We hung up and I stared broodingly at my phone, thinking about Harper, my parents, and Caleb.
The bell for the front desk rang in my office. I had just pushed back my chair to go see who it was when I heard heels clack across the reception floor. The murmur of voices assured me that whoever it was was already being dealt with, so I turned back to my computer, trying to remember what the hell I was in the middle of doing.
Not even a minute later Stella’s voice drew my head up from my computer screen. “There is a Mr. Caleb Scott here to see you. You didn’t mention you had an appointment this morning, so I just wanted to double-check it was okay to send him in?”
Astonishment froze me in place for a second.
What the hell was Caleb doing here?
A flurry of mixed feelings overwhelmed me. Surprise, annoyance, and—worst of all—relief.
“Ava?”
“Uh, send him in.”
“Are you sure?” She frowned at me.
“He’s … a friend.”
Stella’s frown instantly turned into a knowing smile and then she mouthed, Nice, before disappearing.
I sighed. Great. Now my boss would grill me once Caleb left. In the entire six years I’d worked for her, not once had she seen me with a guy. She’d set me up on dates, which I’d dutifully gone to, but I never let any of them past first base. Over time, my reluctance to form any kind of a romantic connection with the opposite sex had become clear to Stella and she’d stopped trying to set me up.
My thoughts on the matter immediately halted at the sight of Caleb dwarfing the doorway to my office. He was delicious in the suit I’d seen him wearing at Canterbury days ago and he was also staring at me in a way that could be construed as pensive. Or it could have been a glare. Sometimes it was hard to tell with my broody Scotsman. What the hell was he doing here?
He stepped into the office and closed my door behind him. He locked it.
That brought me to my feet, my heartbeat falling out of its normal rhythm. “What are you doing here?”
Caleb crossed the room to stand at the opposite side of my desk. “We need tae talk.”
Something inside me shuddered uneasily at his tone. “I thought you were busy planning a way to deal with your fellow CFO?”
“Aye, I am. Dinnae worry yourself on that account.” He threw me a sardonic look as he began to round the desk.
I backed up a little, stumbling against my chair as he stopped beside me and then planted his big body on my desk. The action brought us face-to-face and his familiar scent triggered a wave of intense longing and need.
Seriously, I was officially addicted to him.
However, he wasn’t looking at me like a man who planned to seduce me in my office, which frankly relieved me, because that kind of unprofessional behavior was the exact kind of thing my parents would have done. Not me.
“So talk.” I crossed my arms over my chest, pretending I was unaffected by his presence.
Caleb studied me a little longer until I was almost squirming, and then he said, “Sometimes in my work, honesty is a commodity you can’t afford. I try my best tae be vague rather than downright dishonest, but I do what I have tae for the good of the company as long as the white lies dinnae hurt anybody.”
I frowned at this surprising lead. “Okay.”
His gaze sharpened, those ice eyes holding me captive. “But I dinnae like it. You said something last night … about how we all have flaws. How you have flaws. You just admitted it, no big deal. Some people can’t admit their shortcomings, you know that.”
I snorted. “Yeah, I’m aware of that, believe me.”
“I can. But honesty isn’t one of them. I’ve been told I can be honest tae a fault.”
I believed it. “You can be pretty blunt sometimes, yes.”
“Aye.” He seemed to deliberate for a second and then sighed. “I’m not used tae being around one woman long enough for honesty tae become a problem. I’m up front from the start that it’s just sex. We have sex. One of us goes home, end of story.”
A sharp, burning tightness spread across my chest in a flash of horrible intensity and I fought to mask the bolt of jealousy I felt. I apparently did not like the thought of Caleb with other women.
Wonderful.
“You’re telling me this why?”
Caleb’s expression softened a little. “This is just physical, like we agreed.”
I nodded because I couldn’t bring myself to outright lie to him.
“And I know not too long ago we didn’t like each other much.”
Whatever this conversation was, I wanted it to end because I had a feeling he was going to hurt me again. “Caleb, if this is about last night and Patrice offering up information about me—”
“I like you,” he cut me off. The words were sweet but said in an annoyed growl.
“Oh.” Something like hope began to blossom inside of me. And that confused the hell out of me—since when did I want anything meaningful with a guy?
“There’s a lot tae like, Ava. From what I can see so far, you aren’t at all what I expected.”
I smiled. “Thank you, I think.”
Caleb didn’t smile. “I think maybe you like me a little bit too.”
If he could be honest, then so could I. “I do.”
“But this is still just sex.”
His words cut right through my hope and I did my damn best to hide it. “I—I never said it wasn’t.”
“Last night I sent you home when I wanted you in my bed. I worried we were crossing a line at dinner.”
“I was worried about that too. But I never thought anything had changed between us.”
“Good. Here’s the thing … I enjoy you. I want tae enjoy you for the next week, and I’d quite like tae be able tae do it freely without worrying that if we have an actual conversation that I’m sending you the wrong message.”
Understanding dawned and I clarified, “You want us to just enjoy each other but doing so fully understanding what this is.”
“Exactly.” He stood up, towering over me, and I had to tilt my head to keep a hold of his gaze. “I dinnae believe in mind games or keeping a woman guessing where my head is at. That isn’t me. So this is where my head is at. Even if there wasn’t an actual ocean between us, I’m not a relationship kind of guy. I never will be. But I genuinely like you, and I dinnae mind us having a friendship between us if you dinnae. As long as we both know that is all this is.”
His honesty was startling. The words coming out of his mouth were both reassuring and horrifying because they only made what I was beginning to feel for him more intense.
Caleb made me feel safe.
I felt like I might be able to trust him in a way I’d never dared to hope I could trust a guy again.
And he was telling me that he just wanted to be friends with benefits.
What the hell was I supposed to do now?
If I didn’t agree, he’d walk out of here and I’d never see him again. But I’d be in control of my life again.
Yet … wouldn’t I look back on my life and regret that decision? Wasn’t it better to enjoy what we had now while we could? Life was short after all. And Harper was right. I was never really in control of my life. I was letting my parents and the past dictate and control my decisions every time I tried to keep my life safe and conservative and restrained.
I stared up into Caleb’s rugged face, at those lips that made me feel things no man ever had. And I couldn’t imagine not having at least one more taste. “It sounds good to me,” I whispered, feeling my body begin to light up.
He bent his head toward me. Our kiss was slow, deep, sexy, and I felt I could rest easy knowing this man would miss this when he returned to Scotland.
The sound of a phone ringing ruined the moment, breaking our kiss.
I clasped his prickly cheek in hand. “You should go.”
“Tonight,” he said.
“Tonight,” was my answer.
Cal
eb nodded, satisfied. “Same time.”
“I’ll be there.”
With one last searing look, Caleb crossed the room, unlocked the door, and let himself out. I could only stare after him.
With him gone, reality came crashing back in and stayed there.
A miracle had happened.
I found myself feeling something for a guy. Actually, maybe, wanting to try out something real with him.
And he just happened to be the most brutally honest, commitment-phobic man I’d ever met.
Fifteen
Several days later I found myself standing on a checkered floor in a dark bar in Allston, wondering if inviting Caleb to come hear Vince’s band play was such a good idea after all.
The bar we were in was called Great Scott.
“I didn’t know,” I’d said to Caleb as we’d approached the building with the black awning over the front that had the words “Great Scott” in bold letters.
But Caleb had surprised me by halting, turning around, and capturing a selfie of himself with the awning in the background. I’d merely stood there beside a chuckling Harper, bemused by the uncharacteristic action. He’d shrugged when noting my bafflement. “For my wee sister. She’ll think it’s hilarious.”
“You have a sister?” Harper had asked as we strode inside the already busy bar.
From there Harper had grilled him a little about his family, and I now knew that he had brothers as well as sisters. His brother next to him in age was Jamie, thirty years old and a mixed-media artist who had found quite a bit of fame through social media (note to self to check out his social media accounts). Then there was Quinn. Caleb’s features strained as he clipped out the name, his gaze hardening. He divulged nothing about Quinn before moving on to their sister Fallon. She was twenty-eight and worked for the forestry commission. I didn’t know what that meant—I wanted to know, yet daren’t ask. I also wanted to know more about Quinn, but everything about Caleb screamed back off at the mere mention of him. After Fallon came Skye, a twenty-one-year-old junior whom Caleb sent the selfie to.
Now, as we drank beer and waited for Vince’s band to come on-stage, Harper continued to ask questions, making me fidget with discomfort. I was worried Caleb would think I’d put her up to it.
“Were your parents young when they had you?” she said to him.
He nodded. “My mum was only eighteen. My dad was twenty-one.”
“What do they do for a living if they had you so young? They couldn’t have had time for an education, popping out all those kids, right?”
I groaned inwardly. When Harper was curious about someone, her questions became blunt and almost interrogative.
To my relief, Caleb seemed merely amused by her. “My dad’s father owned a farm just outside of Linlithgow. The farm goes back four generations. My parents lived and worked there with my grandparents and when my grandfather passed away my dad took over the farm. It isn’t an easy life but it’s a good one. We learned tae work hard from a young age but we also had a very nice childhood.”
There he went surprising me again. Never would I have imagined that Caleb Scott had grown up on a working farm.
“And your parents are still there?”
“Aye. As is my gran. All still working away. Feeling the empty nest now that Skye’s off tae uni.”
“Well, Ava and I are envious as hell,” Harper said, speaking for us both, which might sound forward to some people, but I was used to it. And in this case, she was right. “It sounds idyllic growing up on a farm with four brothers and sisters, and parents that give a shit.”
I was mildly uncomfortable about how much she gave away in that one sentence, but Caleb had already been given an inkling of my unhappy family life from Patrice, so I decided to not let it bother me. Even as he skewered both of us with a questioning look. I nudged Harper discreetly, silently telling her to shut up.
Thankfully, she did. “Another beer?” she asked.
Caleb said he was fine but I asked for another and stood in silence by his side while Harper wandered over to the bar. Unfortunately, all the tables were already taken when we’d arrived, but somehow I didn’t think even having a table between us would have made this less awkward.
The rest of the week with Caleb had gone on in much the same way as the days before it. Nights spent together in his hotel room and me leaving for my own place once we were done. However, on Friday he’d asked me if I was free for lunch and we’d met at his hotel and dined at the Bristol Lounge. Trying to keep things not awkward or too personal, I invited conversation about his work and he vented to me more about the CFO that concerned him.
It turned out, after speaking with his own boss, that Caleb wasn’t just in Boston as part of a networking trip. The big guys in Tokyo were concerned about the North American division’s performance. They decided they wanted someone to take a look into the division’s finances and overall situation, and so Caleb’s boss in Glasgow had offered up Caleb, knowing if there was a problem he’d spot it.
So now Caleb’s job while he was in Boston was to interview staff members and collect necessary information and data. He was basically a CFO turned investigator and auditor. And he wasn’t exactly comfortable with the position or his boss’s subterfuge on the matter, but he was doing it anyway.
Letting Caleb vent was easy, and the guards we both had up seemed to have temporarily dropped since our honest conversation in my office. When he’d asked if I was free Saturday night and I wasn’t, I disliked the idea of him being alone in Boston and had impulsively asked him to come with us to the bar.
He had easily accepted the invitation, surprising me somewhat. But actually being in a “normal, datelike” situation with him was a little more awkward than I’d been expecting. It was perhaps hanging out around my friend that made me feel like we’d crossed a line into territory we weren’t supposed to.
“Have I mentioned how sexy you look in those jeans?” Caleb said, still looking around the bar and not at me.
My belly fluttered at the compliment. Taking Harper’s advice, I had gone out that week and purchased a pair of dark blue skinny jeans. I’d paired them with a tight-fit plain black T-shirt and a cropped leather jacket. Unable to completely abandon me, I was also wearing platform red stilettos, put my usual waves through my hair with my straight iron, and gone to town on my makeup with dramatic smoky eyes.
“Thank you.” I smiled. “They’re new. Harper made me buy them.”
“Then I’ll thank Harper.” He shot me a quizzical look. “You don’t wear jeans usually?”
“Not in years.”
“Shame.” His gaze smoldered. “Your ass and legs look fantastic in them.”
My lips twitched as smug pleasure moved through me. “I’m going to wear them more. But not because you think I look good in them. But because I think I look good in them.” And I did. Walking out of the apartment tonight, I’d felt free in a way I hadn’t in a long time. For so long I’d been confined by the rules I’d set myself in the hopes of not becoming like my parents. But over time the rules had become pedantic and bordering on ridiculous. I just hadn’t realized how much until recently. Maybe it was the trip back to Arcadia, seeing my parents, and realizing I could never be like them no matter what. Or perhaps it was Gem’s death—a cold reminder that some moments in life can suddenly be lost to us forever. And maybe that was the real reason I was letting go of some of my control to have an affair with this gorgeous, sexy Scotsman who made me question what irresponsibility really meant. Because being with him didn’t feel irresponsible. It felt like an adventure.
Whatever this change was that had come over me, I liked it. I liked striding out of my apartment in jeans and high heels, feeling young and stripped free of my skirt suits and silk blouses that suddenly felt like armor I’d created for myself.
I’d liked the look on Caleb’s face when he saw me walk toward him and his borrowed Maserati. And I liked even more the whoop of delight Harper let out when we met her outs
ide of the bar and she saw how I was dressed.
Maybe it sounded silly. After all, it was just clothes, right? But not to me. The jeans symbolized the last few weeks of me pecking at the lock on my cage until it finally sprang open, letting me fly free. Did that sound melodramatic? Over the top?
Good … because that was how powerful the feeling was.
Caleb’s sharp gaze roamed my face. “How long do we need tae be here?”
I shook my head, laughter in my eyes. “Feeling impatient?”
“Ava, I can’t imagine a day ever coming when I stop being impatient for you.”
Pleasure fizzled in my chest. “Back at you. However, I promised Harper we’d stay for the whole set and have a drink with Vince. His band is only playing four songs before the next band comes on. And thankfully, he’s first up.”
He nodded and looked away, his gaze roaming the place as he drank his beer. I allowed myself to study him. Tonight he wore what he was wearing when we first met—a henley that showed off his muscled physique, dark jeans, and biker boots. He’d pushed back the sleeves of his shirt, showing off his tattooed arm. Caleb fit in perfectly here. When we approached the venue, Harper not only whooped in delight at my outfit, but had stared a little wide-eyed and flushed at Caleb. She’d given me a secret look that said, Whoa, mama.
Even in my casual outfit I stood out in the crowd. I could do jeans, but I couldn’t do biker chick, or rock chick. Or punk rock chick even. Harper was dressed in a tight black skirt, her long legs bare, loosely laced scuffed biker boots, and a slouchy, thin purple sweater covered in sequins that caught the light when she moved. It fell off one shoulder, baring her delicate collarbone. Her platinum hair was styled in a spiky quiff and she had all of her earrings and jewelry on tonight. With such classically pretty features, she was like a glam-punk princess. I noted guys—even those with girls—watching her as she smiled and chatted with the bartender, who was clearly flirting with her.
“You two dinnae make sense on paper,” Caleb suddenly said, and I jerked my gaze from Harper to see him staring at my best friend. “But you’re obviously close.”
Fight or Flight Page 16
