CHAPTER ELEVEN
Cole
I walk out of the bathroom with a towel around my waist to check on Lori, and grab the doorframe at the sight of the empty bed. I don’t have to call out her name to know that she’s gone. I feel it and I can’t fucking explain why I feel it any more than I can explain why I want her more than I did before I fucked her. She’s different. I wasn’t wrong about that. I flip on the bedroom light and my eyes catch on a note on the pillow. I know what it says: Goodbye, but still I cross the room with too much eagerness, and grab it, to read:
Hello and everything that followed was perfect. I didn’t want to ruin perfect with a bad goodbye.
—Lori
I toss the damn note on the bed and consider my options for all of thirty seconds before walking back to the bathroom and picking up my phone. I punch in my assistant’s number. “Hey, boss,” Ashley answers, always quick on the draw and an asset I’ll miss when I start calling New York City home. “Don’t tell me,” she continues, “you need your flight moved.”
“Actually, no,” I say, more motivated than ever to wrap up things back south before I move north. “I need you to find an attorney for me.”
“Did you kill someone and it’s not made the news yet?”
“She practices in New York City,” I say, ignoring the joke, “and her name is Lori. Brunette. Pretty. Late twenties.”
“That’s all you have for me to go on?”
“How many brunette, attorneys named Lori can work in New York City?” I ask, and I don’t wait for an answer. “Get me photos of any hits you find. Send them to my email and text me when you do. This is urgent.”
“Okay,” she says. “I’m on it as soon as I get to the office.”
“Now,” I say. “I’ll buy you that damn Gucci purse you’re always talking about if you find her. Hell, I’ll buy you two. I need those photos before I leave for the airport.”
“You can’t miss your flight,” she warns, as if she knows that’s exactly what I’m considering, which is to push back my flight. “You’re in chambers with Judge Conners at four o’clock and he’s unforgiving.”
And capable of granting my client, an innocent man who had the wrong attorney before me, a new trial. She’s right. I can’t miss my flight. If I get the answer my client deserves, I’ll continue living between cities for months on end, but I can’t walk away from him or Lori.
“Cole,” she warns when I haven’t replied. “You land at two. There is no give here unless you go private, and you’ll miss your plane before I can confirm I can make that happen this late in the game.”
Game.
This isn’t a game, but last night was, and more than I knew. “Get me those photos,” I say and remembering the note I add, “She spells her name L-O-R-I.”
“Who is this woman?” she says, clearly baffled by the limited information behind my order.
“Just find her,” I say, and disconnect the line, setting the phone down and pressing my hands to the counter. Fuck. I should have kept eyes on her. I knew she was running, but she didn’t want to. She was afraid of something. I needed more time to get her past whatever it was. I’m going to get that time. I’m going to make sure of it.
I tear away the towel, and return to the bedroom, making fast work of getting dressed, but I don’t bother to pack. I’m keeping the room another few weeks. I’ll be back, and sooner than planned. I’m about to exit the bedroom when I walk back to the bed and grab the note Lori left for me. I read it again, and grimace with the “perfect hello” she didn’t want to ruin with a “bad goodbye.”
“All right then,” I murmur. “We won’t say goodbye, but we damn sure will say hello again.” I stuff the note in my pocket and head for the door. I already have a car service waiting on me downstairs, and waste no time heading that direction.
A short elevator ride later, I’m street-side and I climb into the backseat of the car, directing the driver to the corner where I met Lori, and have him pull to the curb. I get out with the insane idea I might actually see her. I walk to the exact spot where I ran into her. I walk the whole damn sidewalk, left and right, and a block in either direction, and of course, she’s not here, there, or anywhere. I head back to the car and slide into the backseat. “Airport as planned,” I order the driver when my cell phone buzzes with a text: Photos in your inbox, but there are only two Loris who spell their name as you indicated, and none fit the description you gave me. I included all other spellings and there is only one possibility, but she is thirty-two.
I switch to my email and open the file, scanning the photos. My Lori is not in the photos. This makes no sense. I think back to our conversations. Holy Hell. She never actually confirmed she was an attorney. I have a name and nothing more.
***
Lori
“What’s your dirty secret?”
The question is delivered by Daniel, a handsome, familiar man, in an expensive suit, from the other side of the coffee bar counter; the side without the register, which I know far more intimately than him.
“I have no secret,” I assure him. That’s my programmed answer that I’ve given him every one of the early mornings I’ve been working here, only this time it feels like a lie. I do have a secret. I have Cole and despite my rushed shower and change of clothes after leaving his place, I swear I can still smell him on my skin.
“Have a drink with me and tell me,” Daniel presses, keeping to his daily script.
“Actually,” I say, leaning forward and lowering my voice. “I’ll tell you now.”
He leans in closer. His eyes light. “Tell me,” he urges.
I could say “I let a stranger spank me last night” but that’s my only dirty secret, and I want it just for me. Instead I say, “You have a girlfriend,” thinking of Sally, who joins him here every Saturday morning.
He wiggles a brow. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
Thankfully, a line is forming, and I motion him to the end of the bar. “Your regular order is ready, and I charged your account.”
“We’ll invite Sally,” he suggests.
“No and go,” I order, and then shout out, “Next!” to force the issue.
He grimaces but leaves, and I don’t really think that he’s serious about a hook-up anyway. I certainly hope not for Sally’s sake, which momentarily conjures a memory of Cole’s guttural “I fucking hate him” about his cheating father.
My next customer steps to the counter and I shake off the memory, and the line churns endlessly it seems until finally my shift is over. Karen, the “coffee-making girl” as she calls herself, makes me a white mocha and I have about fifteen minutes to drink it before I have to change, and head to my day job. Cup in hand, I round the bar to find Cat sitting in the corner, where she’s been since I avoided her upon my arrival, certain somehow she’d know I’ve now been spanked. It’s a silly notion, but I can’t shake it. Nevertheless, she’s my boss and friend, and I walk in her direction.
“Good morning, my coffee queen,” she says, blowing blonde hair from her pretty green eyes. “Who shouldn’t be a coffee queen at all.”
“We do what we have to do,” I say.
“Except you don’t have to do it anymore,” she assures me.
“Cat—”
She holds up her hands. “Before you tell me you aren’t taking my charity, I need help. My column was officially syndicated and I’m co-authoring on the book I told you about last night.”
“You syndicated! Oh my God. That’s incredible. I’m so happy for you. Seriously. No one deserves this more than you.”
“I’m excited but overwhelmed and so is Reese. He has his merger and a case that is heating up. We talked last night, and we agree. He can’t co-write the new book with me. I need a full-time research assistant and Reese talked to one of the consortium members and he said you in this role looks good to the board.”
If only I could afford to take it, and I hate so much that it’s just not an option. “Cat,” I breathe out. “I can’t—”
“Three times what I’m paying you now, but you have to work obsessively with me,” she says. “There’s no room for the other jobs. I need you. And you’ll earn the money. If Reese needs research help, I need you to cross over.”
I swallow hard, thinking of her offer last night to help me with my mother’s medical bills. “I know what you’re doing,” I say. “I love you, but no. I decline.”
Her jaw sets. “I’m going to put an ad out for the job and give it to someone else at this same pay, which means I’ll have to let you go. Is that what you want?”
I lean forward and lower my voice. “I’m not on the stand, counselor,” I say, knowing her well enough to know when she slides into her attorney persona. “You aren’t going to come at me like that and change my mind.”
“It’s the truth,” she says. “I need help and I need help now. Take the job.”
“Promise me that this isn’t about charity.”
“I promise. I need you. I’ll email you a formal offer with the salary and benefits. Reese is going to piggy-back you onto his company benefit plan. Say yes. You won’t be sorry.”
Somehow, she’s chosen the exact words Cole used when encouraging me to let him spank me. And I’m not sorry I said yes. Not sorry at all and so I do it again. I say, “Yes.”
“Yes?” she queries.
“Yes,” I confirm.
She grins and I grin, and as silly as it seems, somehow Cole is a part of this moment. Or maybe it’s not silly at all. He’s a part of a change in my life, a shift, that I feel happening. I change clothes and Cat walks with me toward the courthouse, all the while plans are being made for my new job. I leave her at the door of her building with the promise I’m giving notice today.
She enters her building and I start walking toward the corner where I first ran into Cole. I suck in a breath, some part of me—no, all of me—wanting him to be there when I know that in morning light I’d been his charity case. It wouldn’t be what it was last night.
I round the corner and run into a hard chest. I suck in air and look up to find a good-looking man with dark brown hair, and brown eyes.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yes,” I lie, because the truth is, I’m not okay. I murmur an apology and rush past him, because he’s not Cole. But in my fairy tale, we don’t end how we did this morning. One day, I’ll just happen to walk around the corner and run into Cole, and I’ll be an attorney who won’t look like someone chasing his money, because I’ll have my own.
One day. Or never. He doesn’t even live in New York City.
Sometimes the right people meet at the wrong time.