She stares icy daggers at me. “You did bow out. You excused yourself. Just like you excused yourself from voting on my promotion.”
“And that turned out to be the best thing that happened to you. You said that to me.”
She huffs. “Don’t twist my words, Summers.” She’s pissed, but not in the way she used to be, where it felt like she was going to claw my eyes out. Her tone is different, but I can’t quite place my finger on how it’s changed.
“But it did work out,” I say gently.
Her shoulders sag, and her voice softens around the edges. “Josh, I want to win business fair and square. I don’t want you to just hand me things because . . .” She stops like she can’t bear to say the words.
That’s my opening. I close the distance, run a hand down her bare arm, and finish with the truth. “Because I’m in love with you?” I meet her gaze and her brown eyes widen. “Is that what you were going to say? I can’t just hand you things because I’m in love with you?”
She nods, her eyes shimmering with something like hope. She’s quiet, though, so I keep going.
“There are a number of other ways to finish that sentence too,” I say. “Because I’ve been in love with you this whole time. Because I fell wildly in love with you more than a year ago and I never fell out. Because when I told Dom last year I had feelings for you, that only scratched the surface. Because it’s so much more than feelings.”
She purses her lips as if she’s holding in words that threaten to break free. I brush my thumb across her jaw, and like the cat she is, she rubs her cheek against my palm. “Because that’s the reason I haven’t been with anyone else in the last year, not on a date, not anything. That’s why you’re on the list for my apartment. I can’t think about anyone but you. How could I? You have all of me and have for a long time, Haven.”
Then it’s her turn, and she sighs, giving me pause for just a second. But only a second, since she loops her arms around my neck. “That’s why I’m pissed at you. You always want to go first. You always want to win. And I wanted to win this one. I wanted to tell you first, you big idiot.” She yanks me closer, grips me harder. “You drive me crazy because I’m so stupidly in love with you.”
My smile grows ten thousand times. My heart expands to the tip of Manhattan and back. I have the answer: her irritation with me is different now because it’s chased with something else. With the same damn emotion I feel for her. “Join the club.”
“I’ve been a member for a long time. Every time I see you, it’s a fight not to let on.”
I lean my head back and laugh. “You are a fantastic actress, then, because you never broke character.”
“Oh, please. You couldn’t see through the act?”
“The ‘I hate you’ act?”
She nods, a clever grin on her face. “Yes. I had to fight my feelings for you constantly, or else I’d tell you everything.”
I slide my arm around her, grazing my palm down her spine. “And what’s everything, snow queen?”
She narrows her eyes. “You know.”
I smirk. “Do I? Tell me again, just to make sure I heard right.”
She smacks my chest playfully. “I love you. There. Okay?”
Laughing, I drop a kiss to the hollow of her throat. “I like hearing it.”
She shrugs away from me, setting her hands on my shoulders. “But what do we do about this? You can’t just leave every time if we’re trying to win the same thing when it comes to business. You can’t bow out. We have to keep going against each other. We’re still rivals in business.”
I shrug. “I know, but for me it didn’t feel right going for Jackson. And it’s different than when I recused myself from the promotion vote. Then, I didn’t feel I could be fair given how I was secretly falling in love with you. This time, all I could think about was you, and I knew I had to deal with how insanely in love with you I am before I dealt with work. We’ll figure out the whole rivals in business thing later. Right now, I don’t want to compete with you. I don’t want to fight with you.”
She wiggles her brows. “What do you want to do?”
I inch closer. “I want to love you.” I press a kiss to her soft lips, and she trembles. “Adore you.” A kiss to her neck. “Worship you.” She shivers. “And fuck you and make love to you.” Another kiss. Another shudder. “And most of all,” I say, stepping back to meet her gaze, “I want to be with you. In the open. Not in secret. I want you to be mine, Haven Delilah. All mine.”
She melts against me. “Don’t you know?”
“Know what?”
She lifts her chin like she’s offering herself to me. “I am yours. I always have been.”
She kisses me, and I see stars, and it’s spectacular.
When she breaks the kiss, she says, “Now, do you want me to tell you what happened after you left?”
28
Josh
I pour her some wine. She picks up the bottle, studying the label. “This is my favorite chardonnay.”
“I know. That’s why I have it. I bought it this morning.”
One brow lifts. “In case I showed up?”
I smile. “And wasn’t that wise?” I hand her the glass, and she takes a drink.
“Wise, as in you’re a wiseass.”
“Speaking of ass.” I grab a handful of hers.
She swats me away and heads for the couch as I pour a glass for myself.
As she settles in, she says, “First, Alicia was not happy with you.”
“She told you that? That doesn’t sound like her.”
Haven shakes her head as she sinks onto the plush gray sofa, making herself at home. Damn, she looks great as she relaxes in my living room, sliding so seamlessly into this next phase of us.
“No, she didn’t tell me, but it was obvious when I found her in the kitchen, huffing and puffing as she brewed coffee.”
“Ah, she did that thing people do when they’re pissed—they slam cupboards and do everything with a certain angry panache?”
Haven smiles. “She was full of angry panache. But then she got over it and wanted to go for a run, so I joined her.”
“Of course you did. And did you bond with her as you ran?”
“We talked about Girl Power, and she was really into the charity. So that was good. When we returned, she excused herself to chat with Jackson and Lucas, so I had another coffee with Vaughn. When she reappeared, she announced that you’d left for personal reasons, but it didn’t matter because she’d made her decision already.”
She takes a sip, seeming to delight in the wine, then sets down her glass.
She says nothing.
I wait for her to share the good news. “Well, you got it, right?”
I expect her eyes to twinkle with a little spark from the competitive fire that is stoked so easily in her. Instead, she’s all vulnerability as she says, “There’s something I need to tell you, and I hope you’ll understand.”
Tension shoots through me. Those are not words you want to hear—not in that combination, not at a time like this. “Okay,” I say, steeling myself for whatever’s about to blindside me.
She sits up straighter, tucks her legs under her, and takes a breath. Her chocolate eyes blaze with the same intensity I saw in them when she competed, when she launched herself from the top of a mountain and flew through the snow.
“We won it.”
I narrow my eyes. Her words don’t compute. How could she and I have won it?
“What do you mean? You and me?”
She shakes her head. “No. Not you and me, Josh.”
“Then who?” I ask just as quickly, then the answer dawns on me. “You and . . . Vaughn?”
She flashes a smile. “Yes, Vaughn and me.”
I jerk back. “It went to the two of you? But how?”
“Alicia wanted both of us, and that worked out really well because . . .” She takes a moment to draw another deep breath. “Because Vaughn and I are going into business tog
ether.”
29
Josh
That’s a curveball I didn’t see coming.
“How did that happen? That’s an interesting development, to say the least.”
She answers quickly, like she’s nervous I won’t like what she has to say. “We reconnected last week before all this started, just talking about business and how he was leaving Dick’s shop.”
My brow knits. “He’s leaving Dick’s firm?”
“He left, Josh. He left a few weeks ago. He wasn’t there representing Dick Blaine.”
I flash back to the car ride, recalling Vaughn’s words when I asked about Dick. Ever make a decision you regret?
Then he said he’d spent most of the last year untangling himself from a bad decision.
Holy shit. I break out in a grin. “The dude was there on his own. Damn. I had no idea. That’s impressive. I’m psyched to hear that.”
“I was too.”
“But when did you two make these plans?”
“This morning.” Her voice rises.
“After I left and before Alicia made her decision?” I ask, like I need to clarify precisely when “morning” occurs.
“Yes. Like I said, we’d tossed around the idea, and we’d been talking about it as a possibility earlier in the week, but once you were gone, everything was crystal clear. I hope you’re not upset, but we work well together. He has a great rapport with clients and gets along with everyone, and he has an analytical mind. We make a great team.”
For a flash of a second, the green-eyed monster thrashes in my chest. The caveman that lurks in all of us wants to claim Haven as mine, and only mine. But that’s stupid as fuck because she’s simply going into business with another guy. She’s not going home to that guy. I’m the man she’s going to come home to. And now that she lays out their plan, it makes perfect sense. I can picture them as a power tag team.
“Say something. You’re upset,” she says, worry coloring her tone.
For a second, maybe several, I let myself imagine all the reasons I could be upset.
But nope. I can’t find one. “Why would I be upset?”
“Because I didn’t tell you till now?”
“You didn’t know till today, and I would never expect you to have told me while you were exploring it. And we weren’t even officially together till now. I might have been jealous for a couple seconds, but then I remembered I’m going to make you scream my name in a few seconds.”
She laughs, then breathes a huge sigh of relief. “I’m so glad you said that.”
“That I’m going to make you come?”
“Yes, Josh. And the other part too.”
I tap her knee. “You’re happy about this plan with Vaughn? You like this? You feel good about it?”
“So good,” she says with the start of a smile.
I grin wickedly. “Then get over here and take your clothes off, because we should celebrate with your favorite thing.”
Coyly, she asks, “What’s that?”
“As if you don’t know,” I say, moving matters along as I move over to her, tug off her top, and pull down her skirt.
“Ohhhhh. You mean . . .” She drops her voice to a whisper. “Orgasms?”
“Yes, woman. Orgasms. You need several to celebrate this awesome, fantastic, amazing win that I couldn’t be happier about.”
That’s the thing. I want her to have everything good in the world. And I want her to have all the pleasure she could want from me.
“And you wonder why I couldn’t get you out of my mind for the last year,” she says as she yanks off my T-shirt.
“Actually, I never wondered that. I completely understand why you’re into me.”
She swats my arm. “Cocky bastard.”
“Feel free to call me that while my face is between your thighs and you’re coming on my lips.”
In a few minutes, she’s doing just that, her voice hitting that terrific high note, and it’s absolutely fantastic. But that’s not the best part.
The best part is knowing she’s not walking away.
And I’m not either.
Wait.
Let me revise that.
The best part is knowing we’ll be together again tomorrow, and the next night, and the one after that too.
That’s the biggest win of all.
30
Josh
In the morning I wake up to a barrage of messages from Jason, Amy, and Quinn.
Jason: Assuming you’ve acted properly on your clarity, how did it turn out?
Amy: May I now point out a perfect template for your future? Mary Matalin and James Carville. They’ve pulled off the whole competitors thing. You can too.
Quinn: When can I start planning your wedding?
I laugh quietly as Haven rustles under the covers, shifting onto her stomach, still sound asleep.
I start with Quinn.
Josh: You’re a party planner, not a wedding planner.
Quinn: Thanks for raining on my parade. Also, I’ve planned a few weddings too, oh ye of little faith.
Next, I tackle Jason’s note and give him an update. He responds immediately.
Jason: I know you used my advice as inspiration. You can say it—“Jason, you’re so damn helpful.”
Josh: You’re so damn helpful.
Finally, I respond to Amy.
Josh: You had to use the political power couple from another era because there really isn’t any other great example of competitor couples, is there?
Amy: True. But also, is there anyone more romantic in all the world than a pair of political strategists from opposite sides? Besides, I was right.
Josh: You were right about what?
Amy: Darcy and Bennet. Pride and Prejudice. I told you so.
Josh: You’re right. You’re always right.
I set the phone down, look at the sleeping woman by my side, and say out loud, “You were right.”
It’s Sunday in Manhattan.
Quickly, we learn that we don’t do Sundays in New York the way it’s done in the movies. Or on Instagram.
We’re not one of those stroll-along-a-quiet-side-street-holding-hands couples.
We don’t gather in a line that winds around the block for the new trendy brunch joint.
And we definitely don’t do Sunday Funday shit like go ax-throwing after day-drinking. Which, incidentally, sounds like a terrible idea.
Instead, we fuck when she wakes up.
And we shower.
And then we hit the phones.
She has calls to take from Alicia, from Vaughn, and from her other clients.
And I have calls to make too. As Haven paces across the bedroom, I settle into my couch to catch up with my Yankees shortstop, then with my Knicks center, and then with Zane, who texts that he has something to tell me, so I call him right away.
“Dude! Word on the street is sick,” he announces.
“Lay the word on me.”
“Get this. I hear . . .” He stops, pauses, and seems to draw an excited breath. “Tom Cruise has to skateboard in the next Mission Impossible flick.”
My brow knits. That sounds unlikely, but then again, everything Cruise does in Mission Impossible is the definition of unlikely. “Is that so?”
“Yes! How rad is that?”
“The raddest. Where did you hear that?”
“From Jako,” he says, naming his teammate and fellow skater.
“Does Jako have intel about Hollywood flicks?”
“Yes, he has a cousin—well, a second cousin—who works in the biz. You know, does catering and shit for a TV studio in Canada, so he’s totally in the know. Wait. Nope. Wrong. He works in Georgia. I get those mixed up a lot.”
“Ah, so he’s a great source for what’s coming down the pike in Hollywood.”
“Definitely. And listen, here’s the thing. Tom’s short and all and I’m not, but those are just details. I want to be his skateboarding stunt double. Can you make that happen? I mean
, if anyone can make that happen, it’s you, right?”
I laugh, even though I’m about to break his heart. “Zane, my man. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Tom Cruise does all his own stunts.”
Zane groans, an epic sound of sadness that carries across continents and through the halls of time. “No!”
But I can’t leave him on that kind of bubble-burst, so I tell him I’m working on renewing his contract with Vans, with a huge increase, and I swear I can see the smile on his face.
“Dude. For that kind of money, I can buy myself a walk-on role in MI.”
“Aim for the stars, my man. Aim for the stars.”
A few minutes later, Haven emerges from the bedroom, looking energized. “Check out this email. We just landed a huge donation from Wu Media to fund the next set of programs I was mentioning. The woman who runs that company is a goddess and so is her director of charitable outreach. Listen to what she wrote.”
Dear Haven,
LOVED your terrific presentation. We’re thrilled with the fantastic work you're doing at Girl Power. To see the impact of these programs on the lives of young girls who need them is incredibly rewarding on so many levels. Personally, I can vouch for the difference sports made for me -- those early morning practices when I had to rise at the rooster crack of dawn gave me the discipline I needed to succeed not just in sports, but in school.
What more could I ask for! That’s why we’re so excited to support the work you’re doing.
P.S. you were an inspiration to me during your gold medal run. You’re fearless and I love it!
Overnight Service (Always Satisfied Book 4) Page 15