Our conversations were short, but they were fun. She wanted to hear about my dating life, which I told her about in the most gentlemanly way because it seemed to make her happy, and it felt like a good way to keep that budding attraction I was building for her at a distance.
It also wasn’t a secret that she longed for Branson. I saw it in the way she watched him walk into the room. How she batted her lashes for him and sought his approval in a way that went beyond an assistant wanting to impress her boss. She longed for him to desire her as a woman.
He didn’t, but I did.
I never thought about acting on my feelings toward her. She was the cute-as-fuck assistant who I imagined naked on more than one occasion. Sure, she’s brilliant and funny, but she was untouchable. That certainly had to do with the attraction. I made a vow to myself to never act on that emotion. That was, until a few weeks ago, when she asked me to show her how to get Branson’s attention.
I knew it was a bad idea, but she was so damn persistent. There she was, looking gorgeous as fuck in that green dress, chugging champagne with all the sunshine dimmed from her. I offered her a reprieve. What I got was a solicitation.
I didn’t mean to kiss her, but when she looked at me with those green eyes and brushed her body against mine, her breath on my lips, I couldn’t help myself. She leaned in, and I took that kiss with everything I had.
Her lips were as sweet as honey, and her tongue tasted like cherries. My body tingled, my balls tightened, and I felt this surge race through me, down to my toes. I had to shift to hide my growing erection, but it wasn’t just lust. Something awoke inside me. It was in my head and my chest, and damn if I didn’t feel it in my gut.
At that moment, I knew the attraction I had for her was greater than what I had been telling myself. I’m not a territorial man, but seeing her bent over Branson’s desk the next morning did me in. I couldn’t let Branson have her. I needed her for myself. At least, I needed to see if what I had been feeling was real.
Over dinner, we connected. At the soup kitchen, I felt another tug. I was being selfish for whisking her away from Branson on Christmas Eve. I wasn’t ready to hand her over yet. I still needed to know.
When she was with me in my family’s home, sitting beside me, it felt right. I could picture her there fifty years from then. When she played with Ella, I had this vision of her playing with our own child. I’d known her for years, and yet in those twenty-four hours, this void that had been between us was filled. We dived deeper and deeper and then …
When she was beneath me, I felt it.
I felt the spark.
And then I panicked.
On the car ride back from Connecticut, her phone rang, and it was Branson. I found myself worried that her feelings for Branson were still greater than her feelings for me. That’s because, at the heart of it, I’m a selfish fuck.
And then other thoughts crossed my mind. Do I only want Katie because I shouldn’t have her? Is the chase as good as the get? Am I doing to her what I did to Cassidy?
I was trying to get my head on straight. I thought some distance might help, and then she showed up at the racquetball court and took care of me when I hurt my ankle. She’s so damn kind, and I don’t deserve her.
I imagined her in the same position and wondering what I would do to make her day better. I imagined getting a book of jokes and reading every one. I’d read her a historical romance that took place in a faraway land, where the hero’s nipples were on display on the cover. I’d make her my grandmother’s recipe of gnocchi because my grandmother had told me that dish was only for the ones I loved.
I felt the spark again that night.
I was in after that. All in until we found out where this relationship was going.
And then she had to go and make plans with him.
Of all people, on all nights of the year, she’s going to be with Branson Ford.
“I hate that British fuck,” I grit out.
“Jeez, watch your language,” my sister, Melissa, says as she walks into our parents’ kitchen.
“What are you doing here?” I ask her, surprised to see her here at ten o’clock at night.
“I should say the same thing to you. Don’t you have a fancy bachelor pad in the city?”
I raise my glass of whiskey to her in a cheers. “Why commiserate alone in my own home when I can do so in Mom’s Martha Stewart kitchen?”
She puts her purse on the counter and slides her coat off her shoulders. “There are so many aspects to that comment that I’m dying to get into, but first, I need a drink.”
“Macallan?” I lift the bottle to her, but she shakes her head as she grabs a wineglass.
“Pinot. Women don’t drink whiskey.”
“I beg to differ.” With a slap of my thigh, I turn to her and change the subject. “What brings you here on a school night?”
She pours her wine and takes the seat next to me. “I have a meeting in the city in the morning, so instead of waking up before dawn to drive in, I put the kids to bed and then drove here, hoping to cut down the commute in the morning.”
“I can give you a ride in. I have to be in the office at eight thirty.”
Instead of saying thank you or even accepting my offer, she shakes her head and raises her hand in question. “Why the fuck are you here?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I happen to enjoy Mom and Dad’s house.”
“They’re not even here. Dad took Mom to Mohegan Sun.”
“Yeah”—I take a drink—“learned that when I came home to an empty house.”
Melissa drums her fingers on the counter and lowers her gaze to me. The woman does resting bitch face really well. But active bitch face? She could win a prize for the way her eyebrows hover and her nose narrows. It really is an art.
“You don’t want to know,” I lament, a deep exhale pouring from somewhere deep in my gut.
Her brows relax, and her attitude fades. With dropped shoulders and a tilt to her head, she looks at me with a bewildered stare.
“It’s the girl,” she says.
“Katie.”
“Katie broke up with you,” she surmises.
“No. Actually, you’ll be very happy to know that I fucked this one up all on my own. Well, that, and she has a thing for a certain Brit with a bad accent.”
She waves her hand in the air, as if wanting me to back up. “Rewind. You were just here with a woman for the first time since Cassidy, being all starry-eyed and sleeping out in the pool house—don’t think I didn’t notice that—making a pretty bold statement to the family that this woman was special to you. I mean, Mom’s one step away from ordering your china. Now, you’re telling me that she wants someone else?”
How do I give my sister the CliffsNotes version of our relationship?
“Katie longed for another man for years until we started dating. When I surprised her with tickets to Miami for the weekend, she said she couldn’t. She has plans. With him.”
I finish my drink and pour another.
“What a whore.”
“She’s not a whore.” I’m quick to defend her, my tone deep and loud. “Don’t you ever call Katie that.” I rub the back of my neck and explain, “In her defense, the man in question is her boss, and they’re going to a work event.”