by Julie James
* * *
BY THE TIME Brooke finally made it back to the hotel around ten o’clock that night, she was exhausted. She’d been awake since five A.M., she’d had to be “on” for nearly twelve hours straight, and she was feeling somewhat . . . out of sorts.
Palmer and two of the VPs—luckily, not the two stiffs from lunch again—had taken her to dinner at a French-Italian “seasonal cuisine” restaurant located in the city’s historic Elizabeth district. The conversation was good, and the food and wine were excellent, and all in all, she’d had an enjoyable evening. But something was off.
Never once had Palmer pressured her to accept the offer, but she knew, understandably, that he was eager for her response. And several times during dinner, she’d been tempted to say that one word, yes, because of course she should accept the offer. It was an excellent opportunity, and by and large she’d liked the people she’d met at Spectrum. The pragmatic businesswoman in her had been shouting, What are you waiting for? all through the dessert course—but something kept holding her back.
She didn’t know what, exactly, that something was. But she’d first noticed it that afternoon, when Palmer had shown her the office that would be hers at Spectrum. He’d needed to step out to take a phone call, and while he was gone she’d taken a seat behind the sophisticated ebony wood desk. To “try it on for size,” so to speak.
It hadn’t felt quite . . . right.
She’d ignored the sentiment, thinking it was nothing, that it was merely akin to buying a new house but not feeling like it was actually hers until she moved in. But that same nagging feeling had popped up again throughout dinner, whenever she’d been about to accept Palmer’s offer, so in the end, she’d just stayed quiet.
Brooke decided to sleep on it, wondering if perhaps she was simply feeling off because she was tired. The next morning, she woke up refreshed, reinvigorated, and ready to check out Charlotte with an open mind. The driver was waiting for her when she got downstairs, and he came armed with a list Palmer’s secretary had put together of places Brooke should visit while in town.
Charlotte was a big city, but she noticed that it had something of a small-town feel—which appealed to the midwesterner in her. After touring around all morning and early afternoon, she asked the driver to drop her off at an outdoor café by her hotel, one that the concierge had recommended. She ordered a Margherita pizza and a glass of wine, and then she settled in and waited for that moment to come when she knew that accepting the offer was the right way to go.
Then she waited some more.
The moment sure seemed to be taking its sweet old time.
When the waiter brought over the pizza she’d ordered and she was still waiting, she thanked him and happened to catch sight of the people at the table across from her: a little girl, about eight years old, eating lunch quietly while her mother typed away on her BlackBerry.
“Almost finished, I promise,” the mother was saying. “I just need to get this e-mail out before my client drives me completely nuts.”
Brooke watched them, able to identify with the woman’s feeling all too well. In a minute or two, she would put down the phone, smile at her daughter, and say, “Sorry. Just had to finish that.” Except it wouldn’t be finished, because, really, no work problem urgent enough to require the immediate attention of a woman simply trying to enjoy lunch with her daughter, or, say, a barbeque with her best friend, or a book club meeting with some girlfriends, could ever be fixed with one e-mail. The work would still be there when the woman got home, or maybe another issue would pop up that required the woman’s attention, because work was always there. And it wasn’t that the woman was complaining—she actually liked her job, in fact—but lately she’d been wondering if her life had gotten a little . . . off balance.
Or, maybe Brooke was over-personalizing the situation. Just a bit.
She tabled that thought as she walked back to her hotel. In her room, she fired up her laptop and, naturally, turned first to work-related e-mails. After that, she checked her personal account and saw that Rachel had e-mailed her, saying how great it had been to catch up at Ford’s barbeque and that she wondered whether Brooke wanted to get together for lunch anytime next week.
Brooke started to write back to Rachel, saying that next week was likely going to be busy. While she didn’t specifically mention it, she was already thinking about how she needed to catch up on things at work after her three-day weekend, particularly since she very possibly was about to tell Ian that she was quit—
Midsentence, she stopped typing and took her hands off the keyboard.
She was so sick of writing those words.
Sorry. Too busy. Can’t leave work right now.
Darn, I have a work thing that night.
Maybe after work.
Count me in tentatively, depending on work.
Work.
Work.
Work.
Brooke got up from the desk and walked over to the window. She looked out at the Charlotte skyline, which was pretty with the sunset. But it wasn’t Chicago.
She took a deep breath, realizing that for the first time in years, she didn’t have a clue what she wanted. It had been one thing when she’d accepted that her current lifestyle wasn’t conducive to a long-term romantic relationship, but what about all her other relationships? She saw Ford, she’d managed to at least protect that one friendship, but what about everyone else? Rachel? The book club? Her former co-workers at her old law firm—they used to get together once a month for Friday happy hour. When had she stopped doing that?
She could hear Ford defending her, even to herself.
Don’t beat yourself up, Brooke. Work, family, whatever—everyone’s busy these days.
Yeah, but there was busy, and then there was crap-when’s-the-last-time-I-called-my-parents busy.
Crap. When was the last time she’d called her parents? She e-mailed them fairly regularly, but an actual phone call? She could check her cell phone call log to find out how long it had been, but she was pretty sure she didn’t want to know.
This EVP position at Spectrum sounded every bit as demanding as her job at Sterling, perhaps even more so given the travel involved. And Brooke knew herself, she’d be starting over at a new place, which meant she’d want to prove herself and succeed—the same thing she’d strived to do at Sterling, ever since Ian had taken a chance on her two years ago. Just like she’d always felt the need to do, the girl from the Quads who’d had to work her butt off for every opportunity.
But maybe it was time to stop feeling like she had to prove something.
Maybe it was time to take a breath, to slow things down a notch, and simply enjoy her success—and all the other things in her life, too.
Except . . . she wasn’t sure she knew how to do that.
You’re a smart woman. You’ll figure it out.
Strange little tears sprang to Brooke’s eyes, and she half-laughed at herself. Of course, even though Cade wasn’t there, and they weren’t even speaking, he’d still managed to have the perfect line.
He’d said exactly what she needed to hear.
Thirty-one
FRIDAY MORNING, CADE met with Cameron and Nick McCall, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Chicago office, to get him up to speed on the status of all open FBI investigations. It was the last agency they needed to cover—after this, Cade would be fully briefed and ready to take over as acting U.S. attorney.
They’d been going for over an hour when Cameron stood up from her desk. She took a deep breath and put her hands on her lower back, which parted her suit jacket over her very pregnant stomach.
Cade and Nick exchanged looks, speaking in silent man-code, as was necessary in such circumstances.
You’ve got this, right, if she goes into labor here?
You’re asking me? No, I don’t have this.
“You boys can stop staring at me like I’m a ticking bomb about to explode.”
Busted.
; “I just need to stand for a few minutes.” Cameron marched on, turning to a Medicare fraud investigation into a large suburban home health care agency. “Next matter: Evergreen Healthcare. How are we looking there?”
“My agents tell me that we’re set to make all ten arrests late next week,” Nick said.
Cameron looked at Cade. “If I’m gone when that happens, make sure you keep SAC Lamont Johnson over at the Department of Health and Human Services in the loop.”
He nodded. “Got it.”
“And with that said . . .” Cameron checked the list on her desk, “I think that’s it. You are officially up to speed.” She smiled, as if relieved to have that out of the way, and then checked her watch. “Just in time for lunch, too. Jack and Sam are meeting with Rylann about the Arroyo homicide investigation. Maybe I’ll pop in and see if he’s almost done.”
“I’ll go with you,” Nick said. “I can give Wilkins a ride back to the office.”
As the three of them walked down the hallway, a young male paralegal saw Cameron coming with her power suit, heels, and stomach. His eyes widened and he quickly ducked into a cubicle, giving her a wide berth.
Cameron shook her head after they walked by, speaking under her breath. “You saw that, right? That’s been happening for a week now. Whenever I walk down the hallway, people literally leap to get out of my way.” She glanced at Nick and Cade. “I’m not that big, am I?”
“That’s not it,” Cade said with a laugh.
“What else would it be?”
“You might want to ask your husband about that,” Nick said.
Cameron stopped in the hallway, nearly causing both men to run into her.
“What did Jack do now?” She gave them both her best don’t-mess-with-the-U.S.-attorney look.
“He meant it as a joke,” Nick assured her. Then he thought about that. “At least, I think he did. Sometimes, you can’t tell with Jack.”
“What was the joke?” When Nick hesitated, Cameron looked at Cade and raised an eyebrow. “Morgan?”
“I wasn’t there. Inadmissible hearsay.”
She glared at him, and then turned back to Nick.
The special agent in charge finally caved. “Jack was a little worried—you know, with the way you kind of storm through the hallways in your heels—that someone might bump into you and knock you over.”
Cameron waited. “And?”
“He maybe, possibly, said that if he got word of anyone getting in your way, they’d find out whether there was any truth to that rumor about him knowing how to kill a man with paper clips.”
“I see.” With that, Cameron turned on her heel and began walking down the hallway again.
“He’s toast,” Nick whispered to Cade.
“Definitely.”
They followed Cameron to Rylann’s office, just in time to see two FBI agents leaving. The taller, dark-haired agent stopped in the hallway and watched with an unmistakably warm look in his eyes as Cameron approached.
“Madame U.S. Attorney,” he drawled.
“Special Agent Pallas. Just the man I was looking for.” Cameron went to fold her arms across her chest, then seemed to realize—nope, no room there. “What is this I hear about someone saying that my employees need to stay out of my way or risk an untimely death by paper clip?”
Next to Jack, Agent Sam Wilkins looked up at the ceiling, speaking under his breath. “I told you that would not go over well . . .”
Jack held up his hands. “It was a joke.”
“A joke.” Cameron’s gaze went to Sam. “Agent Wilkins. Was Agent Pallas scowling or smiling at the time of this alleged joke?”
“I plead the fifth.”
“A paralegal practically dove headfirst into a cubicle to get out of my way, Jack. So no more jokes. Oh.” Cameron suddenly put her hands on her stomach, and then peered up at him. “I think I’m having my first contraction.”
Jack’s eyes widened, then he moved closer to Cameron and put his hand on her stomach. “Does it hurt?”
She covered his hand with hers. “I’d say it’s only about a point two.”
Jack smiled, tenderly touching her cheek. “I knew, when we were on that rooftop, that we’d be here someday.”
Cade had no clue what a “point two” meant, and from the way Jack and Cameron were looking at each other, he wasn’t supposed to. Clearly, an inside joke.
He headed back to his office, not wanting to intrude on the private moment, and also because he didn’t want to be thinking about cute inside jokes—because that made him think about a certain green-eyed general counsel, and for the last two weeks his mission had been to not think about said certain green-eyed general counsel.
He shouldn’t be hung up on this.
They’d both known it wasn’t a long-term deal when they’d gotten together, they’d had a mutual parting of ways, and with Brooke likely now moving to Charlotte it had been the perfect time to say good-bye.
This was exactly how these things were supposed to end. No one was angry, they’d had fun while it had lasted, they still liked and respected each other. Hell, he could even envision having coffee with her sometime when she breezed into Chicago to visit Ford and her parents. It was all good.
Except . . . it didn’t feel all good.
Rather, the thought of Brooke leaving, of him merely being some guy she’d once slept with, felt more like a punch to the gut.
Which was precisely the reason he was not thinking about her.
Once inside his office, Cade took a seat at his desk and resolved, as he had many times over the last two weeks, to focus on work. He managed to do a decent job of that, putting himself on autopilot until the end of the day, when a knock on his office door interrupted him.
Vaughn stood in the doorway. “Thought I’d see if you want to grab a drink at O’Malley’s.”
Cade rubbed his face, realizing that he’d been reading audio transcripts for hours. “Sure.” He blinked, and then cocked his head. “I didn’t realize you had any meetings here today.”
“I didn’t.”
Huh. “Then why are you here?”
Vaughn shrugged. “I just figured you might, you know, need a drink.”
Cade frowned. “Why would you th—” Then it dawned on him. “Oh, no. You and I are not doing this. We are not having this conversation.” The idea of him and Vaughn having some sort of best friend heart-to-heart about his relationship troubles was laughable at best.
“You’ve been brooding for two weeks, Morgan. So yes, we are having this conversation.”
“I appreciate it, Vaughn. Really. But no offense—you suck at this stuff as much as I do.”
Vaughn tucked his hands into his pants pockets, not looking offended in the slightest. “Yep. And that’s why God made whiskey.”
* * *
THEY WENT TO a bar a few blocks from the federal building and grabbed a table in the back. After the waitress brought their drinks, Vaughn led in.
“I’ll take a wild guess. This new emo mood of yours has something to do with the fact that you’re not seeing Brooke anymore.”
Cade had shared that information last week, in a terse and abbreviated conversation, after Vaughn apparently had used his FBI powers of super-perception to notice that he was not checking his phone all night. He could sense that tonight, however, he wasn’t getting out of the conversation without giving the agent something more.
So he thought about how to best describe the situation. Things had started out just fine between him and Brooke, but somewhere along the way the hookups and the cute text messages had turned into something more—at least on his end. Something that involved emotions, and him oddly feeling the need to share childhood stories, and him making dinner for her after a crappy day at work.
Which meant, basically, one thing.
“I pulled out too late with her,” he said simply.
Vaughn nearly dropped his glass. “Oh, fuck. Brooke’s pregnant?”
“Whoa, there. No. N
obody’s pregnant. I meant that I pulled out of the relationship too late.”
“Oh.” Vaughn paused. “You know, you really might want to add that clarification next time.”
“Thanks. And here I’d been worried we were going to suck at this,” Cade said dryly.
Vaughn grinned. “Well, I would’ve brought Huxley along to handle the more sensitive parts of the conversation, but he’s having dinner with Addison tonight.” He gestured with his whiskey, getting back on point. “So. You think you ended things too late with Brooke. You mean . . . because you’re totally crazy about her?”
When Cade shot him a glare, Vaughn gestured between them with his free hand. “Oh, are we still pretending that’s not the deal? ’Cuz I can always wait two more drinks if you need time to ease into, you know, the truth.”
“That’s funny. Is this the good cop or bad cop routine?”
“A little combination I like to think of as the Agent Roberts special.”
Cade shook his head. Just one non-FBI friend. That’s all he was asking for. “The truth doesn’t matter now, anyway. I’m pretty sure Brooke is moving to Charlotte.”
Vaughn’s expression turned serious. “Charlotte? What brought that on?”
“One of Sterling’s competitors offered her some big executive VP position. It sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
“Wow. What did you say when she told you about it?”
“I said, ‘Congratulations’ and told her to knock ’em dead in Charlotte.” He saw Vaughn frown. “What was I supposed to say? ‘Don’t go?’ You’ve seen her in action; you know how good she is. If she wants this, she should take it.”
Vaughn nodded. “You’re right. She should.”
Cade pulled back. That was . . . it? Granted, he was no pro at the heart-to-hearts, but he’d expected maybe a little bit more. “Glad we’re on the same page.”
“Absolutely. You and I—we are in total agreement.” Vaughn leaned back in the bar stool. “Now if Huxley were here, he, on the other hand, would probably have an entirely different take on the matter.”
When Vaughn said nothing further, Cade took the bait. “And what would Huxley’s take on the matter be?”
