangement Luke and I had worked to build.
There wasn't another option.