CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Lori
I’m up early Saturday morning, showered, and dressed in my favorite black sweats and pink tee, files in my briefcase, and gone before my mother ends an overtime shift. I arrive at Cat and Reese’s place at nine and Cat greets me in the same uniform I’m wearing: black sweats, a tee, and her blonde hair piled on top of her head. “It sucks,” she says.
I need no clarification. “Your books never suck,” I assure her, following her inside and shutting the door.
“There is always a first sucky book,” she says, as we head further into the apartment and cut right toward the main living area. “Times like these make me want to join you all at the firm.” She disappears around the corner.
I laugh. “You’re talking crazy talk now.”
I follow her into the kitchen and stop dead in my tracks when I discover Reese and yes, Cole, leaning on the far cabinet, side-by-side, both in sweats and T-shirts, both holding coffee cups. But it’s Cole that I’m aware of most, and in the moment that our eyes meet, I swear I feel his hands and lips on my body all over again, and it, he, steals my breath. Even the phone calls we’ve shared now feel more intimate.
I force myself to move toward the island, and I don’t have to hold Cole’s stare to know that he’s tracking my every step. I am so aware of this man that my nipples actually tighten with nothing more than him being here, this close to me, and we are not even alone.
I settle my briefcase and purse on a barstool. Cat is about to sit down when Reese catches her shoulders and pulls her back against him. “Relax, sweetheart,” Reese murmurs near her ear, the “sweetheart” another little tidbit to remind me of that intimacy between Cole and I that shouldn’t exist but does.
I claim a barstool and I don’t mean to, but my eyes meet Cole’s again. “Morning, Lori,” he says, and he makes “Lori” sound all sultry and rich, the hint of a smile on his brutally delicious lips speaks of a secret, our secret.
“Morning,” I say, and then add, “boss.”
If I think this will dissuade Cole from being Cole, which I have certainly learned means bold and sharp-witted, I am wrong. “I am,” he says, “aren’t I?”
“Don’t worry, Lori,” Cat says, twisting around to kiss Reese before claiming her barstool. “They’re going running like they used to back in the day, apparently.” She glances over her shoulder at Cole. “And your boss promised not to hijack you today, probably because he doesn’t know how good you are yet.”
“I’m simply trying to stop your meltdown,” Cole comments, his eyes finding mine again. “I told her that I needed you today,” he adds, “and the ever unbreakable, cool, calm, Cat—”
“Did not melt down,” Cat says. “Stop saying that.”
“She melted down,” Reese chimes in. “She’s convinced the book is a disaster.”
“Well, it’s not,” I say. “I’ve read most of the book. It’s brilliant, but with every successful endeavor she puts more and more pressure on herself to stay on top.”
Reese and Cole look at each other and give a little nod of understanding and agreement that Cat can’t see, but I do. It’s a very human moment for the two superstar legal powerhouses, and the fact that they were willing to make this acknowledgement in front of me stirs the sense of belonging in me I’ve always felt with Cat and Reese. And now there is Cole.
I pull out my MacBook and focus on Cat, who everyone in this room seems to believe needs me right now, and being needed feels as good as belonging. “Send me what I haven’t read.”
“Don’t you want coffee?” she asks. “You don’t do anything without coffee.”
“You’re stalling,” I reprimand, because a) she is, and b) she’s right, but Cole is standing by the pot and Reese and Cat are too smart and aware to not feel the charge between us that I don’t need to turn into a flame.
“You don’t function without two cups of coffee.”
God, the woman knows me. “I’m one cup in already.” It’s out before I can stop it, and I quickly scoot off my stool and walk toward Cole. I deflect back to Cat. “But I’ll make cup number two if I return to my computer with a manuscript to read.”
“You’ll have a manuscript when they leave,” she says. “They’re overwhelmingly them and it’s making me crazy.”
I laugh at that, understanding completely. These two men take up a lot of space, in all kinds of ways. Cat then says, “How is your mother?”
There it is. That personal part of my life that Cole is slowly sliding inside. “Still good,” I say, stopping next to him and grabbing a cup from the cabinet, my arm brushing his in the process. Heat jolting up my arm and without intending to, I look up at him.
“Sorry,” I murmur, when I’m not, but it’s necessary that I responded as if I am.
“Don’t be,” he says, his eyes finding mine. “We’re all good here.”
We’re all good here. I know what it means, but it’s generic, easygoing. I cut my attention to the task at hand and stick a pod in the Keurig.
“Any gossip on the man she’s seeing?” Cat asks, pulling my attention back to her.
I consider my reply, and the fact that I’m now headed into territory that is personal to Cole and I, but it’s also unfinished business that feels like it needs to be finished. “Actually yes,” I say, rotating to lean on the cabinet next to Cole, to find Cat turned in this direction. “She saw him with another woman in a coffee shop and she’s convinced he’s a manwhore.” I choose the word manwhore precisely because it’s what I’ve called Cole in the past.
“Oh no,” Cat says. “Oh no. She deserved a Prince Charming after all she has gone through. I want her to find a Prince Charming.”
Prince Charming.
What a choice of words.
“I hope she’s going to stay away from him now,” Cat says. “Before he does more damage.”
“Or,” Cole presents. “She could actually talk to him and ask him what’s going on.”
“I agree,” Reese says. “Have her just go at him like Cat goes at me.”
Cat laughs. “I go at you, huh?”
“Hell yeah you do, but a good fight and fix works miracles.”
“But you’re you,” Cat says. “What if this guy is a jerk?”
“Or not,” Cole presents again.
“Or not is what I told her,” I say. “Everything isn’t what it seems. She should talk to him.”
“Is she going to do it?” Cat asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, “but if she does, I hope it’s the right decision. I hope I’m not helping some kind of player play her.” I rotate and lift my cup off the tray, pouring powdered creamer inside, and taking a sip. “I sent you a cheat sheet for tonight, Cole,” I say, trying to get back to business. “It should be in your email.”
Cole sets his cup on the counter. “I need a minute before we go, Reese.” He doesn’t wait for a reply. “Let’s go talk before I leave, Lori.”
Adrenaline surges through me. My “back to business” gave him an opening that I won’t deny I knew would exist, and he’s taken it and quickly. I nod, and ignore my coffee, and trying to seem as normal as I can, I point at Cat. “Send me the file,” and quickly turn to follow Cole.
I exit the kitchen and he motions me forward down the hallway. We pass the bathroom where I took that pregnancy test when I thought I might be the mother of his child. It reminds me of the torment one night had caused me, but it’s not one night anymore. We enter the foyer where we pause on the other side of the wall, a hallway between us and anyone else in the apartment, where we can hear footsteps, and not be seen.
Cole steps around to face me, big and broad, and every bit as overwhelming as he always is, and I like that about him far too much to be his employee. He advances on me and I hit the wall, his hands pressed to the wall on either side of me as they were in the stairwell. His piercing blue eyes fix on me, seconds ticking by where I want him to touch me when I shouldn’t want him to touch me, passing like hours.
“What are you doing, Cole?” I whisper.
“I’m trying not to touch you and it’s fucking killing me.”
He says it with such low, fierce, pained intensity that it’s all I can do not to touch him “Stop.” I say and I’m not sure if I’m talking to him or me.
“I’m not doing this, sweetheart, we are.”
“You shouldn’t call me sweetheart.”
“All right. Lori. Is that better?”
“Not when you say it like you’re thinking about us being naked together again.”
“I am thinking about us being naked together again and so are you and don’t say I’m your boss. I get it. I know how hard you’ve worked. I know what this job means to you. I will protect you. I will help you. But we aren’t going to stop wanting each other.”
“I’m a challenge,” I say, voicing a concern I’ve tried to bury, but it refuses to be hidden. “That’s what this is.”
His hands come down on my waist, scorching me where they rest. “You still think I’m a player?” he demands. “Is that what that was in the kitchen?”
My hands go to his hands. “No. That was me saying that I’m sorry for not asking you about that woman. I’m sorry for assuming you were with her, but let’s be real here. I am a challenge. I’m the one that got away and if you once again have me—”
“I’ll want you again. And again.” He lowers his head, cheek next to mine, lips at my ear. “And again.”
Heat rushes through me but I manage to whisper. “You can’t know that.”
He pulls back, and his lips linger above mine. “I do know. Come home with me tonight and I’ll make you believe that.”
“Cole—”
He kisses me, a deep slide of tongue that has me melting, in every possible way before he says. “After the party. Say yes.”