He worked straight through lunch and stayed a half hour after Henry and the rest of the employees on the sixth floor had left for the day, finishing up the drawings for Shaun’s client. He closed the file and reached for a sticky note, pressing the yellow square on top after scribbling down two short words. Hearing a knock, Cole lifted his head, his polite smile vanishing when he recognized his visitor at once. So much for small favors.
Robert shut the office door and sat in the chair across from Cole’s desk. He scanned the modest space with a scrutinizing eye. Then his gaze landed on Cole.
“So, what do you think of Shaun?” Robert snickered, reminding Cole of the mix-up from earlier. He wondered if his uncle had already received the update on his disrespectful behavior. Maybe Shaun had sent him down to do the firing for her.
Cole shrugged and poked his pencil around with his finger, deciding not to bring the incident up first. “We haven’t had too much time to chat, but she seems all right,” he replied, wondering where his uncle was going with this.
“I saw the way you looked at her, Cole. I have to agree, she is one fine piece of ass.”
Cole pushed his chair back from his desk. Made uneasy by their shared opinion of Cole’s new boss, he unconsciously sought to distance himself from his uncle as much as possible. “What do you want, Robert? I know you didn’t bring me all the way to Mason to swap sexist remarks about your partner.”
His uncle smirked and rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, steepling his fingers. “Let’s just say I’m looking to downsize the company, starting from the top. And I need your help to do it.” He pointed a manicured finger at Cole.
Cole frowned. Robert couldn’t mean Shaun, could he? If so, he definitely hadn’t got the memo about Cole’s fuck-up in her office earlier. Cole had a sneaking suspicion he didn’t rank high enough on her list of favorable employees at the moment to be even remotely effective in whatever slimy scheme Robert was hinting at.
“What makes you think I can help you?”
“You have the Jacobson good looks.” Robert crossed his legs nonchalantly, as if convinced that attractiveness solved all of life’s disagreeable complications. “I’m sure you could devise a way to get through to her.”
Cole didn’t like what his uncle was suggesting in the slightest. What made him assume she would even go for someone like him?
“I think she’s gay, Robert.”
His uncle snorted. “She’s a spoiled little rich girl who will do anything to get attention and enjoys a challenge.” He uncrossed his legs, resting an elbow on the arm of the chair as he continued. “Just don’t be too much of a challenge. She’ll end up getting bored and all will be lost. You’re not dealing with some barefoot corn princess from the backwoods of incest country. She’s much more sophisticated than– What was her name? Ah yes, Christine.” Robert curled his lip at his mention of Cole’s high school girlfriend. He inched forward in his chair, and Cole couldn’t help but recoil. He’d always been loath to call his uncle blood, but now even more so.
“Oh, and here’s a little something more to sweeten the deal. The sooner you help me get rid of my bitch of a problem, the sooner you’ll be on a bus back to Sweetwater.” His uncle pushed up to his feet while Cole looked on in shock. “I’m confident you won’t let me down. I mean, I’d hate for you to return to home and find something you care so deeply about gone.” Robert flashed a smile worthy of the snake that slithered deep within.
“What exactly are you asking me to do, Robert?” Cole was starting to suspect, but some sliver of hope in him wanted the whole conversation to be a joke. A childish prank on the new guy.
“It’s simple, really. I want you to fuck her.”
CHAPTER 4
That son of a bitch, Cole thought, staring up at the ceiling of his shoebox apartment, recalling his conversation with Robert. Jake, sleeping beneath the star-clustered sky of Sweetwater, believed Cole had earned the keys to a far superior world, but he couldn’t be farther from the truth. Cole now lived on the third floor of a small walk-up apartment building in a stuffy part of town, unable to see anything at night but the neighboring high-rises.
Making a small concession to Cole’s independence, Robert had offered him a studio within the means of his modest salary at the firm. Cole would bet his left nut his uncle didn’t expect Shaun to boost him five grand above entry level, considering the attitude he’d exhibited toward his partner. But how much Cole earned didn’t matter in this case. Whether he was making fifty grand or a hundred, he had a hunch his uncle would have presented him with the same miniscule living arrangements. Possibly another bargaining chip to tip the scale in his favor, Robert likely believed that the less-than-ideal living conditions would motivate Cole to do his bidding with more urgency. Cole feared his uncle might be right.
Robert had lingered long after dropping the f-bomb to elaborate a little more on his intentions for Cole while at the firm. Yes, he wanted Cole to sleep with Shaun, but the desired result was a little more involved than just sexual impropriety. He wanted Cole to sabotage his partner’s credibility in the eyes of her father. Distract her and make her look incompetent enough that the shrewd business mogul, Preston Wentworth Wright, would pull the plug on the financial board game he had his daughter spearheading at the expense of Robert’s corporate freedom.
In the couple, albeit uncomfortable, dealings Cole had had with Shaun, he’d found nothing that remotely warranted such a betrayal. But given the dark gleam in his uncle’s eyes as he’d vocalized his plan for a hostile takeover, Cole couldn’t help but wonder.
Wiping a hand down his face, Cole gave up on trying to sleep and headed to the bathroom for a shower. When he emerged from his apartment building, dressed in one of the only two suits he owned, he had just enough time to stop by the coffee shop he’d spotted near the office. Leave Me Bean was not as expensive as Starbucks, but still blatant robbery when compared to the small-town prices he was used to.
Cole hopped on the office elevator at ten minutes to eight, mulling over the train wreck of a day he’d had the last time he’d stood inside, the cherry on top being Robert’s indecent proposal featuring Cole cast as Demi Moore with a cock. Releasing a wavering breath, unsure of what this day would hold, Cole let his head fall against the elevator wall. If he did consider taking that son of a bitch up on his offer, assuming he had a choice in the matter, he would need a course of action. Contrary to Robert’s belief, he wasn’t confident that looks would be enough to attract a woman like Shaun. She was smart and sophisticated. He needed to bring something more substantial to the table than homegrown charm. Her girlfriend had been beautiful, but what else drew Shaun to someone like her? Somehow he needed to find out.
Cole straightened when the bell dinged, but the elevator doors opened on two, not six. The cafeteria floor. He stood up straight and smiled when an Asian woman, petite in stature when compared with Cole’s six-foot-one height, joined him. Her smooth black hair pulled into a severely tight bun with a pink pen sticking out did little to hide the fact that she looked a lot younger than his meager twenty-seven. Her black-rimmed glasses that appeared too large for her small, oval face reminded him of his sister Lacey and how she insisted on dressing older than her age.
The woman carried a messy stack of folders in one hand and a shiny red apple in the other. Cole’s fellow rider fell miles short of Shaun’s sophistication, her clothes professional but noticeably rumpled. He felt her eyes on him, but when he looked up, she immediately stared down at her black flats, wearing a huge smile on her face. He thought back to what Robert had said regarding the Jacobson good looks and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirrored panel of the elevator. The dress shirt he’d chosen was royal blue, the same color as his eyes. Pair that with the navy pinstripe suit he had purchased for his college graduation and he didn’t look half bad. Of course, the fluorescent lighting made his skin, normally tan from years of outside work, look like grade school paste. Did he dare entertain the idea that he
might be handsome enough to elicit interest from someone as refined as Shaun, interest that had nothing to do with being her employee? She had approached him first at the bar. Granted, she was trying to pay her check and ditch her girlfriend, but there had been a couple of open stools she could’ve cozied up next to other than his.
“Are you new?” Cole barely heard the soft squeak from the opposite corner over his contemplations.
“Excuse me?” he asked, not sure if he’d imagined the sound.
“Are you new here?” she repeated, pushing her glasses up higher on her nose, looking younger by the second.
“Oh, yeah. I just started yesterday.”
“Really?” She inched closer. “Whose team?”
Cole assumed she meant who was his direct boss. “Ms. Wright’s.”
“Me too!” she squealed in an even higher pitch, and then the barrage of words came spilling out at a speed Cole found hard to keep up with. “Well, originally I started on Mr. Jacobson’s team, but after I missed a stupid deadline by mere minutes, he fired me. Right there in front of everyone at the biweekly staff meeting. I wanted to just die!” She made a quick sad face and took an exaggerated breath. “However, Ms. Wright intervened. She said I was too valuable a team member to terminate on such a trivial matter.”
“What happened?” Cole perked up, realizing this information could be helpful to him.
“Needless to say, Mr. Jacobson was mad that Shaun overrode his decision to get rid of me. Like, hopping mad. The jerk! But Ms. Wright didn’t care one bit. So, she moved me to her team, and I now perform many executive duties for her. I also keep us up to date with the latest and greatest tech toys, which Robert’s team is always trying to steal, of course.” She rolled her eyes and huffed.
The wheels in Cole’s head spun. Robert had painted Shaun to be a broom-riding villain, but in this woman’s story, his uncle appeared to be the asshole. So far, Shaun’s only mistake was going against his uncle’s divine judgment, which in most cases would be far within the parameters of an equal partnership. But Cole knew Robert saw no one as his equal. Most certainly not a woman.
“I’m Violet, by the way.” She shoved the apple between her chest and the folders and reached her hand out to Cole.
“I’m Cole.” He shook her hand, which was dwarfed by his own large mitt and accented with short lilac nails. Violet opened her mouth as if to say something more, but the elevator dinged again. Six. “It was nice meeting you, Violet,” he said, exiting.
“Oh, I’m on this floor too! Most of us are. Ms. Wright has this thing about even numbers. Hey, we might even be cube buddies!”
Great, Cole thought with less enthusiasm. Violet seemed nice, but Cole wasn’t here to make friends. If he chose to do what Robert asked, he wanted a clean break. No loose ends. No one to miss him. No one for him to miss.
Violet stopped at one of the center cubicles and dropped the stack of folders that was in her arms. The apple sprang loose and rolled toward Cole, bumping into his foot. He bent down and picked up the runaway fruit, instinctively wiping away any carpet lint on his suit jacket before handing it back.
“Thank you.” Violet took the apple, her cheeks competing with it for the deeper shade of red.
“You’re welcome.”
“Well, this is me.” She indicated the cubicle littered with Star Wars and Firefly collectibles.
“Cool, I’m over that way.” Cole pointed toward the hallway leading to his office.
Brown eyes widened behind huge glasses. “Oh my god! Oh my god! You must be the new design consultant. Mr. Jacobson’s nephew.” She clasped a hand over her mouth, voice muffled when she started talking again. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Jacobson. Cole Jacobson. Duh!” She bonked her forehead with the palm of her hand. “I should’ve known. I mean, I should’ve never said those things about your uncle. Please don’t tell Ms. Wright.”
Cole chuckled at Violet’s obvious embarrassment. On the contrary, he found her candidness endearing. “It’s okay, really, and please, just call me Cole.” He saw Henry appear from the nearby hallway and return to his desk, and realized that might mean Shaun was in her office. The assistant peered over at him and Violet, seeming all too interested in what they were saying. Narrowing his eyes at him, Cole decided to end the conversation. “I better get going. And Violet?”
“Yes?” She swallowed, looking nervous.
Cole leaned in and whispered close to her ear. “Don’t worry. I think my uncle is an asshole too.”
Her mouth gaped in surprise and slowly turned up into a grin. Cole winked and headed toward his office without another glance at Henry.
As Cole had hoped, Shaun sat at her desk. He risked a step closer to the open door, not sure if he should knock, but he didn’t really want to. Instead he watched in rapt silence. She was just as gorgeous as he remembered, staring down at the files he had left for her, a Leave Me Bean coffee cup in one hand and a yellow sticky note stuck to the other. The one he’d written “I’m sorry” on. He smiled as a soft curl drifted down from her shoulder. He clenched a fist, fingers tingling with the desire to know if the lock would feel as soft as it looked. He swallowed and stepped inside, unable to stop his feet from moving closer to her, drawn by a beacon of unexplainable desire that had nothing to do with his uncle’s plan. Or did it?
Shaun leaned down, studying his sketches closer. No glasses today. Something deep down inside him needed to know what she thought. He needed her professional approval.
“Good morning, Ms. Wright.” He didn’t mean to startle her, but he had, unable to stop the liquid in the cup from spilling onto her leg.
“Shit,” she muttered, grabbing for a tissue to blot at the wet spot on her thigh.
“I’m sorry.” He stepped closer to her desk, wondering if he should offer assistance. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you. I just saw you looking at my sketches and–”
“It’s just tea. Flavored water. No apology necessary.” She held up a hand, halting his advance. Done dabbing at her leg, she lifted her gaze in his direction.
He nodded. “I see you got my other apology. I do believe that one was necessary.” He pointed at the yellow sticky note still stuck to her finger.
“Yes.” She yanked the paper off and pressed the square onto her desk pad. “Apology accepted. Thank you.” He thought he spied a slight blush on her cheeks, but her demeanor was cool and clipped – understandable, considering how their professional relationship had started. She returned her attention to the papers fanned out in front of her. “I was going over your sketches just now, and I must say, I’m impressed. They’re good.”
“Oh?” Cole felt heat envelop his chest, her words stirring something within. Pride, he told himself. Nothing more. As a test of his self-control, he leaned close enough to catch the subtle perfume he remembered from the other night.
Test failed. Her scent drove him crazy, made him imagine what it would be like to ditch their talk of sketches for a study in the sturdiness of her desk, their bodies intertwined on top. “Which did you like best?” he asked, trying to hide the shake in his voice.
She cleared her throat and flipped to the third drawing from the top. “It’s more like, I think this one really captures the simplicity the client asked for.” She reclined away from him, and he wondered whether she felt the crackle of electricity he did when in her proximity. Her eyes darted between his and the drawings but never lingered too long on either. “That was exactly what Myles hated about everything we’ve already showed him.”
“Good.” He straightened and grinned, slipping his hands into his pants pockets, casually wiping away the nervous perspiration pooling on his palms. “So when do we find out if we have a winner?” He was surprised by how much he cared. He was never one to half-ass something no matter the circumstances, but he was here for reasons that had nothing to do with design, or so he had learned.
“Actually, I have a meeting with Myles this afternoon. I plan on showing him these right away.”
&n
bsp; “Do I get to sit in?”
“No.” Her response came quickly. “I mean, maybe next time,” she continued. “This one is very temperamental and usually only likes to deal with me. I’m sure he’ll want to meet you after, though.”
“Sure.” Cole smiled small, swallowing down his wounded pride. The fault was his alone. “Okay. Well, let me leave you alone, then.” He turned and started to walk away.
“Cole?” He stopped short and returned his gaze to Shaun picking up her cup. “Good work.”
Cole felt the grin split from ear to ear. “Thank you, Ms. Wright.”
“Shaun. Please call me Shaun.”
“Shaun,” he repeated, testing the name on his tongue. Their eyes remained locked until her phone rang, severing the connection.
CHAPTER 5
Shaun sent Cole the files for the second account he would be working on, care of Marcos. She had jotted down a few notes about how he could improve the proposal, make it more to the client’s liking. The account was a bed-and-breakfast refresh in northern Pennsylvania, on the shore of Lake Erie. Quaint but luxurious.
Cole had to admit Shaun’s suggestions were pretty good. He could tell by the file organization that she took the time to profile clients on a personal level while keeping consistent with particular market trends. She also stressed the importance of emotions with respect to color schemes and material choices, principles that Cole adhered to when taking on a furniture project.
Most likely the reason why she’d thought he was a perfect fit for the redesign of the restaurant, Ciao Belleza, a Spanish-Italian fusion with an emphasis on the rustic. From the extra detail, he could tell she knew Myles on a personal level and took the account very seriously. He’d also looked through what the other designers had proposed and known exactly why the client had shot them down. They lacked warmth and an emotional connection, all of them sterile and withdrawn, like what one would expect from a typical big-city gourmet.
Drawn Through You Page 3
