by Parker, Ali
His tan slacks and white button-down shirt left the tanned color of his skin accented. Annie was right about one thing. He was fucking hot in a way that wanted to push me past my pain and right into his arms.
“Hey, you made it.” He smiled and walked in, sliding his hands onto Annie’s shoulders and smiling down at her. “Did you tell our newest advisor about her trip?”
Annie leaned back in her seat like she was at the mercy of the best masseuse in New York City. She tipped her chin back and gazed adoringly up at him, but Caden wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at me. Annie pouted. “I sure did. Did you tell her about her welcome lunch?”
Caden tipped his chin at me. “We have a welcome lunch for you.”
“A welcome lunch, huh?” I asked. “And here I already thought I was getting spoiled with this nice office and the flowers.” I crossed my arms over my chest and wished I hadn’t. Caden would be able to read the stance like a book. I was nervous. Unsure.
Annie popped up out of her chair. “I’ll catch you around, Olivia. You’re in good hands with Caden.”
“Thank you for your help,” I called after her as she slipped out into the hall and out of view.
Caden turned and walked back toward the door, closing it and turning to face me. He didn’t speak right away. He lingered at the door for a minute and then smiled. I could tell it was forced. “Luke planned the lunch. He wants the three of us to go together since we’ll be working so closely together.”
“I’m not going to lunch with the two of you.” I glanced down at my desk as if there were anything to look at. “That would be incredibly awkward for me, though anyone with half a heart and a fourth of a brain would know that.”
“Business partners go to lunch together.” His tone wasn’t rude. It was matter of fact, and suddenly, I felt like the idiot operating on a fourth of a brain. Of course, business partners went to lunch together. It would be weirder of me not to join them.
“Fine.” I glanced back up, hating how quickly the sight of him stole my breath. The big blue star on his left pectoral was almost visible through his shirt, and I had to force myself not to stare. I’d spent hours as a girl lying on his bed beside him, tracing it as we planned out the future.
“One more thing.” He walked toward the desk and pressed his hands to the glassy top of it. “We’re going to Texas next week. Annie got us rooms for Wednesday night, but I wanted to see if you were staying with your folks after that or if you—”
“Wait. Us?” Ice water ran through my veins. I could tell him about daddy dying later. Right now, shock had its hold on me. I wasn’t going anywhere with just him. “Us as in who? Me, you, and Luke?”
He paled a little, and I thought I might be sick.
“No. Us as in me and you.” He gestured back and forth between us with one hand. “It’s my account, but it will be yours soon.”
My mouth was dry. “Fuck. No.”
Caden arched an eyebrow. “How do you want me to navigate this, Olivia? Do you want me to treat you like my ex-girlfriend and pussyfoot around you and accommodate your every need to spare your feelings? Or do you want me to treat you like a colleague?”
I had half a mind to march right around the desk and rip a strip off him. I was about to do it when my office door swung open and Luke smiled at me.
“Hey, baby.” He stopped short, tilting his head a little. “Something happen? You look—”
“Pissed.” Caden turned and walked back toward the door. “It’s all good now. She didn’t want us spending money on a lunch for her.”
He patted his brother on the back as I tried to get a hold of myself. I wasn’t going to Texas with him.
No fucking way.
“She’s humble as well as drop-dead gorgeous.” Luke dragged his eyes up and down the length of my body. “She’s mine too.”
Caden was looking at me too, but he wasn’t eyeing me up like a cut of expensive steak. He was looking right into my eyes—into my soul.
I could feel the sadness seeping out of him as he sighed. “Yeah, she’s the full package.”
Chapter 21
Caden
I stood there a moment longer, memorizing the anger in her gaze. She had no right to be pissed at me, to hate me the way it appeared that she did. What the fuck had I done to her? It was my life that was ruined.
She hadn’t said a word to me after that night together, no matter what I tried to do to get her attention. It was pathetic to say the least. She spread vicious lies about me and then got pissed when some of my friends obviously turned the table on her?
The image of her crying in the hallway several times over the last week of our senior year tore through me. Reaching up, I rubbed my chest and walked back down the hall to my office. I needed to move past it, but I couldn’t. I hadn’t been able to with her being nothing more than a memory, and I certainly couldn’t now with her right down the fucking hallway.
“Hey, boss.” Annie moved up beside me, appearing like a ghost like always. She slapped an envelope into my hand. “I got your tickets and hotel rooms. This is your itinerary and boarding passes. Lunch is at eleven thirty today at Darek’s Steak House. That good? I know you love that place.”
I nodded. Olivia loved a good steak. It was perfect.
What the hell is wrong with you? I thought darkly.
“Yeah, and hey, be good to our new advisor. She’s got a lot of catching up to do, and I know how you can be a catty bitch when you want to.” I smirked as she pushed at me and laughed.
“I am not.” She followed me into my office. “All right, well, sometimes I am. But you have to keep new chicks on their toes, okay? No exceptions. Olivia might be Luke’s girl but that doesn’t mean she’s immune to my approach. Who else is going to look after you boys if not me?” Her giggle filled my office.
I stopped by the windows on the far side of my office and turned to face her. Something had been on my mind since the other day and I couldn’t shake it. It might have been crossing a line bringing it up with Annie, but I couldn’t help myself. I needed to know. “Can I ask you something? You don’t have to disclose anything you don’t want to.”
“Ask away. I’m an open book.”
“Did you and Luke sleep together in the last three years?” I slipped my hands into my pockets. “No judgment here, just trying to figure out if my brother is being his normal self or if I’m overthinking things.”
She lifted an eyebrow at me. “You think I slept with your brother?”
“I won’t care if you did. It won’t change anything between us. Tell me, Annie. Please?”
Annie moved toward me. There was an obvious sway to her hips but I kept my eyes glued to hers. She stopped in front of me, reached up, and plucked a piece of lint from the collar of my shirt. With a smile lingering on her lips, she rolled the lint between her thumb and forefinger before flicking it away. Then she gazed up at me. “Why do you want to know so badly?”
“It’s personal.”
“Do you and Luke have a rule about not sleeping with the same girl or something?”
She had no idea how ironic the question was. “No.”
“Good to know,” she purred.
Motion at my door pulled my attention from her. We both turned to see Olivia standing in the hall. Her hard expression softened with surprise when she saw Annie and I standing so close together.
I stepped back. Annie scowled at me.
“Oh, sorry, I’ll come back,” Olivia muttered. Her black pencil skirt hugged her hips, her blouse fit her perfectly, accenting how full her breasts had gotten. Every part of me screamed mine.
“No. We were just talking. Come on in.” I moved away from Annie as Olivia hovered in the doorway.
“No, it’s fine. I was just coming to verbally beat you up a little. I can do that later.” She gave me a hard stare and turned to Annie with a sheepish smile on her face. “I’m thinking Caden and I might be butting heads quite often.”
“Join the crew, lov
e.” Annie moved past Olivia and paused. “Though it’s usually Luke we all butt heads with.”
“Close the door please, Annie,” I said.
Annie closed the door. The sounds of the rest of the office like hallway chatter, milk being steamed in the espresso machine, and fingers flurrying across keyboards became muted, and I faced Olivia, who was watching me darkly. “Let’s keep our problems just between us, hm?” I moved toward her.
Olivia retreated back a step but I followed, trapping her between me and my desk.
“Move back. Shit.” She put her hand in the center of my chest and I reached up to trap it there before walking toward her. “Caden. Stop.”
Her voice was firm but her eyes pleaded for me to move closer. Was she as confused and torn up about this whole mess as I was? Did she want what she couldn’t have? Did she wish things had ended differently back in high school?
“I can’t.” I left a small gap between us and reached up, grabbing a soft strand of her hair and carefully running my fingers down it. “I hate you for being here. I was over you. You were supposed to stay in Houston.”
“Good. Stay over me. We were stupid kids.”
“You’re not over me though.” I ran my hand over her shoulder, letting my eyes move down the line of her body as my pulse spiked.
“Yes, I am.” Her words were sensual due to the soft pants they rode on. “Back up. Now. I’m serious.”
I took a step forward and reached up to grip her chin as I pressed myself to the front of her. “If you’re over me, then why are you so fucking pissy about going to Texas with me? It doesn’t bother me a bit to go with you.”
“I’m your brother’s girlfriend. We’ll be married in a few years.” She pushed weakly at my chest and didn’t pull her hands away. Her warm palms remained there, resting on my chest, and I wondered if she could feel my heart thumping wildly beneath her touch. “This is why I don’t want to go, you cocky asshole. You act like you have something to prove. You act like I’m still yours to put your hands all over.” She swatted at my hand, forcing me to release the strand of hair. Then she stepped back, forcing space to grow between us.
“I do have something to prove.”
“And what is that exactly?” She walked toward the desk and pressed her closed fists to it.
I rounded on her. “That I’m over you. That I was over you the day you fucked up our lives and stole every dream I’d had as a boy.” I fell into my chair and turned toward my computer as she sucked in a quick breath.
I couldn’t look at her. I knew what I would see, and I didn’t want the reminder that she’d won all those years ago. Whatever I’d done wrong to have her turn against me was a question for the past. I was done talking about it. It was better if we were at each other’s throats anyway. That would keep me from dropping to my knees before her and begging for another chance, though it should have been her groveling, not me.
“How dare you?” she hissed.
“Get out. I’ll see you at lunch.” I glanced up, hating myself for the pain on her face. What the fuck did she want from me that she didn’t still have? “If you don’t want to go on the trip, go tell your lover to get you off the account. Seems like that’s an ace in the hole, literally.”
“Un-fucking-believable.” She marched to the door, stopped, and glared at me over her shoulder. “I hate you.”
“Good. That makes two of us.”
The door slammed as tears blurred my vision. I hadn’t cried more than three times in my life, and all three were because of her. I stood up and pushed the papers from my desk as a growl left me.
Fucking bitch.
She had no remorse for what she’d done to me—what she’d stolen from me.
I was going to have to tell Luke to find some other place for her to work. I couldn’t work with her. There was too much between us, and my focus would be solely on her, as it had been in my younger years. How many times had Coach chewed my ass for staying up all night with her and playing like shit during practice?
“Boy, you need to dump that girl. She’s nothing but trouble. All of them are trouble. They steal dreams and ruin lives. Get out of there before she takes you down.”
“No shit,” I mumbled and grabbed my keys. I’d meet them at lunch in an hour, but I wasn’t sticking around the office for another minute. With my luck, she’d come back in to blast me for being such a dick. No thanks.
“Where are you going?” Luke stopped outside my office as I pulled the door open a little harder than I should have. “Hey, you all right?”
“No, I’m not.”
“You wanna talk about it?” Luke called as I made my way down the hall past the coffee room and the reception desk.
“No. I’ll see you at lunch. It’s at eleven thirty at Darek’s Steak House.” I didn’t hear his reply. He had nothing to say that I cared to hear. No one did. Well, almost no one.
* * *
“You two are fucking bumming me out today. What’s the deal?” Luke looked back and forth between Olivia and me. She sat beside him on the booth while I sat across from them, draped over my chair hoping I looked like a man who didn’t give a shit about the way Luke’s hand lingered on Olivia’s thigh.
I straightened up. “I’m sorry. Just trying to think through a few things that aren’t working right. The S&P moved—”
“I know, right?” Luke butted in. “We’ll figure it out. Stop being so depressing. Both of you.” He ran his hand down Olivia’s leg under the table. “This is supposed to be a celebration, remember? The three of us are going to make waves.”
“And Perry,” I reminded him.
Luke chuckled and leaned into his girl to press his lips to her neck, just below her ear. Olivia bolted to her feet. Her hip hit the table. The cutlery rattled. Luke peered up at her and she smoothed out her skirt.
“I’m running to the restroom.” She left without another word and didn’t look back as she wove through the restaurant to the purple neon sign that declared Ladies.
“What the fuck?” Luke looked over at me. “Is something going on? Did you upset her?”
“Yeah, maybe. I’ll fix it. Sorry. I’m harsh at work. You know that.” I got up and laid my napkin down on my plate.
“Yeah, but she’s my woman. You need to watch yourself. She’ll be in the family soon, Caden, and if nothing else, respect her resume. She’s done some great shit.” His eyes narrowed a little. He was right.
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m just leery of her taking my place,” I lied and walked toward the restroom, waiting for her to come out. What the fuck was I going to say?
I’d meant everything I said in my office. The tension between us was thick enough to choke on, and I couldn’t live like that, nor could she or Luke. Fuck, none of us deserved to, and this was her first day in the office.
She walked out and stopped short. “No. Don’t talk to me.”
“We need to talk. For Luke’s sake.” I reached out and gripped her wrist to pull her a little closer to me. “I’m angry. I’m hurt. Give me time to get used to whatever the fuck just happened to my world. You were a ghost.”
“So were you, you bastard.” She slapped me. Hard.
My cheek stung but my ego stung more as I pressed a hand to my cheek.
Olivia didn’t relent. She jabbed a finger in my face and growled at me like a rabid dog. “You fucked up my life and you expect me to bow down and play second-string fiddle to you just because we got tossed into this dicked-up situation together? Well, you can fuck off.”
Who the hell did she think she was to slap me like that?
I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help myself. I gripped the back of her neck with my free hand and pulled her in tightly before leaning down and pressing my lips tightly to hers. I had to know if she still tasted faintly of cinnamon and sex.
A groan left me as I tilted my head a little and pressed my tongue deep into her mouth. Everything inside of me melted and I felt like home was accessible though I’d not moved
an inch. She was my serenity, my peace, my heart.
Olivia collected her wits before I did. She stumbled out of my grasp and put space between us as she pressed a hand to her chest. Her eyes glistened with tears. “I’m going to Texas to take over this account, but hear me clearly.” She took a step back and wobbled. I reached out and grabbed her arm to have her pull it from me angrily. “I’m with Luke. He’s going to be my husband one day and be the father to our kids. Not you. That ship sailed before I knew what a good man looked like.”
“Do you love him? Like you loved me? Like you still do?”
“I don’t love you. It was a silly fling and we were kids. Grow up.”
“I don’t think so. I find it almost ironic that my brother happens to be dating the only girl I’ve ever loved.”
“That girl’s dead, Caden. You made sure of that.” She moved past me, brushing my shoulder and leaving me to drink in her words. She didn’t mean a damn one of them. Of that, I had no doubt.
We’d been too good together back then. Too solid.
There wasn’t anything anyone could ever say to make me doubt the love we’d had for each other.
Chapter 22
Olivia
The only girl he’d ever loved?
Pain radiated through my chest as I made my way back to the table and forced a professional facade into place. I sat down beside Luke and gave him a warm smile.
“Sorry about that.” I squeezed his hand and leaned over to kiss his cheek.
“It’s all right. You sure there isn’t something I should know? If Caden is upsetting or bothering you—”
“He’s not.” I touched the side of Luke’s face and leaned in for another kiss, this one on his lips. The memory of Caden’s body pressed to mine, his soft lips against mine as he forced his tongue into my mouth, left me wet and far more needy than I could remember being in years.
“I love your kisses. You taste so sweet.” Luke kissed me once more and moved back. He pulled out his phone as I settled back into my chair and tried not to look around for Caden.