Nine
Spence waited for two days. Sunday dragged by with him texting Abby and not receiving a response. Carter had convinced him to wait a little longer and Ellie agreed. Jackson fed him some updates. On Monday, she didn’t show up for work and Spence’s nerves were shot. He had this image of her packing and leaving town. That was his thing and he was desperate for her not to repeat his mistakes.
The sick thing sounded like subterfuge. Derrick said that never happened. He couldn’t remember a day Abby had missed since starting with the company. And that did it. Spence spent the afternoon trying to come up with a plan that didn’t come off controlling and rude like his father. Spence didn’t want to be that guy. Ever.
But she was in hiding. Not her style and not something Spence had expected, but that’s what he got. He had to deal with it. True, she deserved some peace and time to think. He tried to give it to her. He really did. But at seven on Monday night, he stepped into the lobby of her condo building and met up with Jackson.
“I hope I don’t regret letting you in,” Jackson said as they walked to the elevator.
Yeah, that made two of them. “Get in line.”
The fact Jackson was comfortable there, that he got in and out and on the security-protected elevator without trouble had Spence’s mind spinning. He grabbed on to the bar behind him in the elevator as the car started to move. He hoped the stranglehold would keep him from doing or saying something stupid.
After a few seconds of silence, he opened his mouth anyway. “She’s—”
“Not expecting you,” Jackson said.
Spence couldn’t figure out if that was a good idea or not. Showing up unannounced might be a jerk move. Honestly, he’d pulled so many with her he couldn’t tell where the line was anymore.
“Are you planning to stick around and referee?” Part of Spence didn’t hate the idea. Strength in numbers and all that. Having reinforcements might not be bad, either, since he expected Abby to be furious.
The rest of him wanted Jackson out. The majority part. This was private, or it should be. The unloading, the telling of what happened back then, played out in front of an audience. She deserved an empty room for whatever else she needed to say. And he would take it. He owed her that much.
“You really have been gone a long time.” A mass of keys and security fobs jangled in Jackson’s hand.
“What?”
Jackson shook his head as he smiled. “I forgot we’ve been hanging out over at Derrick’s place or going out to eat since you’ve been back. So, you don’t know.”
The elevator bell dinged and the doors opened. Spence stepped out into the hall, not sure where to go or how to interpret Jackson’s unusual ramblings.
“Any chance you’re going to explain?” Spence asked.
Jackson nodded. “Follow me.”
He turned left and started down the hall. Stopped in front of the first door and pointed at it. “She lives here.”
Then he kept walking. Got to the next door and stopped. “This is mine.”
Spence’s heart stopped. For a second, he couldn’t breathe. “You live in the same building? On the same floor?”
Next to each other. That struck Spence as convenient and frustrating, and his anxiety spun out of control inside him.
“Abby told me about a good deal. I jumped in, bought low and became her neighbor.” Jackson winked at him. “But before you panic, and I can see it welling up in you already, I’m still only her good friend. Nothing more.”
“Why?” Spence couldn’t imagine another man not wanting her. Not making a move. Loyalty, sure, and none of the brothers or Jackson had ever tried to ask another’s ex out, but still. The proximity, their clear chemistry.
“It was never going to happen.” Jackson shook his head. “Because you love her.”
There was that word again. Spence kept waiting for his brain to reject it, but it didn’t happen.
The lock clicked and Jackson opened his door. “Don’t mess this up.”
* * *
When the bell bonged, Abby glared at the front door to her condo. She’d just sank down into the corner seat of her sectional. Arranged the blankets and pillows just right around her. Had a box of tissues on one side. The remote control on her lap. Medicine, water bottle and a cup of lemon tea right in front of her.
When the bell rang out a second time, she cursed under her breath. This could only be a handful of people. No one buzzed to come upstairs. The phone didn’t ring from the front desk to ask her permission to send someone to her. Jackson had a key. That left someone in the building or maintenance.
She stomped across her living room, ignoring the way her bright purple slippers clapped against the hardwood floor. She wore sweatpants and a shirt. No bra. Someone was about to get a show.
She peeked in the peephole and froze. Clearly the bad cold or the medicine or just life in general was making her vision blur. There was no way Spence stood out there. None.
“What?” She shouted the question through the door.
“Abby, please let me in.”
Yep, same silky voice. A defeated muffled tone, maybe, but that probably had something to do with him standing in the hallway.
But there was no use in ignoring him. That was easy on the phone. Harder when he hovered outside her door. She opened it and stared at him. “What?”
Whatever tough stance she was trying to take likely was ruined when she sniffled. Stupid cold.
He frowned at her. “You really are sick?”
Of all the things he could have said, that one was unexpected. “Of course. I don’t hide. Like I’d give your father that satisfaction.”
Oh, she’d wanted to. She’d even toyed with the idea. When the fever hit her on Saturday night after the big showdown with Eldrick, she’d chalked it up to frazzled nerves. By the next morning when she couldn’t lift her head off the pillow, she realized it was something else.
Needing to sit down, she left Spence at the door and walked back to her sectional. The cushions had never looked so inviting. She flipped off the slippers and slid into her cocoon of covers. Didn’t even look at him again until her head rested against the pillows propping her up from behind.
He stood over her, watching her. His gaze traveled over her. Not sexual. No, this felt like he was conducting an inventory. “When did you get sick?”
“I’d been fighting it off for about a week.” She lifted her head in the direction of the pill bottle on the ottoman. “I took some medicine I happened to have here and thought I caught it in time, but no.”
He sat on the edge of the couch. About a foot away from her. “It’s not healthy to self-medicate.”
“You sound like my doctor.” She was kind of tired of men telling her she was wrong about things. Not a rational response, she knew. But still.
He looked around the condo. His gaze zipped to her modern kitchen and the sleek white quartz countertop. To the dishes piled in her sink. “Have you eaten?”
She cuddled deeper into the cushions and let his deep voice wash over her. “It’s amazing what you can have delivered in this town.”
“True.”
That’s all he said. He didn’t move or try to get closer. She sensed he wanted to say something and she was not in the mood to make any of this easier on him. Now wasn’t the right time and she didn’t have the strength to carry on much of a conversation, but she could sit there and listen.
“I’ll handle these.” He stood up and stripped off his suit jacket. Threw it over her chair. The stupid thing hung there like it belonged in her condo.
She hated that.
“What are you talking about?” she asked as she watched those long legs carry him to the other side of the condo.
He stepped into the open kitchen and rolled up his shirtsleeves. “The dishes.”
Did he just say... “Are you kidding?”
He shrugged. “Seems like the least I can do.”
“You know how to do dishes?”
He looked up at her. “I’m not totally useless.”
“No one said totally.”
She thought she saw him smile at her joke as he went to work. Those long fingers soaped up the dishes. She considered reminding him she had a dishwasher, but it was right there. Surely he could see it.
No, she sensed this was something else. As if he were paying penance.
He cleaned in silence for the first five minutes. Then he started to talk. “I learned young to shut down. My dad would yell because nothing was ever good enough for him. I’d take myself out of the middle of it. Some days, he and Derrick would go at it.” Spence shook his head as if he were reliving a memory in his mind. “Unbelievable.”
She didn’t say anything. The cadence of his voice comforted her. Getting a peek into his childhood seemed to chase some of the germs away.
“Eldrick Jameson is not a good man. He was a terrible, distant, mean father. Hell, he wasn’t even much of a businessman. Derrick had to rescue the company from Dad’s overspending and bad choices.” Spence folded the towel and hung it on the bar on the stove. “Other kids had it much worse. I get that. We never wanted for anything. Dad kept up the outside appearances. Played the role of family man.”
Abby thought about Eldrick’s series of marriages. Of all the goodwill he’d run through in his life.
Spence walked back into the living room. She moved over a bit to silently tell him he could sit next to her.
He took the hint. Dropped into the cushions and snaked his arm along the back of the sectional. Didn’t touch her. Didn’t even come close, but having him near felt reassuring in an odd way.
“You weren’t the first girlfriend he approached...and I know I’m taking liberties with that word.” He waited until she nodded to continue. “But he’d made passes before. Sometimes the ploy worked, sometimes not. It chipped away at my trust of him and the women I was attracted to. Of myself.”
Spence picked at a spot on the cushion. Sat in silence for a few seconds before continuing. “He knew I was likely to run if he pushed too hard and tested me all the time. Made it clear I didn’t deserve anything in the company or in the way of a home life because I hadn’t proven myself.”
“He really was terrible.” She hadn’t meant to say that. It slipped out but it wasn’t wrong.
“Still is, though Beth might turn out to be one of his better choices.” Spence exhaled. “He’s currently sending us through this list of tasks we have to perform in order for him to turn the company over.”
“What’s yours?”
“I don’t know.” Spence barked out a harsh laugh. “He gave Derrick an envelope for me but I never opened it. I was too busy trying to figure out where we stood.”
We? She had no idea but she wasn’t ready for this conversation either. “Spence, I—”
“I’m not asking. It was just an explanation.” His hand dropped and his fingers moved closer to her shoulder, but he still didn’t touch her.
She sensed he might not unless she gave permission. And that was not going to happen...yet.
“I learned this defense. Carter and I both did. We took off. Carter traveled. I tried to forget everything here and all my regrets.”
She tipped her head back and looked at him. Let her gaze linger over his tired face and the dark circles under his eyes. “Am I a regret?”
“You are amazing. Smart and beautiful, funny and quick.” He shot her a cute smile. “Sexy as hell. That pantry was basically every one of my fantasies brought to life.” His smile faded. “But I messed up before. I do regret running out on you, not believing you. Breaking your trust before I really had a chance to earn it.”
“I guess you had a reason not to trust so easily.” She’d never admitted that before. Never even let it enter her head. In every scenario that ran through her mind, she was the sole victim in Eldrick’s schemes. But now she saw that wasn’t quite true.
“Don’t give me an out, Abby.” His fingers slipped lower then. Right next to her shoulder. Brushing against it in a soothing gesture. “I’m a grown man. I was done playing Eldrick’s games but that doesn’t excuse leaving you here to deal with him.”
“He bolted soon after.” She had been so happy that day. Happy every day since when he stayed gone.
Spence shook his head. “That’s not my point.”
She lifted her hand and covered his. Let their fingers tangle together. “I know.”
They sat there in silence. Images ran across the television screen. She’d turned the sound off when the doorbell rang and hadn’t turned it back on. Now they both watched the show, some detective thing with a lot of running, without any noise or talking.
She tugged him a bit closer. Felt the cushion dip when he slid over and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. The sex had been so good. Not smart, because she hadn’t insisted on a condom and at some point they needed to talk about that, but hot and right and almost cleansing in the force of it. But this felt pretty great, too. The silence. The calm.
Her fingers slipped over the remote, but she still didn’t turn on the sound. She didn’t want to break the mood. Not when she could concentrate on the way his breath blew over her forehead, and how every now and then, he would turn his head to place a chaste kiss on her hair.
“I know I need to earn back your trust,” he said into the quiet as darkness fell outside the windows behind the couch. “I just want you to think about giving me the chance to do that.”
Hope soared inside her and her heartbeat kicked up. The traitorous thing. The answer yes screamed inside her head but she didn’t say it out loud. Not yet. Not when Eldrick was still in town and Spence’s propensity to flee hadn’t been resolved. And she still needed to deal with Jeff Berger and whatever stupid thing he had planned for her.
She glanced up at Spence. Let her gaze wander over his lips. “I actually am hungry.”
A smile broke out on his lips. This one genuine and warming. “What do you want?”
She turned just a bit under his arm so she could see him better. “You mean you can cook, too?”
“I order things.” He suddenly looked so serious. “I’m really good at ordering.”
The joking almost did her in, but she held on to her control. This would take time to fix. “You just ruined my image of you as this big domestic guy who could do anything in the house.”
His eyebrow lifted. “Oh, I have skills. When you’re feeling better, I’ll show you.”
Her heart jumped. “Interesting.” Man, it so was.
“But for now...” He lifted his hips and slid his phone out of his back pocket. Started clicking on the keys. “You’re getting soup.”
It was the right answer but she wrinkled up her nose at the suggestion anyway. “I want a burger.”
He shot her a side-eye. “I’ll buy you as many as you want as soon as you’re feeling better.”
“That’s a pretty good incentive to get well.” So was he, but she didn’t mention it.
“Then soup it is.” He dropped a quick kiss on her forehead. “We’ll get back to the good stuff soon enough.”
For the first time in months she believed that. “You’re on.”