by Jill Shalvis
“Because I’m not working here anymore,” Tessa said quietly. “Marge should be arriving any sec—”
The elevator dinged again and when the doors opened, Marge walked off. She was a large woman with prematurely gray hair ruthlessly twisted on her head, small wire glasses high on her nose and, in Reilly’s experience, a perpetual frown on her face.
Only a few weeks ago, he’d thought she was the greatest thing since sliced bread. She worked hard, spoke to him only if necessary and never, ever looked so sexy he couldn’t work, couldn’t think, couldn’t do any damn thing except drag her into his office bathroom.
She came through the glass doors and nodded to him, then tossed her purse on the front desk and sat behind it.
“What are you doing?” he asked her.
“What I always do when you need a temp. Looking for the files you leave out for me to do.”
“But—”
Tessa put a hand on his arm. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You’ve got your wish. Eddie brought Marge back,” she said.
They both looked at Marge.
Marge stared back at them.
“Eddie called me this morning,” Tessa said to him. “He’s sending me on another job. Goodbye, Reilly.”
And then, unbelievably, she started walking back toward the glass doors.
“Wait.” He shook his head to clear it, but she was still walking away from him. Lunging forward, he grabbed her hand. “What did you just say?”
“Oh, Reilly. I’ll never forget you,” she murmured and touched his face. “I had a great time.”
She pulled free, then moved through the doors toward the elevator, which was still open. She stepped on and pushed the down button. Her eyes were suspiciously damp but she was smiling when she turned back to wave. “Bye. Good luck.”
But…that sounded like a very final goodbye. Even if—and he couldn’t believe his father had done this—she wasn’t going to work for him anymore, that didn’t mean they couldn’t see each other. Right?
And in any case, he wanted her to work for him. He wanted those cheery smiles. He wanted to hear her talk and sing and laugh.
He wanted…her.
Damn it.
The elevator doors closed. And just like that, she was gone.
He whipped around and stared at Marge.
She stared right back, still not a smile in sight.
He knew Marge never smiled at work. She didn’t sing either. In fact, she often turned off the stereo on him. She often left the shades closed.
And she hated doughnuts. Now that he thought about it, that was practically sacrilegious in itself.
“Where are today’s files?” she asked, no-nonsense. Nope, no dallying for this woman.
She’d done a great job for him for a long time. She always came through when he needed her and she was a wonderful worker, but…
She wasn’t Tess.
And, he realized, it had nothing to do with work at all and everything to do with the way his heart felt as if it had just been ripped in two.
Having felt that feeling before, he braced for the cold iciness to descend. Waited to feel…nothing.
It didn’t happen.
Instead, he felt a bone-deep certainty that this time, if it went bad, he had no one to blame but himself.
He raced for the doors.
“Mr. Ledger?”
“Take the day off, Marge.”
“Mr. Ledger!”
He waved, and even added a smile. “Go ahead, take it off on me. Go do something you normally wouldn’t.”
“Well,” she said, blinking. Then for the first time in his presence, she smiled back. “You do the same, Mr. Ledger.”
He planned on it.
CHAPTER 18
TESSA WAS HALFWAY to her car, halfway to a nice pity-party meltdown, when someone grabbed her arm and whirled her around. She knew who it was before she turned, of course. And though her throat was already far too tight, her heart jerked hard at the sight of Reilly standing there, a little out of breath, his eyes unreadable, his mouth closed in a firm, unhappy line.
When he saw her face, he made a rough sound of regret and brought his other hand up to take her other arm, bringing her close. “You’re crying.”
“A little,” she admitted, and tried to step back from the body she’d grown to love so much.
He held tight. “Don’t go.”
And her heart broke all the more. “I have to,” she said.
“I don’t understand,” he said. He looked so confused. “Make me understand.”
“It’s simple, really. Eddie—”
“This isn’t about work. I don’t give a shit about work. What I do give a shit about is that you’re not just walking away from my office, you’re walking away from me, aren’t you?”
“Actually, it has nothing to do with you.” She blinked and another tear fell. No more, she promised herself. Not a one. “Remember when I told you I signed up with Eddie for the adventure?”
“Yes.”
“His ad promised one.” She gave him a watery smile. “It appealed to me because I’ve lived…well, let’s just say conservatively. Part of it is my family and their assumption I can’t do anything on my own, but part of it is just me falling into that trap, you know?” But he wouldn’t know because Reilly was and always had been his own man. He’d never run his life by the dictates of anyone else. “I wanted more,” she said. “And Eddie promised it.”
“Well, I’d say you got more than you bargained for on that score,” he said softly and skimmed a thumb over her throat.
“I did.” So much more. She’d fallen in love. “But now he’s offered me this job in the Greek Islands, on a yacht—”
“For how long?”
“It’s not that big of a deal, I’ll just be doing the books, and—”
“How long?”
“Three months,” she replied. She held her breath. “A perfect adventure, don’t you think?”
He stared at her for a long moment during which she waited for him to say that a better adventure would be for her to stay, to be with him.
Instead, he slowly nodded. He took his hands from her and slid them into his pockets. “I hope it’s everything you wanted.”
No, everything she ever wanted was right here in front of her. But sometimes people had to go for their second choices. “Thank you.”
“When do you leave?”
“Monday.”
“That’s still several days away.”
No doubt, he was thinking they could have several more wild nights together, nights that would be the most heaven-sent she’d ever had. She was quite certain he’d see to it—the earthy, sensual, incredibly passionate man was made for such nights.
But then Monday would come and it would be even harder to walk away. She opened her car door. Slid into the driver’s seat.
And wondered why she was still waiting for him to stop her.
He wasn’t going to do that. He wasn’t going to say he wanted those few nights they had left. That he’d love to see her when she got back.
In fact, he said nothing.
She put on her seat belt, put the key in the ignition and tried to convince herself she’d done the right thing.
A sleek red BMW convertible pulled up beside her and honked. Eddie, of course. He took down his sunglasses and winked at her over the top of them. Then, with an ease that made him seem twenty-nine instead of forty-nine, he hopped over the door of his car and walked toward Cheri, who was coming out of the building.
Still standing next to her car, his hands in his pockets, Reilly took this in with a muttered oath beneath his breath.
Tessa appreciated the sentiment. She always enjoyed both Eddie’s and Cheri’s company, but their timing couldn’t have been worse. She just wanted to drive away. She wanted to go home and lick her wounds with a gallon of ice cream and maybe some Ding Dongs as well. She had an emergency stash in the freezer.
Eddie took Cheri’s h
and and turned to Reilly. “I fired Cheri this morning,” he said.
Reilly shook his head and looked at Cheri. “He fired you? But…I thought you worked for me.”
“You poor confused thing.” Cheri hugged him then pulled back. “Remember when I told you I was going to start dating him because he was cute?”
“You said I was cute?” Eddie said, grinning. “I was thinking handsome and magnificent, but I can live with cute.”
“Shh,” Cheri said gently to him and turned back to Reilly. “Actually, I’m going to marry him. I’m going to make it official.”
Reilly looked like a feather could knock him over. “Make what official?” he asked.
“The fact that I’m sleeping with him, of course.” Cheri laughed. “Be happy for me, honey. Can you do that?”
“Of course he can do that,” Eddie said, breaking in. “Right, son?”
“And what makes you think she’s not going to dump you again?” Reilly asked him.
Eddie clasped him on the shoulder. “Son, sometimes you just have to take a risk and go with your heart.”
Reilly looked at Tessa with such intensity and blazing emotion in his light eyes that it took her breath away.
“There’s nothing like a good risk to jump-start your heart,” Eddie ruffled his own dark hair, barely speckled at the temples. “It causes gray hairs, of course, but that’s what beauticians are for.”
Tessa held her breath. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see what Reilly’s father was trying to tell him. Take a risk. Love again. Feel.
Live.
But was he hearing it? She searched his inscrutable expression and didn’t have a clue.
“Beat it,” Reilly suddenly said to his parents, his eyes still on Tessa.
“Sure.” Eddie turned to Cheri. “Let’s go make out.”
Reilly winced. “What in our history together suggests to you that I’d want to hear that?”
Cheri laughed and reached for Eddie. “You know what? Let’s. I think the kid wants to be alone.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Eddie said. He helped Cheri into the convertible, winked once more at Tessa and then drove off.
“They were wrong,” Reilly said. “I don’t want to be alone.” He reached into her car and took her keys out of the ignition. “I should warn you, I’m moody.”
She lifted a brow.
“I’m also…grumpy sometimes.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she said cautiously, and he nodded.
“I will. But first…”
She watched him pocket her keys and wondered what he was up to.
“Tell me that you’ll think of me every day of those three months of your adventure,” he said. “That it’s killing you to walk away.”
She closed her eyes, then opened them again and met his. “Of course it’s hard to walk away. We’ve slept together. We made love in your bathroom,” she said, her voice quivering a little and he grimaced.
“I know,” he said. “God, I know. You don’t take that lightly and—”
“Lightly?” She said, laughing and shook her head. “You want to know what I don’t take lightly? Falling in love with you, you idiot.”
He stared at her. Then he opened the car door and hauled her out. Lifted her up to her toes to look her in the eye. Nose to nose he said, “Then why the hell are you leaving?”
“Because…” She lifted her hands to his face, which she lovingly cupped. “I didn’t want to be the only one in love.”
“Now who’s the idiot?” He set her down gently, wrapped his arms around her. “I do love you. I love you so much you’re driving me right out of my living mind.”
It was her turn to stare at him, speechless. Then she both laughed and cried and took one of her hands off his face so she could smack his shoulder. “You might have said so.”
“I did,” he said, and put his forehead to hers. “In every kiss, in every look and every touch.”
“And you were going to let me walk away?”
“I wouldn’t have held you back, not from your adventure.”
“You love me that much?”
“Look, I’ve screwed up at love before. I’ve gone the opposite route and closed myself off, and screwed that up, too. Neither worked for me, but then you came along—”
She made a soft noise of emotion, of hope and joy, and he hugged her. “I know how to put numbers together,” he said in her ear. “I know how to get them to make sense. I know how to do a lot of things, but loving you…I don’t have a clue.” He pulled back to see her face. “All I know is that your smile makes my day and that when I’m with you, everything seems right.”
“Oh, Reilly,” she sighed, devouring his mouth. Just plastered herself against him, sank her fingers into his hair and kissed him desperately, hungrily. She kissed him with everything she had, everything she wanted to give him.
“So you’re staying,” he finally said, his voice unsteady and missing its usual easy confidence.
Tessa buried her face in his throat, inhaling him, just breathing him in. “I don’t know…that was a heck of a job offer from Eddie. I mean, the Greek Islands? Think of the experience.”
He tightened his hands on her. “I can offer a chance for experience, too.”
“Really?” she asked. She cocked her head. “What do you have in mind?”
He whispered in her ear, low, raw, earthy suggestions, things no one had ever whispered to her before. Excited, aroused and her heart overflowing, she nodded. “Sounds like quite an opportunity.”
“Oh, yes,” he agreed and put her back into the car, this time on the passenger side. He got in behind the wheel. “In fact, there’s no need to wait, we can start—”
“Now?”
“Now.” He drove her to his house.
“But work—”
“Forget work. I gave Marge the day off to go do something special, something she’d never done before,” he said. “I told her I was going to do the same,” he said, smiling at her, a smile full of so much love she felt her eyes well up again.
And his quickly faded. “What’s the matter?”
“I always wanted to fall in love with a man who’d show me his feelings,” she said slowly. “A man who was warm and compassionate and soft—”
“Wait a minute.” He turned off the engine, then led her inside. Once there, he took her hand and led her to his bedroom. “Warm and compassionate, no problem. Or at least I can try…. But that being soft thing—”
She laughed.
He pressed against her, so far from soft that her laugh turned into a little gasp.
“You think this condition is amusing?”
“Only because…” She paused and looked at his bed.
“Because…” he said helpfully, drawing her to his mattress, where he started in on her buttons.
“Because I know how to relieve the condition,” she said, assuring him and started on his buttons, too. “We’ve finally got it right. We’ve finally made it to a bed.”
“Finally.” He held her off, the playfulness gone. “Right place, right time, right woman. It’s all just right. You’re everything to me,” he said softly. “Everything.”
She reached for him, half-undressed, holding him close, so close that she could feel his heart beating against hers, could feel the two different patterns merge, become one. And she sighed as her world became complete.
EPILOGUE
Fifteen months later
THE GREEK ISLANDS were lovely this time of year. Tessa let out a languid sigh and figured she was the luckiest woman on earth.
She was in her bathing suit, lying on her back, staring up at an azure summer sky so amazing it took her breath away. Beneath her, the yacht rocked gently in the breeze, the water lapping at the sides with a pleasant, hypnotic sound.
“Mrs. Ledger?”
That brought a smile to her face, though she didn’t turn toward the male voice. “Yes?”
“I’ve brought you your s
unscreen. Turn over and I’ll rub it on you.”
With a naughty smile, she turned onto her belly and wriggled a little to get comfortable on her towel—and to show off her backside.
She gasped when the tie of her bikini top was tugged free, then set to her sides. Then the cold lotion was squirted on the small of her back, making her gasp again.
“Mmm, nice,” he breathed into her ear. His hands touched her, slid over her muscles and warm skin in a way that made her moan, without the strap of her top across her back to encumber him in any way. Up and down, then to the backs of her legs, even dipping into her bikini bottoms enough to have her wriggling some more.
“Does your husband know what I do to you?” he whispered, his fingers getting quite wicked, making her lose her train of thought.
Hmm. To even the score, she flipped over and exposed her bare breasts. She looked up into Reilly’s face. “He knows,” she said, feeling smug at the glossy look in his eyes as he devoured the sight of her.
He cupped her breasts, gently stroking her nipples, and it was her turn to give him a glassy-eyed look. “Husband,” she managed to say. “I like that word.”
“Do you?” He leaned in and kissed her mouth softly, settling one big hand on her belly.
“You know what word I like even more?” she asked.
“What?” He gave her the indulgent smile of a man on his honeymoon, a man who knew he was about to get very lucky for the third time that day.
“Daddy,” she whispered. “I like the word daddy.” She watched as he went very still.
His eyes cut to the hand he held on her still-flat belly, his fingers tightening a little as his eyes went hot with that wild emotion called love.
“Remember on your desk last month?” she asked softly. “When the condom broke—”
“I remember.”
“Well, funny thing about broken condoms…”
His eyes cut to hers. “Are you saying—”
“Would you mind a whole lot?” she asked, holding her breath.
“Mind a whole lot?” he repeated and closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were bright and just a little damp. His voice broke, his breath hitched. “Minding isn’t quite the right word.”
