I lean forward and lower my voice. “I’m not on the stand, counselor,” I say, knowing her well enough to know when she slides into her attorney persona. “You aren’t going to come at me like that and change my mind.”
“It’s the truth,” she says. “I need help and I need help now. Take the job.”
“Promise me that this isn’t about charity.”
“I promise. I need you. I’ll email you a formal offer with the salary and benefits. Reese is going to piggy-back you onto his company benefit plan. Say yes. You won’t be sorry.”
Somehow, she’s chosen the exact words Cole used when encouraging me to let him spank me. And I’m not sorry I said yes. Not sorry at all and so I do it again. I say, “Yes.”
“Yes?” she queries.
“Yes,” I confirm.
She grins and I grin, and as silly as it seems, somehow Cole is a part of this moment. Or maybe it’s not silly at all. He’s a part of a change in my life, a shift, that I feel happening. I change clothes and Cat walks with me toward the courthouse, all the while plans are being made for my new job. I leave her at the door of her building with the promise I’m giving notice today.
She enters her building and I start walking toward the corner where I first ran into Cole. I suck in a breath, some part of me—no, all of me—wanting him to be there when I know that in morning light I’d been his charity case. It wouldn’t be what it was last night.
I round the corner and run into a hard chest. I suck in air and look up to find a good-looking man with dark brown hair, and brown eyes.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yes,” I lie, because the truth is, I’m not okay. I murmur an apology and rush past him, because he’s not Cole. But in my fairy tale, we don’t end how we did this morning. One day, I’ll just happen to walk around the corner and run into Cole, and I’ll be an attorney who won’t look like someone chasing his money, because I’ll have my own.
One day. Or never. He doesn’t even live in New York City.
Sometimes the right people meet at the wrong time.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Cole
Houston, TX
One week later…
I’m sitting behind the desk of my downtown Houston office, staring across the city, and Ashley sets paperwork on my desk. “No,” she says, as she does. “It’s nothing to do with Lori, whoever Lori might be. It’s the estimates on the remodel for your New York apartment. Looks like it’s going to take longer than expected.”
“How much longer?”
“Three months. I already have calls for additional estimates.”
My phone buzzes and the receptionist says, “Judge Conners is on the line.”
“Put him through.” The line blinks and I say, “Judge Conners. Give me some good news.”
“I’ll hear your plea for a new trial in court, at which time the prosecutor will be present, and be allowed to make his case for the past trial to stand.”
“Thank you, Judge.”
“Don’t thank me. I don’t do favors. Your client may very well be guilty. I simply serve the system as the golden promise of a fair trial. If he didn’t get one, he will.” He hangs up.
Ashley arches a brow. “Good news?”
“For my client. Keep the remodel as is. I’m not going to be able to complete my move until I finish this case.”
“I’m not trying to get rid of you,” she says. “Can’t you hand this over to one of the other dozen attorneys in the firm? You’re a managing partner.”
My mind flashes back to the first board meeting after my father’s death, and the moments after I proposed our growth into New York City and beyond. The vote had been one that united our team in a way my father had divided us. “I didn’t earn the respect I have by handing off cases that can make or break this firm’s reputation or a man’s future. I have to finish what I started.”
“You sold your apartment,” she reminds me. “You have to be out in three weeks. And I’m moving to Europe with the man of my dreams, which is not you.”
Not me. She’s right. It’s not. She’s a gorgeous redhead with green eyes, and had we met outside of work, where I keep my private life, I might have fucked her. But despite liking her as person, and working with her for five years now, I can say that a morning-after goodbye would have come easily with Ashley. Goodbye is always easy for me, or it was, until Lori.
“Cole?”
I blink with the realization that Ashley is talking and I’m not listening. “Yes?”
“What do you want to do?”
“Get the prison on the line,” I say. “I need to talk to my client.”
“You have a meeting with a potential client in New York in three days,” she reminds me, “and I put in your application to cross state lines. I know you. You’re going to want to take this case.”
“Are you sure you can’t move to New York over Europe and help launch the new offices?”
“Hmmm,” she says, a finger on her chin. “Let me think.” She drops her hand. “No. I am living in Paris for six months while my soon-to-be husband appraises art for the Louvre Museum. There’s no way to compete. Maybe when I get back.” She taps the file on my desk. “I’ll keep your hotel room in New York City. I assume I need to find you one here as well.”
“You assume correctly.”
She nods and heads for the door, and hesitates, turning to face me, “I’ve never seen you obsess over a woman before. I hope you find her or she finds you.”
She turns and leaves.
No hope to it, I think. I’m going to find her.
***
Lori
New York City, NY
I head home from my last day at the law firm, which is ironically on my birthday, and my mother has a big, “new job/happy birthday” cake baked for me, despite her having to work tonight. I walk up the narrow steps of the building leading to our floor, and once I’m at our door, I pause. I always pause at this moment to steel myself for the punch in the belly I feel when I walk inside and face our odd place, nice furnishings in the beat-up, tiny space; a reminder of what my mother had, what we had, and have lost. Still, today I do it with hope, I remind myself. I am now making ten grand a year more than I was a week ago. I’m up for this scholarship program. I have hope.
“I’m going to finish school and get my mother out of here,” I vow, before I open the door to be greeted by confetti and singing, compliments of my mother, and Marie Anne, our neighbor who is her dear friend. Both are wearing paper hats, and my mother, who is fifty-eight, and still stunning, is smiling brightly. Her hair is also colored a fresh brown, all the gray of the past six months gone, and she has on a nude-ish lipstick. Seeing her like this is the best birthday gift I could ever wish for.
“Happy birthday, honey,” she says, giving me a huge hug.
I hug her back and I don’t let go, reminded now of one of the many reasons that leaving Cole behind was necessary, and why I’m okay with that. She needs me, and I need her.
It’s not long, an hour later at most, and we’ve eaten chocolate cake, and my mother and Marie Anne have delighted over my new job. “Will you go back to Stanford to finish school?” Marie Anne asks.
“I think I’ll finish here at NYU,” I say.
This upsets my mother, and I don’t want her upset. She shakes her head. “No. You aren’t finishing here for me. I’m improving every day.”
“And she has me,” Marie Anne assures me.
“This is nothing to fret over,” I assure my mother, taking her hand. “The school might not even be my choice with this scholarship.”
“I want to say my daughter graduated from Stanford,” she insists.
“And you still might,” I assure her.
“And maybe you can get back with that Neal boy you were so into. I never even met him.”
“And you won’t,” I say since Neal, who wasn’t a boy, but rather a thirty-five-year-old attorney, who’d lectured at Stanford and later became my
whatever he was—is also the man who told me I was a fool to quit school for my mother. And he never, ever made me feel any of the things I felt with Cole.
Nor would I have let him spank me.
“You need to get out and date, honey,” my mother says.
No, I think. Forget the dating. I’ll take Cole’s hand on my ass, just one more time.
“I am,” my mother says.
My eyes go wide. “What?”
“I met someone at the hospital. An architect.”
“Who’s ten years younger than her,” Marie Anne chimes in. “And gorgeous.”
My eyes go even wider. “When?” I ask. “Have you gone on a date?”
“I met him a week ago when his daughter gave birth,” she says. “He’s divorced, and we just started chatting and couldn’t stop. He’s stopped by to see me twice now and I agreed to let him bring me dinner on my break tonight.” She glances at the clock over the stove. “Oh my. I need to get to work. Please tell me you have plans tonight.”
“I’m meeting friends for dinner,” I lie, because while I hate lies, I love her and I don’t want her to worry. I’m happy to see her happy, even though I want to meet this architect and size him up, immediately.
A few minutes later, I’m alone in the apartment, and I put another huge slice of chocolate cake on my plate. I might as well grow a bigger butt. No one is going to be seeing it anytime soon.
***
Cole
One month later…
I’m in New York City for the second time since that morning without a goodbye from Lori, and I’m sitting in the bar where I’d met her the second time, because holy fuck, I want to meet Lori a third time. It’s Friday night, I’ve spent all day looking at office space, contracts, and negotiating deals. I’m exhausted and I fly out early tomorrow when I should have flown out tonight. I have a weekend of prep for the new trial starting Monday morning, but instead I’m here. I’m here because it’s the only place I know that she might be. Because I’m losing my fucking mind over a woman.
I finish off a Scotch, because wine just isn’t cutting it for me the past few weeks. A pretty brunette across the bar catches my eye. I don’t turn away. I want to want her. I want to take her to my room, fuck her, and fuck Lori out of my head. Bring it on. But I don’t get up. That’s telling. I’m a man who goes for what I want, I pursue, but I don’t get up now.
She does. She walks in my direction, and I already know what comes next. I flag the waiter, Johnathan, I believe he said is his name. He hurries in my direction and when the woman sits down, I motion to Johnathan. “What’ll you have?”
“Wine,” she says. “House red.”
Wine. Bad choice, and she doesn’t even know it. I glance at Johnathan. “Put it on my tab and cash it out.”
She arches a brow. “Shouldn’t we talk or something while I finish the wine?”
“I have an early flight,” I say. “No time. You’re beautiful. This isn’t personal nor is it a reflection on you. It’s me. Have a good night.”
She blanches. “What?”
I stand up, walk to the bar, sign the tab, and leave.
***
Lori
I exit to the street, and I can hardly breathe. I don’t know what made me stop by the bar where I’d met Cole tonight, but I’d had this strong compulsion to just go, sit, and drink wine, of all things. And he’d been there. Really been there. I’d stood there, trying to decide if I would go up to him when I watched him share a look with a beautiful brunette. And then I’d watched her get up and walk toward his table. I know where to find him tonight. In a hotel room with a woman over his knee that he’s convinced to let him spank her. My Prince Charming is no Prince Charming. That’s the problem with fairy tales. They’re never real.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Cole
The next morning…
I buckle up on the plane with one thought: This is it. I’m in court for what could turn into six weeks. I won’t be back to New York. I have to win a man’s freedom and I have to get my head in the game, and out of some fantasy about a woman who might not have even given me her real name.
It’s done.
I have to let her go.
I sit there for thirty seconds and force that thought to become reality, but I fail.
Fuck.
I’m not going to let her go because I’m not done with her and I don’t believe she’s done with me.
***
Lori
I wake up and walk to the bathroom I share with my mother, who should be sound asleep in her room considering I heard her come home hours ago. I hope she is, because one look in the mirror, and it’s obvious I didn’t sleep. My eyes are puffy and bloodshot, and I hate, hate, hate, that I laid in bed replaying the night I spent with Cole, trying to figure out why I thought he was someone I should let spank me, of all things. He’s hot. He’s rich. He can have millions of women, and obviously does.
And I gave him something I liken to virginity in that spanking.
I shove off the sink with a jolt.
Virginity. Sex. Condoms. We used one but I haven’t had my period. I press my hand to my forehead. How can I have missed my period? How? I can’t be pregnant. No. No. No. I need to take a test. I need to take a test now. I exit the bathroom and head to my room, where I throw on sweats and a tee then sneakers, and rush to the door. I don’t even brush my hair. I enter the living room again to find my mother at the kitchen sink.
“Honey,” she greets. “Morning.” Her brows furrow. “Where are you going?”
“I forgot to drop something in the mail for my boss,” I say. “I have to take it now.” I don’t wait for her response. I exit the apartment and race down the stairs, and I don’t stop until I’m at the grocery that is closed. It’s closed! I want to scream. I run two blocks, and the corner store actually has a test. In a full, workout-worthy jog necessary because I’m going to be late to Cat’s place, I arrive back at the apartment.
My mother is still in the kitchen. “There’s coffee made,” she says.
“Thanks, Mom.” I give her a wave, but don’t look at her. “I’m late. I need to shower.”
Why did I say, I’m late? I hate those words. I enter the bathroom and shut the door, turning on the shower. My hand is shaking as I open the bag and pull out the box. I make fast work of undressing and peeing on the stick. I tell myself to just get in the shower while I wait for the results, but I don’t. I pace, naked, inside and out, right now.
Waiting for my future to be revealed while craziness goes on in my head. If I’m pregnant, will I tell Cole? I certainly have a lead on how to find him—at the bar, picking up women. I just might have to ask the other woman to give us privacy. The idea has me on my knees in front of the toilet, stomach rolling. What have I done? I look down at the test results, and it’s negative. Negative. I’m not pregnant. I’m just making myself sick. And this is why I should never have spent the night with a stranger. I have my mother to take care of right now. I take the second test from the box and repeat. Same results. So why haven’t I started my period?
I force myself to get into the shower, and finish my morning routine. Thirty minutes later, with my hair dry, my makeup applied, and my tests tucked in a bag and a robe on, I exit the bathroom. My mother is no longer in the living area but I hear her talking on her phone, laughing even, and I wonder if it’s the architect. This development worries me. If my mother gets hurt, if she gets stressed, I am concerned about how that impacts her health, but it’s so good to hear her smile.
***
Thirty minutes later, I’m dressed casually to work at Cat’s place, in jeans and an emerald green blouse with boots. The entire subway ride I think of that pregnancy test, and when I exit to Cat’s street I can’t help myself. I go to the store and buy another duet of tests. I stuff them in my briefcase, and decide I’ll just sneak into Cat’s bathroom and take the test.
I hurry through her building and up the elevator and the minute she a
nswers the door, I blurt out. “Can you be a friend, not my boss, for about ten minutes?”
Her eyes go wide. “Is your mother okay?” She backs up to let me enter.
“Very. She’s dating again. It’s about me.”
I walk down the hallway and turn right and enter the bathroom, quickly pulling out the test kit. “What’s going on?” Cat asks. “You’re worrying me.”
I get it started, set it on the edge of the trashcan and once I’ve put everything back in place, cleaned up the package and me, I open the door. “Do you remember the night you had to leave me in the bar about a month ago?”
“Yes. Why?”
“There was a man, a really hot man, and—”
“You went home with him?”
“To his hotel. He was from out of town. I don’t do that kind of thing, but it had been so long and—,” I shake my head. “I did it. We used a condom, but I haven’t started my period. I’m freaking out. I took two tests this morning.”
“And?”
“Negative and—” I back up and grab the stick. “Also negative.” I toss the test in the trashcan. “What if I am, though?” I sit on the toilet seat.
She kneels in front of me. “You’re not. Those tests are very accurate, and I know this because I had the same scare a while back myself. My doctor told me stress and long hours can cause a missed period. You are a prime candidate for that issue.”
“I know. I know I am.”
“They can do a blood test. I’ll send you to my doctor. She’s on your new insurance.”
“Is it even in effect yet?”
“Yes. We made sure of it. Let me call.” She stands up. “I need to get my phone and we both know you need coffee.” She motions me forward. I exhale and grab my things before following her. By the time I’ve set my stuff on the barstools and made a cup of coffee, she’s booked me an appointment for one hour from now.
“It’s Friday so we’re lucky to get you in, but beware,” she says, as I sit down. “That also means you won’t get the results until Monday, which is really bad timing.”
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