“Ye—”
“No,” Danny interrupted.
Izzy expelled a breath and turned to him. “Go away.”
He shot Trace a narrow-eyed glare before asking, “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Fine. I’ll be down the hall.” He stepped past Trace. “Just a couple doors away. If you need me.”
They both waited until he left, then Trace shut the door and turned to her. Before he could speak, she said the thing uppermost in her mind. “You shaved.” She had to restrain herself from lifting her hand to his smooth jaw. All those hidden, chiseled lines. “You’re all…” She gestured at his clothing.
“I wanted to prove I can clean up, when necessary.” He cleared his throat. “I can be the guy on the arm of a junior partner at a top-tier L.A. law firm.”
Her heart thudded unsteadily against her ribs. She ran a hand self-consciously down the front of her T-shirt. “I’m sure you could. It’s too bad I don’t know anyone like that.”
His dark brows furrowed, forming the 11 lines she knew and loved. “You?”
She shook her head. “Didn’t Chuck tell you?”
He stepped closer. “Tell me what?”
“I resigned.”
“Oh, shit, Izzy.” Big hands folded around her upper arms. “Over this? Us? The deal? Please don’t. I’ve already told Chuck I’m not moving forward with the sale. It’s my choice. You were right about everything. I was selling for the wrong reasons. I didn’t have all the necessary facts, including some painful truths I’d hidden from myself. Now I do. Now I know beyond a shadow of a doubt what I want. Everything I want.”
Relief coursed through her. She went onto her tiptoes and hugged him. Closed her eyes and clung on as she felt his arms enfold her. “I’m happy to hear it. So happy.” Knowing she had to, she slowly released him. He, however, didn’t release her, which sent her pulse spiking. “But I resigned for other reasons, too. This”—she pointed around the office—“isn’t what I want. It hasn’t been for a long time, but it took stepping away to recognize it. I guess I was hiding from some painful truths of my own.”
“Yeah?” His brow quirked up, as did the corner of his mouth. “So, what’s your plan, Isabelle Marcano?”
That look. It put wings in her stomach and did equally distracting things to other places. “I, uh…I don’t really have a firm plan. I guess you could say my plans are up in the air.”
“I have a plan I’d like to sell you on.” His smile faded as he said it. “It’s a three-part plan, actually.”
Hoping to lighten the mood, she quipped, “Turns out I’ve got nothing but time.”
He nodded, still serious. “Great. So, the first part involves an apology.” Bringing his hands up to cradle her face, he lowered his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry, Izzy. Sorry for lying to you about Shay. Sorry for breaching your trust. I’m also sorry about passing you off to everyone as my girlfriend. It put you in an awkward position. Several awkward positions,” he amended. “Though I’ll never be sorry about how things evolved between us.”
She pressed her palms to his smooth cheeks and tipped her face up. “Me either.”
“Can you forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive. I asked you to promise me your decision to sell had nothing to do with Shay’s death because I needed to make sure you took sufficient time to reflect on your motives. You have. That’s all I ever wanted.” She leaned closer, lowered her eyelids, inviting a kiss, but he released her.
She blinked her eyes open to find him kneeling in front of her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Not a thing.” He took her hands, linked their fingers together. “It’s just, I received very explicit instructions on how I’m supposed to fix things with you. Part one was the apology. Part two is begging.”
Oh, God. This man. “Begging for what? Trace, you don’t have to beg me for anything.”
“I do. I have to beg you to come home with me. Please know I was willing to split the difference—do part of the time in L.A. and part of the time in Captivity—hence the shave and the suit. But I’m thinking that’s not going to work for you anymore?”
Everything inside her fell away and held fast at the same time. “You’re right. That wouldn’t work. My future isn’t in L.A.”
“Could I interest you in a future in Captivity, with one slightly hardheaded bush pilot, a town full of busybodies with absolutely no boundaries, and a gaggle of territorial geese?”
Tears sprang to her eyes. She blinked as quickly as she could, hoping to hold them back. “Even with the geese, that is the best offer I’ve had all day. All week.” She freed her hands and sank them into his newly trimmed hair. “All my life.” Lowering to her knees, she looked up at him. “What’s part three?”
He cupped her jaw, drew her closer, and kissed her. Kissed her as an office door closed down the hall. Kissed her as the elevator bell dinged. Kept right on kissing her as she moaned and melted against him. When everything around them fell still and silent, Trace broke away and murmured, “Part three is persuasive make-up sex.”
She stared up at him, dumbstruck for a solid thirty seconds. “Here?”
He nodded.
“Now?”
“Turns out you’ve got nothing but time.”
True. And while she’d worked, stressed, eaten, and, at times, even slept in this little room, she’d never once had sex there. Her final hours seemed like the right time to rectify that. She got to her feet.
“You need more begging?” He shot the question at her quickly. “No problem. I can beg. Baby, come on. What are they going to do, fire you?”
She walked to the door, stopped, and locked it. Smiling, she turned and leaned against it. “You don’t need to beg, except maybe later, for mercy.”
He rose now, too, smiling as well, and walked to her desk. “Come here.”
She strolled over, peeling her top off as she went.
His eyes lit with lust and approval. Her confidence soared. He pointed at her desk. “Any of this stuff important?”
An empty bankers box. Some mail. A stack of various sized sticky note pads. IT had already come for her laptop and accessories. She shook her head.
He cleared the surface with the sweep of an arm.
Why that set her panties afire, she couldn’t say, but then he picked her up, pivoted, and laid her out on the desk and her thoughts scattered. Bracing his hands on either side of her head, he loomed over her, raking his hot gaze over every inch of exposed skin, then lowered himself and recaptured her mouth. The kiss went long, and wet, and, at least on her part, restless, as the fabric of his suit, tie, and shirt teased her skin. She grabbed handfuls of his jacket and held on while his mouth roamed her jaw, her throat, and lower. Through the white lace of her bra, he laved her breast, drew it into his mouth, scored it with his teeth until only the very tip of her nipple remained trapped in the careful vice of his incisors. Need ripped through her like lightning, from her nipple to her core. Head thrown back, she arched and bucked, all the more desperate for him after days of despair and distance.