The Wright Boss

by K. A. Linde

  She paused, frozen in place, with her ice-blue eyes boring into mine. She was trying to find where this was a trick or a joke. But she wouldn’t find it with me.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  Without another thought, I pushed my hands up into her wild blonde hair and brought my lips down onto hers. I tasted her like a luxurious delicacy and then devoured her as if I could never have enough.

  Fuck everything else in my life.

  This was the moment when I made Heidi Martin mine.

  Two

  Heidi

  Landon Wright was kissing me.

  It was amazing. The best thing that had ever happened to me. He was fulfilling every fantasy I’d had in the back of my head over the last eight months. How many times had I imagined him doing this exact thing?

  Last winter, when he’d driven me home from this exact bar, all I’d wanted to do was lean over and kiss him senseless. I’d wanted him to take me up to my apartment and fuck me. I’d wanted so much. And New Year’s, we had been so close to giving in and ending up in this moment together.

  Yet, even as drunk as I had been on both occasion, I’d known he was married. I’d known how wrong it was to even want that from him. And I’d walked away.

  Now, he was finally kissing me and answering all my silent pleas, and I had to stop him.

  Fuck.

  I shoved Landon backward with as much force as I could. Then, I moved away from the wall and wiped my mouth.

  Fuck!

  “Whoa!” I yelled at him. I took another step back from him. Putting distance between us was the only way I wasn’t going to give in again. “Whoa! Married!”

  Landon leaned into the space I had vacated and sighed heavily. “Yeah.”

  “Are you completely insane?”

  He turned to face me, pressing his back against the bricks. His eyes were bright and full of lust. I could understand that look. I was sure it mirrored mine. But he also looked…remorseful. Like the last thing he had wanted to do was hurt me. Again.

  “Uh, yeah,” Landon said, “a bit insane at the moment.”

  “Well, Jesus Christ, what were you thinking?”

  Because I needed an explanation. What the hell had changed that he would go from cutting me off entirely to making out with my face? If we hadn’t gone through with it on New Year’s when we had both been in the thick of it all, I couldn’t fathom how he could do it now.

  “That I really wanted to kiss you, and I’d wanted to do it for too damn long.”

  I held my hand up and tried to breathe shallowly. “You can’t say things like that to me.”

  God, he’s drunk. Of course, I’d known that before I came out here with him, but I hadn’t expected our conversation to veer so far left. And, now, I would never be able to get the feel of his lips or the brush of his tongue or the taste of whiskey mixed with something purely Landon out of my head.

  I couldn’t think about that or I wouldn’t be able to think about anything else. Ever.

  “I can,” he said, meeting my gaze. “But you act like I shouldn’t.”

  His dark brown eyes nearly made me lose it. He was too much. Tall, dark, and handsome was too cliché for Landon with his deep tan from endless days on the golf course and soulful expression. He was a man who had known loss and understood depression but had risen above. There was more to him than the gorgeous Wright looks. But it didn’t excuse his actions.

  I didn’t want to be some mistake he’d made when his wife wasn’t in town.

  “No, you shouldn’t,” I said. “I won’t do that again. I will not be that kind of girl. It’s disrespectful to me, and it’s disrespectful to Miranda. And…it’s just bad,” I rambled on because, if I stopped, I knew I’d be done for. My fingers were itching to grab him and crush his mouth to mine again. I’d wanted this for months. Even though there were a million and a half reasons that it was a supremely idiotic idea, I still wanted him.

  And that had made dating nearly impossible. Somehow, Landon had become the standard that I held all other guys to. Not that I’d had much luck outside of Tinder hook-ups, and I refused to date my coworkers. That was the number one rule. One I had always completely adhered to. No matter how cute the new guy ended up being.

  “Yeah, bad idea,” he agreed slowly. “I’m not trying to make you that kind of girl, Heidi.”

  “Good, because that would never happen.”

  “I’m just lost, and I want you to find me.”

  I knew he was drunk, but damn it, that was cheesy. And, fuck me, I hated that I still thought it was sweet of him to say it to me. Even if he wasn’t allowed to.

  “Stop that! No sweet talk.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “How about no, Landon?”

  Then, with all the strength I could muster, I strode back toward the emergency exit. I could do this. I was a strong, fierce, independent woman who worked in a male-dominated field and shattered glass ceilings. I could walk away from one boy. Even if he was a Wright.

  Then, he touched me. His hand gently landed on my elbow. He wasn’t demanding my attention, just drawing me away from the door.

  “Heidi.”

  “What?” I asked in frustration. How was I supposed to leave him behind when he was being so irresistible?

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Stop,” I said. “Please.”

  “I’m leaving her.”

  My heart stopped beating. My lungs stopped working. My brain stopped functioning. What he was saying was impossible. I honestly couldn’t even believe that those words had come out of his mouth. There was no way in hell that he was leaving Miranda.

  “Come again?” I whispered.

  “I left Miranda at home to come here because I’m leaving her.”

  My mouth fell open. He had said those words. He’d repeated them. He was actually leaving Miranda.

  This isn’t a drill, team. This is the real deal!

  My brain tried to catch up with the rest of my body, but instead, I stood there, like an idiot. There had to be a catch. There had to be some big joke that was being played on me. Because Landon leaving his wife was way too good to be true.

  “Wow,” I said. Then, I blinked rapidly a few times and tried to recover. “I mean…how awful. That has to be so hard, Landon.”

  He laughed humorlessly at me. “Heidi, you’re cute.”

  I arched an eyebrow at him in question. “I tell you I’m sorry about your wife, and you tell me I’m cute?”

  “You can’t hide how much you hate Miranda any more than my family can.”

  “Hey,” I said, holding up my hands. “I don’t hate Miranda. I don’t even know her.”

  “Well, if you knew her, you’d hate her, too.”

  “Maybe so,” I conceded. “But that doesn’t make things any easier for you. Clearly, you must have loved her.”

  “It’s just…yeah,” he said. “I don’t know. It all happened today.”

  “No wonder you’re drunk and acting like a fool. Maybe we should have addressed you leaving Miranda first and made out second.”

  He grinned devilishly. “So, we’re going to make out again?”

  “No,” I said, smacking his arm. God, I could hardly keep my mind out of the gutter. I was never going to succeed in keeping his out of there, too. “We shouldn’t have kissed in the first place.”

  He might have left Miranda today, but who knew what tomorrow would bring? I doubted he had even filed paperwork for a divorce. I had so many unanswered questions that, even though I wanted to kiss Landon…to give in to this thing between us, I couldn’t do it. I knew it was wrong.

  Not just because of Miranda, but also because of all the women I’d seen my dad with.

  My mom had died in a carjacking when I was in middle school. She’d been brutally murdered, and I’d been a zombie through much of middle school. Without Emery, I never would have made it.

  But my dad had coped with women. He’d go from girlfriend to girlfriend—regula
rs who came to Hanks, the bar he owned. I knew the signs for when he settled for married women—when a woman flipped the diamond over or took it off, leaving a pale stripe on her ring finger, or when I’d find a wedding ring on the sink at night. I’d decided at a young age that I’d do anything to be a different person than my dad. I wasn’t about to let Landon Wright fuck that up.

  “Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have kissed you,” Landon said. He scratched the back of his neck and winced. “But I’d been thinking about it since New Year’s.”

  “Landon, you can’t come here and talk to me like this. If you want to talk about Miranda, I’m here.” I held my hands up in supplication. I wouldn’t deny him a friend or a shoulder to cry on, but that was it. “We can talk after the reunion, but now, maybe try to forget about it.”

  “About Miranda or you?”

  “Both.”

  “Not going to happen.” He stepped toward me and cupped my cheek. “There’s no way I could forget about you, Heidi.”

  “You’ve done fine so far. Do what you’ve been doing, Landon, and you’ll have no trouble,” I said with a bit more heat than I’d intended. Then, I turned and walked back into Flips.

  Three

  Heidi

  Leaving Landon standing outside felt horrible. I knew he was in a rough place, and he needed someone to talk to. I was happy to be that person. Even if the last thing I wanted to hear about was Miranda. I couldn’t do that while we stood out back where we had just kissed. I trusted myself with most things, but Landon Wright was not one of them.

  I glanced over my shoulder to make sure that Landon hadn’t followed me. The last thing I wanted was for people to see us coming in from outside together. When we’d walked out there, only a handful of people had been in attendance, but already, the bar was filling up. I recognized nearly everyone and was stopped constantly as people wanted to say hi to me.

  In high school, I’d been a cheerleader, class vice president, and student council vice president. I’d been very involved. So, planning this evening with Meredith and Dave—the class president and treasurer—had been a blast, but it’d also put a lot of pressure on me. I was the only one who still lived here. That meant I was the one who’d had to do most of the groundwork. The benefit of that was, we got to have the event at Flips.

  “Tequila?” the bartender, Peter, asked when he saw me approaching.

  I nodded my head and held up two fingers. Yeah, make it a double, buddy.

  Peter knew what kind of alcohol I was into based on my mood. That was how often I was in here. It was a little scary honestly.

  “Care to toast with your bestie and roomie?” Emery asked, sidling up beside me.

  “The shots are not celebratory unless I am licking them off your stomach,” I informed her.

  “Let’s do it, baby!” Emery said. She leaned back on her chair and hoisted her black tank up to reveal her flat stomach. “Peter, I need the salt!”

  “Oh God, are you two doing this again?” he asked. He tilted his head and judged us, as per usual.

  “Hand it over!” Emery crooned.

  “It’s really not a reunion if we aren’t drunk and ridiculous,” I said.

  “Let’s be real,” Emery said. “It’s not a reunion if we’re not drunk on wine coolers and running from the cops because Landon has pot and is afraid he’ll get arrested.”

  Emery hoisted herself up onto the bar and lay down. She balanced the shot on her stomach and started shaking salt next to her belly button.

  “Honey,” Jensen said, appearing at her side, “what in the hell are you doing?”

  “Body shots. Don’t tell me you’ve never done one.”

  Jensen’s face pinched. “Who is doing a body shot off of you?”

  “Heidi, of course,” Emery said with a grin.

  “Yeah, Wright, get out of the way.” I nudged Jensen, and he gave me a pained expression. I knew how much it hurt him not to get to take that shot, but I wasn’t giving it up. “This is my girlfriend, and we might or might not have done this once or twice in high school.”

  “There were a lot of things you two did in high school that don’t need to be repeated,” he said.

  “Party pooper,” Emery called at him.

  “Don’t listen to him, Em. He’s jealous because I get to take the shot. We all know he’s done worse.”

  Jensen shrugged and didn’t deny it.

  Emery winked at her boyfriend and then placed the lime in her mouth. She made a come-and-get-it gesture. I laughed at my best friend and felt unbelievably grateful for having her. Even if she didn’t know something was wrong, she allowed me to completely forget about what had happened.

  I bent down, licked the salt from Emery’s stomach, and then downed the shot. After I swallowed the tequila back, I took the lime straight from Emery’s mouth. She hollered with excitement as I sucked on the lime. My grin was magnetic as I raised my arms like I’d won a gold medal.

  “What did I miss?” Landon asked as I turned around to face the rest of the crowd.

  I dropped my arms and shrugged. “Body shots.”

  “Ah, like old times then.”

  “You don’t have any weed on you, do you? Emery reminded us that you used to be a pothead.”

  Landon raised his eyebrows at me and then shifted his attention to Emery. “I was not a pothead.”

  Emery hopped off the bar. “Nah, you were too scared of getting caught to be a full-blown pothead.”

  “Actually, I think he was too afraid of our dad,” Jensen chimed in.

  Landon shrugged. “Well, he could be a scary motherfucker.”

  “Landon! Brah, I didn’t know if you’d come,” a guy said from behind him.

  My eyes moved from Landon’s gorgeous face to the guy behind him. Brandon McCain. My lucky number twelve in high school. I’d been obsessed with him all four years, and I had even adopted his football number as my favorite. Emery liked to make fun of me about it. I couldn’t even remember all the times I’d mooned over him, but nothing had ever come of it. He’d had a serious girlfriend all four years of high school and never looked my way. But, as far as I knew, he was single now and lived in Los Angeles as a wannabe actor and model.

  “Brandon,” Landon said. They firmly shook hands. “Good to see you, man. I didn’t know you were going to be here either.”

  “Fuck, man. I wouldn’t have missed it. High school was the shit,” Brandon said. “Though who am I kidding? You killed it in high school, and look at you now! Fucking PGA Tour!”

  Landon winced slightly. I narrowed my eyes at that movement.

  Why would he flinch about being on the PGA Tour? That was his dream. That was his life. He loved golf with everything in him. It seemed odd that he would be uncomfortable with discussing it. I’d never seen him upset about golf.

  “Thanks, man,” Landon said.

  Brandon’s eyes shifted from Landon to me, and his smile grew. “Heidi Martin. Fuck me,” he said, pulling me in for a hug. “You look even hotter than you did in high school, and you were fucking gorgeous ten years ago.”

  When Brandon said that, I searched Landon’s face, and he went from wincing to pissed in a second. If I wasn’t mistaken, he was remembering that crush I’d always had.

  “Thanks, Brandon,” I said, stepping out of his embrace. “You look great, too.”

  “We should definitely catch up later.” Brandon pointed his finger at me and winked. “Definitely. But, first, I’m going to steal Landon here,” he said, throwing an arm around Landon’s shoulder, “and get the rest of the football team together.”

  Landon shot me a grieved look but disappeared with Brandon. I could already see that a huge group of football players was convened in the back. Landon was their star. Of course they had come to collect him.

  I’d really wanted that interaction with Brandon to make me feel better about the whole Landon situation, but it didn’t. Brandon McCain was still really good-looking. Los Angeles ate people alive if they didn’t st
ay in shape. It was clear that he had been putting in a lot of time at the gym, but I didn’t feel the same spark as I once had.

  Goddamn it, Landon. Even guys I could hook up with were tainted by him.

  All I’d wanted for four years was this one sexy guy. Now that we were here and I definitely had not misinterpreted his catch-up-later line, I was meh about the whole thing.

  “Whoa!” Emery said. “Brandon McCain is so fucking into you. Hello, dream come true!”

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “Dream come true.”

  Emery wrapped her arm through mine. “Okay, roomie, we’re supposed to be having a good time. You know I hate reunions and basically all things high school. But I’m here for you because I love your face. Tell me what’s wrong, so I can fix it.”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “News flash, Martin! Brandon fucking McCain just hit on you, and you’re sad. You would have blown that guy behind the bleachers after a game if he’d let you. What part of him thinking you’re super hot is a bad thing?”

  I cleared my mind of everything I’d been dealing with since Landon had stepped back into my life. Landon Wright was not right for me. There was no future for us. I didn’t know if he would go back to his wife tomorrow. I didn’t know if he’d ever file divorce papers. I didn’t know if that kiss was a bullshit rebound move. Stressing over it would only ruin my high school reunion. And I had put too much effort into this reunion for that to fucking happen.

  I was the life of the party. I was smart, beautiful, and confident. I could rock this reunion with or without Landon Wright.

  “You’re so right,” I said, bolstered by my own pep talk. “There is not a damn thing wrong with that.”

  “You sure? You seemed a little out of it. Maybe you and Landon…”

  “Please, do not finish that thought. Landon and I do not belong in the same sentence. You’ve bugged me about it in the past, Em, but he’s married. You know what my dad was like. You know I could never do that. And I could never do that to you.”

  “But it doesn’t bother me.”