“You ready?”
Heath’s voice cuts into my thoughts and I look up, placing my empty mug down on the counter behind me. “Yeah. I’m ready.” For whatever this fucking day is going to throw at me.
Lola
“Hey. How was the wedding?” Jess asks as she joins me in the partners’ kitchen.
“Good. It was good. I wish you could’ve been there, Jess. Kat really wanted you to come.”
“And I really wanted to go, but the timing was just off. I had to cover court for Ellie Harrison, and when a senior equity partner asks you to take over first chair on a case as important as that one, I couldn’t say no.”
“No. You couldn’t. Did it go okay?”
“Okay?” She looks at me, a wide grin covering her face. “We won, girlfriend!”
She high-fives me, and we laugh, and we talk about the wedding for a few minutes as we make the coffee. And it’s nice, these few moments of normality. Work is my haven right now. And my hell. And that’s what I need to change.
“So, come on. He was there, right? Mike?”
I take a sip of my coffee and lean back against the counter. “Yeah. He was there.”
“And?”
“And, nothing, Jess.”
“Nothing?” She frowns as she sits down at the table, crossing her legs. “You didn’t speak to him?”
“Of course I spoke to him. And it was good, you know? I mean, even after everything we’ve been through, every time we see each other it’s like we just fall back into this comfortable routine, this familiar groove…”
“Doesn’t that tell you something?”
It’s my turn to frown. “Like what?”
“Like, you know the answer to that one so don’t make me say it.”
I shake my head and take another sip of coffee. “We just talked, but what he said… it made a lot of sense. I mean, I have talked this over so many times, gone over the same old shit time and time again, it’s ridiculous. But a few minutes talking to Mike and it’s like everything is suddenly straight in my head.”
Jess raises an eyebrow. “Care to share?”
I smile and turn to pick up Heath’s coffee. “Later. I’d better get this to Heath. He’s got a busy morning…”
“Lola.”
I look back at her, and I frown again because her expression’s changed now. And I can’t quite read it. “Yeah?”
“You know why Heath’s been busier than usual, don’t you?”
I place his coffee back down on the counter. “No. I just thought he wanted to take more on…”
“He’s taking over a lot of Evan’s cases. He’s just been trying to hide that fact from you.”
My frown deepens, and I stare at Jess. “Why is he taking over Evan’s cases? And why the fuck is he keeping that from me?”
“Evan’s not himself, Lola. Remember the old Evan? The one you first met? The one you first started working for? Take him and twist him up a little, and you’re just about where Evan is right now.”
“And that’s my fault?”
“I didn’t say that. All I’m saying is…”
I pick Heath’s coffee back up and make to leave the kitchen. “Evan’ll be fine. He always is.”
“Lola…”
“Later, Jess.”
I take a deep breath and stride down the corridor, toward Heath’s office. He’s inside, when I get there, hanging up his jacket and rolling up his shirtsleeves and he smiles as I place his coffee down on his desk.
“Hey, beautiful. You okay today?”
I throw him a half-smile back. “Only you could get away with calling me that. And you’re late. Everything okay?”
He walks around the back of his desk and I hand him his mail. “Everything’s fine. And I only say what I say ‘cause it’s true.”
I roll my eyes and turn to go.
“Hang on a second, Lola.”
I swing back around. “Yeah?”
“Did you have a good time yesterday?”
I narrow my eyes slightly. “Yes, thank you. Is there something you need me to do?”
“No. No, I’ll call you if I need you. But I’m gonna be out of the office for most of the day…”
“Covering Evan’s cases?”
He looks at me, and he frowns. “Sorry?”
“You’ve been covering for him, taking on his work, and you’ve been lying to me.”
“Because you don’t need to be part of his shit, Lola.”
“He’s still my husband, Heath.”
“He’s a mess.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?”
“What would you have done? What could you do? What good would it have done to have you anywhere around him, sending out mixed messages, making him think there’s still a chance…”
“There is still a chance.”
His frown deepens, and he puts down the pile of post and rests his hands palm-down on the desk in front of him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, someone talked a lot of sense into me, while I was over in New Jersey.”
He stands upright, folds his arms and leans back against the window ledge. “Who?”
“It doesn’t matter who. Where’s Evan?”
“In his office, I should imagine.”
“Okay… Do you need me right now?”
“No, I… Lola?”
I turn around as I reach the door, and I look at Heath.
“Are you sure about this?”
“I love him, Heath. That’s all I know right now. I love him, and sometimes that’s all that matters. Everything else, we can work on that.”
He smiles, and jerks his head at the door. “Go on. Go cheer the miserable bastard up.”
I return his smile and head down the corridor to Evan’s office, stopping by my old cubicle outside to chat to Joanne, Evan’s new secretary, before I go inside. And as soon as I close the door behind me he turns around and he looks at me, and the sight of him sends a sucker-punch to my stomach. I only saw him a couple of days ago, but he looks different, somehow, today. The beard, the slightly out-of-place hair, it’s not the Evan I remember.
“You look like crap.”
“I feel like crap.”
“Is that why Heath’s covering your meetings? Why he’s in court this afternoon, instead of you?”
“Jesus… What the hell has he been telling you?”
“The truth.” I walk over to him, and I reach out and straighten his tie, brushing it down against his shirt with my fingertips.
“What are you doing here, Lola? You here because of what Heath said?”
“No. I’m here because of something someone else said.”
A confused expression sweeps across his face, and I suddenly pull back from telling him that someone was Mike. Not because of guilt, nothing happened, I have nothing to feel guilty about. I just don’t think it would help. And it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t.
“Someone else?”
He raises an eyebrow, and I keep my eyes locked on his, I’m not breaking that stare. “They made me see sense. Made me think straight, for the first time in weeks. They made me see where I need to be.”
“And that’s where, exactly? Here? With me? All of a sudden it is that simple?”
I step back from him, and I frown, but then, what did I expect? What did I think was going to happen?
“Do you still want me, Evan?”
He comes closer, so close I feel his breath on my skin, his body almost touching mine. “Of course I still fucking want you. Every day since this whole fucked-up situation started I have wanted you, I’ve missed you, I’ve lost sleep because all I can think about is you. But we got to this, and you told me you didn’t want me…”
“I never said that, Evan…”
“No, you didn’t, you’re right.” He steps back from me, puts one hand in his pocket and rakes the other one through his slightly unkempt hair. “You’re right, you didn’t exactly say those words. But you gave me no choice, Lola.
You gave us no choice, and now you walk in here and you think you can just turn it all back around? Why? Because you’ve had a change of heart? What about me, huh? What about how I’m feeling? What if I don’t want to go back there? I still want you, Lola, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t want the hassle anymore. I’m tired, it’s too much, it isn’t me. Anymore.” He shrugs, and I feel all kinds of confusion swirling around inside my head. “I thought I could do it, y’know? Love, commitment; marriage. I thought I could do it. But the truth is, I can’t. I don’t want to, not anymore. It’s not me, Lola. It’s not me.”
I start to back away, toward the door, and I breathe in deep because I don’t know what I was expecting, I’m just not sure it was this. Was I really that arrogant to think he’d just fall straight back into my arms?
“I’m sorry, baby, I really am. It’s just better this way. I’m not the man you wanted me to be. I’m the man I need to be. And they’re two completely different people.”
Heath said he was a mess, that he wasn’t coping, but he seems fine to me. “Yeah. You’re right. I’m sorry too, I just… I’m sorry.”
I turn to go, swallowing hard as I walk out of his office. And it’s like all that confusion has finally hit home, caught up with me in spectacular fashion as I feel tears start to prick at my eyes, and that horrifies me. This isn’t worth crying over. Yes, it’s a mess, but it’s one instigated by me. I caused it, I asked for it, I pushed him; I pushed us to this. Me. I did this. So why the fuck am I crying?
I blink back those tears to stop them from falling, and I hurriedly head down to the file room, hoping and praying it’s quiet down there. I just need a corner, some private space where I can pull myself together, because this isn’t me. That self-pity, it isn’t coming back, I won’t let it.
I punch in the key code to open the door, and as I step inside I’m relieved to find I’m the only one in there. The peace is welcome, and I walk toward the back of the room, crossing my arms against myself.
“You really should close this door properly, if you don’t want anyone to disturb you.”
I swing around, so fast I almost knock myself off my feet.
“Was it Mike? Was he this someone who talked sense into you?”
“Does it matter?”
He shrugs as he walks toward me, his hands in his pockets, his eyes locked on mine. “Not really, no, I just – I just wondered. If it was him.”
“It was him.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
“No.”
“The truth?”
“I didn’t sleep with him.”
“Okay.”
I back up against the wall as he approaches me. And I don’t know what’s happening here; I don’t know if I should be letting it happen, but I’m not stopping it. Not yet. I can’t. All I can feel is that bubble we were so used to living in closing around us once more, engulfing us, suffocating us, and I know now, I know that was the reason – that’s what I was running away from. That’s why I needed to leave him, to walk away. And yet, I was all for coming back.
“You didn’t sleep with him…”
He reaches out and gently strokes my cheek with the back of his hand but I pull it away. And he laughs, which angers me slightly because, right now, it’s like we’re right back where we started. Evan King is back – the arrogant bastard who stole my fucking soul and made me want him like the worst kind of drug, he’s back.
“But I need you to sleep with me,” he murmurs, his mouth resting against mine, his breath sinking into me, and I can feel my resolve – or what’s left of it – fading away, it’s going. No. It’s gone…
He’s kissing me, and I slide a hand around the back of his neck and I push him down onto me, the kiss growing deeper and harder as he helps me out of my panties; as I take him in my hand and grasp him tight. It’s like I’d gone cold turkey, almost reached that point where I’m finally weaned off this shit only to fall at the final hurdle. All that hard work, it was for nothing, I’m too weak. But so is he. This is what we do, we fuck to forget, and it’s what we needed to stop. But we can’t. Right now, neither of us seems to want to.
He rests a hand gently against the side of my neck, pushing my head back slightly, and I close my eyes as his lips brush the base of my throat, his fingers grasping my hip as he pushes inside me, and the long, low moan that escapes me is one of relief. I’m getting my fix, every ounce of willpower I had is spilling out of me as my legs wrap around him and my fingers wind in his hair, it’s wrong. It’s so fucking wrong, but I don’t want him to stop…
Evan
She’s warm and wet and beautiful, and I needed this; her. I needed it. Whatever I did last night, it really did mean nothing. Sex never did mean anything, not until I met her. Until I met Lola. She means something, but that something; it isn’t what I want, not anymore. I wasn’t lying when I told her I still want her, I wasn’t. Everything I told her was true. I still love her like I will never love anyone ever again, because I won’t let myself go there, again. I can’t do it. I can’t deal with this shit, I can’t take the pain, and if that makes me a weak man then so be it. I’m tired of pretending to be someone I’m not. Someone I don’t think I can ever be.
I cup her ass and push her against me, thrusting deeper into her, her quiet moans and the way her body shivers slightly when my fingers sink into her flesh, it’s like the most brutal punch to the solar plexus. I could have her, for life, and I’m choosing to push her away. Once this is over, once we’re done, that’s it. Because this is what I want. No commitment. No ties. Nothing that gets under your skin and then breaks your fucking heart.
I feel her heels dig sharply into the small of my back as her legs tighten around me, and as I thrust hard, pushing her back against the wall, she comes in a barrage of muffled cries, her face buried in my hair as her body jerks and jolts in my arms. And I’m coming too, and I kiss her as every ounce of my frustration spills out into her, because all I really want to do is cry out loud, scream out my shit; let it loose so I can finally move on.
I pull out of her, and I let her go, watching as she steps back into her panties, adjusts her dress; shakes out her hair, and the way it falls loosely around her shoulders delivers another kick to my gut.
“We can’t go back, Evan.”
“I know.”
“We can’t go back.”
“But I can.”
She walks toward me, and she cups my cheek and kisses me so softly, my gut’s getting no respite here. “Yeah. You can.”
“Lola…”
She pulls away from me, and again I let her go. What’s the point in pretending we can rescue this? She came to me, she told me she wants us again, and so do I. But I want us like this. Like we were before Mike and marriage and all the other complications that have proved to be too big an obstacle for something that just wasn’t strong enough to cope.
She turns around and she looks at me, straight at me, and again that pain rips through me. But that pain will ease, in time. We’ll get used to seeing each other, every day, we’ll learn to cope with the memories and know, in time, that we did the right thing.
“I’m sorry.”
She smiles, and it reaches her eyes so I know she understands. She gets this. She gets me. “Yeah. Me too.”
She turns and walks away, out of the room, closing the door behind her. I’m alone, again. And I feel strangely relieved. I feel strong.
Evan King is back where he belongs.
I’m back.
Twenty-Three
Lola
“Bernie Langton is one of the best divorce attorneys in the city, Lola, but – are you sure about this?”
“I don’t think we have any other option, Jess.”
“You could try talking to him.”
I lean back in my chair and clasp my hands over my stomach, turning my head briefly to look behind me. Heath’s busy talking to his associate about a case he’s taken over from Evan. But, hopefully now that we both know where we stand
, Evan can start to pull himself together. We can both start to move on.
“Yeah, well, I’ve already tried that. A couple of days ago. And we don’t do talking.”
She frowns, and I sit forward and sigh quietly, dragging my hands back through my hair.
“It doesn’t matter. I just think, you know, we need to get this over with.”
“You’re talking like your marriage is something you can’t wait to see the back of.”
I look at her. “What else am I supposed to do, Jess? I told him how I felt, and he doesn’t want to go back there. It’s done.”
“And you’re quite happy to just leave it like that, are you? This has spiraled out of all control, and do you know why? Because you had a few stupid insecurities about not being good enough for him…”
“It wasn’t just about that, Jess.”
“Fuck it, Lola, yes, it was. Oh, and some crap about this life not being one you feel comfortable in, when we both know that’s bullshit. It was all to do with you, and how you were feeling, and then his mother says something that just reinforces those ridiculous insecurities and all of a sudden you’re talking divorce. I don’t get it.”
“You don’t have to get it. I’m not asking you to understand any of it, I just think…”
“What? You think, what? That letting Evan go back to that egotistical asshole he was before he met you, you think that’s the best thing, in the long run?”
“I can’t stop him from being who he wants to be, Jess. And he doesn’t want this anymore, he told me that. He said the words, I heard them. Marriage, security, commitment, it isn’t him. It never was. I don’t think it ever will be.”
She shakes her head, picks up the files she came to collect from me, and takes a step back from my cubicle. “I didn’t think you were the type to give up so easily, Lola. And I didn’t think he was so weak.”
Willfully Hers (The Dirty Business Series Book 2) Page 19