I whip my head toward her, frowning.
“What?”
She lifts up a sealed envelope and waves it at me.
“Seems to me like I should be asking you what the fucking problem is,” she says. She puts the letter down on her desk and I stare at it numbly.
She quit.
She’s gone.
It’s over.
If it wasn’t clear before, it’s crystal clear now. Nicole doesn’t want anything to do with me. She’ll put herself in financial hardship just to stay away from me.
Pain pierces through me and I take a deep breath. I stand up taller.
Good riddance. She was a distraction anyway. She got under my skin, and she didn’t deserve my attention. She was just a fucking paralegal. A fling.
I nod to Carmen, stalking out without a word. I walk back to my office, but I can’t face working right now. Instead, I turn toward the elevators and I make my way to my car. My feet carry me without me knowing where I’m headed. The anger blazes through me, mingling with the strange, unfamiliar pain throbbing through my heart.
Putting the car in gear, I race out of the lot. I let my instincts take me through the streets, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel when a red light dares to stop me. Gritting my teeth, I press on the accelerator as soon as it turns green.
Before I know it, I’m outside Nicole’s apartment. There’s no time to analyze what’s going on. No time to think about what I’m doing, or why I’m here. I mash on the buzzer over and over, but there’s no response. An old woman shuffles out of the door, giving me a suspicious glare.
“I’m one of Nicole’s friends,” I say, forcing a smile. She frowns at me but lets me pass. I take the stairs two by two, heading for her door. I bang on her apartment, yelling her name. I listen, but all I can hear is my own ragged breath and the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears.
I lean my forehead against the door, sighing.
“Nicole,” I say once more to the impassive door.
“What are you doing here?” I jump when I hear her voice behind me. Her hair is wet, and her eyes are rimmed with the red imprint from her swimming goggles. She has a towel slung over her arm, with her work bag hanging off her shoulder.
Her eyes are dark—almost black. They’re so far from the sparkling grey that I’ve learned to love. She stares at me until I speak.
“Why did you quit?”
“Why did you take the DUI case?”
“Nicole…”
“Can you please move out of the way?”
I take a step aside as the anger flares inside me. Why won’t she just listen? Why can’t she just understand that this is my job, and I have to take whatever case Carmen gives me? I’m not doing this just to spite her. She shouldn’t have quit.
She walks into her apartment leaving the door open, and I take that as an invitation inside. I step inside, closing the door behind me. She glances over her shoulder and takes a deep breath. Tossing her bag and towel over the back of a chair, she rakes her fingers through her wet hair and turns toward me.
Nicole plants her hands on her hips, facing me with all the force of her righteous anger.
“Why are you here?”
“Don’t quit.” It’s not a request. She shouldn’t be quitting over something so trivial. Bullshit cases go through the firm all the time, and it’s our job to take them. She should know that by now. Why would she quit over this?
“That isn’t your decision.” Her defiance makes my blood boil. Lust ignites in my core and my cock hardens to steel in an instant. Her eyes flash at me, and I’d like nothing more than to teach her swollen lips a lesson.
I take a step toward her, and she stands her ground.
“Nicole.”
Her chin juts upward. She sets her jaw, staring me straight in the eye. Why does she have to be so damn irresistible?
“I don’t want you to quit,” I say quietly, taking another step toward her. There’s only a foot of space between us, and I close it with another step. She hasn’t moved. Her chest brushes against mine, and my whole body zips with heat when I feel her nipples harden against me.
Her body leans into me and she forces herself backward, turning her face away from me.
“It doesn’t matter what you want, Martin,” she says. “It’s done now.”
“This isn’t done.”
“It’s not your decision.”
She takes a step away from me, but I catch her wrist with my hand. I pull her to me, sliding my other hand to the back of her neck and tilting her head up. I crush my lips against hers and kiss her more fiercely than ever before. Her mouth opens, inviting me in. She moans softly into my mouth as I let my tongue dance over hers, and then I kiss her harder. Our lips, tongues, teeth crash together as my hand on her neck tightens and her fist curls into my chest.
She smells like chlorine, and she tastes sweeter than honey. I groan, grinding my hard cock against her stomach as I pull her closer.
Then, as suddenly as it started, she pushes me back. Before I know what’s happening, she lifts her arm and brings her hand across my face—hard.
“How dare you?”
Her eyes are blazing, her whole body trembling. I bring my hand up to my cheek in shock, arching my eyebrows.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t want that, princess.”
“Get. Out.” Her voice is low. I don’t move, and her body vibrates. “Out!”
Her yell pierces straight through the center of my chest, and I take a step back. Lust and anger and guilt and rage boil inside me until I just turn around and rip the door open. I stand in the open doorway with my back to her for a moment, and finally turn my head to look over my shoulder.
“I thought you were different.”
“Fuck you, Martin.”
I leave the door open as I walk out the door and out of her life.
25
Nicole
I’m still shaking when I pick up the phone and call Stella.
“Hey,” she says, answering the phone. “Let me guess, you’re wondering how my renovations are going.”
“Indirectly, yes. You got time for a glass of wine?” I choke back a sob.
“Are you okay?” Concern seeps into her voice and I bite my lip to stop myself from crying.
“Yeah.” I sniffle. “No.”
“I think by ‘glass’ you meant ‘bottle’, right? Are you at home?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m just finishing up at the office. I’ll be over in half an hour.”
I let out a sigh after I hang up the phone and stare blankly through the window. After a few minutes, I realize it’s raining and I don’t know how long I’ve been staring at the rain.
With a sigh, I peel myself off the couch and head to the bathroom. I take a long, hot shower and I curl up on the couch to wait for my friend. I feel numb. This morning, I was empowered. I was making the right decision.
But now? Now I don’t know what to think. Martin came here—that must mean he cares about me, right? But then he just demanded I not quit like he owned me. He kissed me like I was his fucking property. Ever since the cabin, it feels like something between us has shifted. The intimacy is gone, but the intensity has remained. It leaves me alone and vulnerable and dirty.
When she rings the buzzer, I breathe a sigh of relief. I can’t be alone right now. If I’m alone, I’m thinking about him, and if I’m thinking about him, I’m missing him. If I’m missing him, I’m hurting.
I open the door and Stella lifts up a bag. Bottles clank inside it and I try to smile.
“How many bottles did you bring?”
“Enough to make you forget about that bastard.”
My eyebrows arch. “How did you know?”
Stella laughs, shaking her head. “Because it’s always a bastard that makes us feel this way. Tell me everything. Wait, first—”
She twists off the top of a bottle and takes a swig. I crack a smile, and she hands it to me, nodding. I take a big gulp,
wiping my lips and shaking my head.
“Feels like college all over again.”
“That’s the idea.”
She goes to the kitchen and comes back with two glasses. “I guess we can pretend to be civilized.” She grins and fills the glasses up to the brim.
Sensing that I’m not ready to talk, Stella tells me about her leaky roof and the sexy carpenter that came by to fix it.
“I can set you up with him, if you want.” She swirls her wine and winks at me. “He’s got all those great muscles that just scream ‘manual labor’. Rough hands and a dirty mouth.” She wiggles her eyebrows and I laugh. It feels like my face is cracking from the strain of smiling, but the pain in my heart eases.
“Sounds like you’ve already been there, done that.”
“I wish,” she says, snorting. “I’m working so many hours these days that I hardly even have the energy to pleasure myself, never mind someone else.”
I snort sadly. My cheeks flush when I think of Martin in here, an hour ago, and how his touch made my panties soak through immediately. As much as I hated kissing him, my whole body responded to his touch as if he held the controls to my pleasure. My nipples hardened, and heat flooded my veins as soon as his hands were on me.
My mind and body were thrown into beautiful, irresistible chaos the second I saw him at my door.
But it was wrong. He is wrong!
“How about you, Nic? How’s work? Did that bastard of a lawyer make it awful for you?”
“Pretty much… I quit this morning.”
“What!” Her eyes widen. “Why?”
My throat gets tight and my eyes prickle. I bite my lip, taking a long, shuddering breath to steady myself. Stella puts a hand on my knee and I close my eyes.
“Remember how I told you that Martin and I stopped at the scene of the accident?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Well, I told him all about it. I told him about the hit and run, and how it was probably some drunk driver afraid of getting in trouble.”
“Mm-hmm,” she says, a bit more slowly. Her eyes are glued to me.
“Yesterday, he took a DUI case. The guy hit a woman and she’s in the hospital now.” I close my eyes, squeezing my wine glass so hard I’m afraid it might break.
“Oh, gosh. Oh, Nicole,” Stella says, shaking her head. “Oh Nic, I’m sorry.”
“I just don’t know why he would do that. He said he didn’t have a choice, but…”
“But you always have a choice.”
“Exactly!”
“And you feel like he completely disregarded your feelings about this massive life event that you’re just starting to process.”
“Yes!”
“And you feel betrayed that he would let you open up to him and then stomp on your feelings.”
“Yes! Is that so hard to understand?”
“Men are dense,” she scoffs. “But even that I would expect them to get. Who is this guy anyway?”
“Martin Henderson. He’s the youngest lawyer to ever make partner at Sanders & Perry, apparently.”
“So he thinks he can walk on water,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Figures.”
I take a deep breath. “He showed up here today.”
“No!” Her eyes widen. She takes a sip of wine without blinking or taking her eyes off me. I nod.
“Mm-hmm. Tried to kiss me.”
“That bastard! Did you let him?”
“I was in shock, so yes.” I blush. “Then I slapped him.”
“No!” Stella says again, laughing. “You didn’t!”
“I did.”
Stella lets out a burst of laughter and throws her head back. She touches her glass to mine and arches her eyebrows. “Go you,” she grins.
I laugh and then shake my head. “You know what the fucked-up thing is though? I actually liked it. I was turned on. I felt like my body was betraying me, like I should feel disgusted and violated, and I should never want his hands on me again. But I fucking liked it.”
Stella takes a deep breath and shakes her head. “Been there. Maybe you should just hate-fuck him and get him out of your system.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“It isn’t. It will most definitely make things worse,” she laughs. “But I haven’t had sex in over six months, and a hate-fuck sounds pretty good to me right now.”
We laugh, and I lean my head on Stella’s shoulder. She fills up my wine glass again. I’ve missed this—actual human connection. What I have with Martin… it’s hard to describe. It felt so deep and so real when we first started sneaking around, but then it just fell apart. I don’t even know if I was imagining it from the start. Maybe he’s just been a beautiful, empty shell of a human the whole time.
“What are you thinking about?” Stella pulls me out of my head, and I smile.
“I was just thinking that the one good thing to come out of all this was reconnecting with you. I’m getting along better with my sister, too. I’m starting to feel like myself again.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.” Stella’s eyebrows draw together and she sighs. “I tried, but then… I guess I just stopped trying.”
“I pushed everyone away.” I stare at my wine. “You could have tried and tried and tried but it wouldn’t have worked.”
“I’m so sorry you went through all that. Jack was… he was great.”
Grief starts raising its ugly head inside me and I shove it down. I’m sick of it. Sick of feeling weak and powerless. Sick of letting these feelings knock me down for days. Sick of it all.
I swallow past a lump in my throat and nod. “Yeah, he was.”
“Hey!” Stella’s eyes brighten. “How about I ask around at the office for a job for you? Maybe we could get you working at my firm. That would help ease the whole ‘quitting because you fucked your boss’ thing.”
“I didn’t quit because I fucked him,” I grin.
“No, right. You quit because he’s an ass, which only became a problem after you started fucking him.” She arches an eyebrow and I laugh. “I’d say fucking him is one of the root causes. If we’re being honest, that is.”
I shake my head, grinning. “You know, one of the things I like most about you is also what I like the least about you.”
“What’s that?”
“Your ability to hold up a mirror to me and make me see what I don’t want to see.”
“Right now the mirror is saying your glass is empty,” she grins, picking up the bottle again. “So what do you say? You want me to ask if they have a job for you?”
I take a deep breath and nod. “Sure. Yeah… that would be good, actually. That would make this whole thing a lot easier.”
“As a bonus, it’ll be that much easier to enlist you for my renovations.”
“Or set me up with your sexy carpenter.”
“I’ve decided he’s mine,” she laughs, shaking her head. “I’m calling dibs.”
Stella refills our glasses, emptying the last drops of wine into her glass and cracking another bottle open. She leans back on my sofa and stares out the window.
“So… in all honesty, do you think it would be a really bad idea for me to sleep with my contractor?”
“No worse than me sleeping with my boss,” I laugh. “So, I mean, go for it.”
She nods and sips her wine. “Okay. I’ll do it. Are you going to hate-fuck your bastard lawyer boss?”
I take a deep breath and stare out the window with her. I shrug. “If the opportunity presents itself… maybe, yeah.” As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I know I wouldn’t have the heart to do it. Being that close to Martin would rip the heart clean out of my chest, but it feels good to pretend that it wouldn’t.
“Atta girl,” she chuckles. “Wouldn’t expect any less of you.”
26
Martin
I pace up and down my apartment like a caged animal. My fists open and close constantly, and I run my fingers through my hair until it�
��s sticking up in all directions. I stare out the floor-to-ceiling windows, seeing nothing.
Slumping down in an overstuffed armchair, I put my head in my hands.
I’m not sure what’s worse—the guilt of knowing what I did to Nicole and her husband last January, or the thought of going to work when Nicole isn’t there.
She made herself clear: she doesn’t want to see me. She wants nothing to do with me.
I look down and realize my knee is bouncing up and down. My heel is hitting the hardwood floors, making a light tapping sound over and over and over. I haven’t even taken my shoes off yet, and it sounds loud in my empty apartment.
The refrigerator suddenly stops making noise and I’m hit with the crushing realization that I’m alone.
Alone.
Again.
I let out a sigh and slump further down in the chair. My shirt crumples underneath me and I know it’ll crease, but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything except the look of hurt and betrayal in Nicole’s eyes when I tried to kiss her.
If only she knew the truth—the whole truth—she’d be more hurt and betrayed than ever before.
My hand drifts to my chest and I clutch my heart. Every breath hurts. A crushing weight has installed itself on top of my chest and it isn’t leaving.
How could I be so stupid? I let myself get vulnerable, something I’d promised I would never do. My eye catches a photo frame above the fireplace, and anger flares up inside me again. Jumping out of the chair, I take three long strides toward the photo frame. That’s when it started. That photo is the exact moment where everything went wrong.
The moment when my life exploded into a million little pieces happened a week after that photo was taken. I can’t handle it. I can’t handle the hurt of what I’ve lost. I can’t handle the guilt of what I’ve done. I can’t handle the thought that I’ve hurt Nicole.
I grab the photo. The frame creaks under the force of my fingers and the need to just break something crashes into me. Starting in the pit of my stomach, it builds and builds until my thumb cracks the thin glass in front of the photo. Rage clouds my vision and a roar rumbles in my chest. With all my might, all my rage and hurt and guilt, I fling that fucking photo across the room. I don’t flinch when it smashes against the wall, sprinkling glass all over my expensive hardwood floors.
Love/Hate: The Complete Enemies to Lovers Series Page 12
