She emerged from the corridor, her blonde hair falling around her shoulders. The flowy skirt of her Bohemian-style dress rippled around her ankles as she approached, her gray eyes instantly locking on his.
Beautiful, as expected, she glowed with sunshine. Her cheeks rose with a smile, her face bright and shimmering with happiness.
She went straight to him and hugged his waist, and that was when he noticed the change.
“Whoa.” He gripped her shoulders and held her away, his attention dropping to the small round bump beneath the dress. “You’re pregnant?”
“And miserable.” Her smile widened. “Terrible nausea.”
If misery gave out a steady light, flushed the skin with warmth and radiance, and stretched the mouth into a permanent smile, then yeah, she was absolutely miserable.
He’d never seen her this happy. It flowed through her expression and bearing and emitted outward in infectious sparkling waves.
That was all he ever wanted for her, and he felt deep pleasure knowing he’d made the right decision eight years ago in this very house when he let her go.
“I imagine there’s more to your misery than the nausea.” His gaze flicked to Trace. “You’re going to be a father.” He tsked, shaking his head. “That should be illegal. The poor kid.”
Trace’s lips twitched, struggling to maintain his scowl.
“Danni, this is my girl.” He turned, staring into vast green eyes, where the reflection of trust and acceptance floated atop a fathomless sea of strength. “Lydia, this is Danni, your dance instructor.”
“Hi.” Lydia pushed the syllable past a tight throat.
She wasn’t nervous or apprehensive or even jealous. Cole gave her no reason to be any of those things. When he looked at Danni, there was no longing in his deep brown eyes. No passion or possessiveness. He gazed upon the pretty blonde with kindness and warmth. Like brotherly love.
Like the way Mike had looked at Lydia.
The painful tightness in her throat ebbed and swelled with the vacillation of her emotions. Mike was gone, and while she coped with that insufferable reality, she wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries with Cole’s ex-girlfriend.
The obligatory exchanges—Nice to meet you and How was your trip?—where they traded hollow stares, waited for a turn to talk, and skated around the fact that they’d both had sex with Cole—all of it required more energy than she could muster.
But she was here for this. One-hundred-percent. Trace and Danni were sacrificing a week of their time to help her. The least she could do was slap on a friendly face and participate.
“Let’s skip the awkwardness.” Danni crooked a finger at her and walked through the brightly lit living room toward the open kitchen. “You look like you could use a beer.”
“A beer would be great.”
The four of them gathered around the kitchen island. Open shelving on rustic wood walls displayed dishes and cookware. The floor-to-ceiling windows on the back of the lakehouse offered a panoramic view of the raw wilderness. The natural rock and wrought-iron terrace off the kitchen connected to a bridge that led to the private dock below.
Inside, the motif was clean, spacious, and monochromatic, as if designed to pull visitors toward the exterior views of the lake and woodland.
It felt safe here. Isolated. Quiet.
“It’s weird.” She lowered onto a stool at the island, speaking to no one in particular. “For the first time in years, I don’t feel like I have to look over my shoulder.”
“Do I get to hear what you two are involved in?” Danni set opened bottles of Bud Light in front of Lydia and Cole and poured a scotch for Trace. “Or is this another classified spy mission?”
Cole met Lydia’s eyes, his expression grave, silently warning her that he was about to rip off the Band-aid and talk about Mike.
She nodded and steeled herself.
He pulled up a seat beside her, sitting comfortably close with his legs spread around her stool. Then he shared her story with Trace and Danni.
Her father’s death, Mike’s death, Vincent Barrington’s corruption, the years of dogged determination she and Mike had invested, essential details of her personal life, the operation in Texas, her ugly truths—it was all exposed and so hard to hear.
But as she listened to the narration of her whole existence from Cole’s point of view, she didn’t cry. She didn’t even feel vulnerable. She was riveted. The way he viewed her life was astonishing.
He saw her hopes and struggles as something beautiful and painful and strong and poignant and incredibly human. He didn’t perceive her as a thief or a rapist or a horrible villain. She couldn’t mistake the raw compassion in his voice. He ached for her. He felt her. He related to her on every level.
That was when she realized that the things she carried around weren’t so different from what he carried around.
It was profoundly overwhelming and powerful.
As the night wore on, the others popped in and out of the kitchen, grabbing food and hanging out for a while. Tiago and Kate walked down to the dock. The rest of them eventually went to bed.
After midnight, they moved the conversation to the living room, where Cole lit fires in the hearths that sat on either end of the wall of windows.
Trace lounged on the brown leather couch, looking for all the world like a Viking king in a stuffy suit. Tall and muscled, intimidating scowl, blonde hair, strong features, and a stern brow that, even in its resting state, gave him a brooding mien.
With Danni curled up against his side, he’d shed the jacket, the collar of his starched shirt gaping open. They couldn’t have looked more relaxed.
Cole sprawled in the armchair across them as they discussed Trace’s casino business and Danni’s leave of absence from belly dancing. She was four months pregnant, her baby bump barely noticeable beneath the dress. But she touched it often, wearing a whimsical smile.
Lydia watched Cole through the night, expecting him to steal looks in Danni’s direction. But every time she looked at him, he was looking back, watching her as if she were the only person in the room.
Obsessive stalker.
Beautiful, complicated man.
His presence in her life felt surreal. The whole evening was pleasantly bizarre. For whatever reason, the four of them fell in lockstep with one another as if they’d been hanging out every weekend for decades, as if eight years hadn’t separated Cole from his friends. Instead of stiff pleasantries, they spoke openly and honestly, hiding nothing.
“When Cole told me he was going to ask for your help…” She stood beside Cole’s chair, running her fingers through his hair. “I was fully prepared to make jokes about the tension between the three of you. But there’s no tension. No awkwardness. You’re all just…old friends.”
“We went through some tough months together,” Danni said. “But it worked out.”
“It worked out for me. From where I’m standing, you made a mistake choosing the uptight, scowly suit over the sexy, rebellious stalker. But hey, your loss is my win.”
Trace scowled. Hard. Scary.
Danni burst into laughter.
Cole caught Lydia’s waist and pulled her down on his lap. “Are you trying to cause trouble?”
“Just testing the waters.”