by Vi Keeland
“Like I’d rather eat you for dinner than anything on the menu at this place?”
The hostess walked over to tell me our table was ready, curtailing whatever wicked response Layla had been about to dish out. That disappointed me.
I stood and held out my hand. “After you.”
She squinted. “Fine. But don’t look at my ass.”
Like there was a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening.
Once we were seated, Layla ordered wine, and I declined a second drink. Three years without alcohol made my tolerance low, and I wanted my mind to stay crystal clear while spending time with this woman.
I gazed across the table at her. She felt like a stranger in many ways now. Yet stranger or not, I felt more connected to her than anyone else in my life. A tether existed between us, and while she tried to sever it, I planned to keep pulling.
“So…your new partners seem nice,” she offered.
“Yes. Certainly better than the last one.” Knowing my alone time with her was limited, my mind only had one track: “So how long have you been seeing Pencil Neck?”
She furrowed her brow, so I clarified. Though I thought it perfectly clear to whom I was referring. “The attorney you work with. Doesn’t your firm have a policy against dating fellow employees?”
“You know his name is Oliver. And it’s none of your business how long I’ve been seeing him or what policies my firm has.”
The waitress brought Layla’s wine and took our dinner order. Watching Layla lift the glass to her lips and following her slender throat as she swallowed was an extraordinary sight.
She caught the look on my face and shifted in her seat.
“You’re right,” I said. “The less details I know, the better. So long as you aren’t fucking him.”
“I’ll sleep with whoever I want.”
“Have you slept with anyone since we started dating?”
She scoffed. “Dating? Is that what you’re calling my mandatory community service that forced me to work with you?”
“No. But that’s what I call the three hours we spent together each week before you ‘clocked in’ for your mandatory community service. And all day Saturdays that we spent together when you didn’t have to come anymore. And the long letters we exchanged every week. Of course it wasn’t ideal—I didn’t get to wine you and dine you or feel you up at the end of the evening—but I still considered it dating.”
“That makes one of us.”
I knew she was lying. She’d been right there with me. But it was easier to move on if she didn’t admit the truth.
“Tell me about your job. How are things for you now? When we stopped…” I smirked. “…dating, you were on shaky ground. I take it things worked out well since you’re still there?”
“I billed nearly three thousand hours last year—higher than any other associate by at least two hundred hours. I made it financially foolish for them to get rid of me.”
I did some quick math. “Three thousand hours is sixty hours a week of billing. Factor in lunch and commute, a couple of bathroom breaks, and you must’ve been working twelve hours a day, seven days a week.”
“I was. I’ve cut back to six days this year so I won’t get burned out.”
“At least that left you little time to date.”
She rolled her eyes before gulping the remainder of her wine. Finishing the glass seemed to relax her a little. Conversation became less adversarial.
“So, you’ve been out for what, two weeks now?”
“Fifteen days. I needed to get some things in order before I showed up at your firm. I was out of town for a week taking care of some stuff for my father.”
“I’m sorry again about your loss. That must’ve been hard on you.”
“My father and I had a strained relationship. But his last wishes were honorable. He had five wives but wanted to be buried with my mother.”
“She’d died when you were little, right?”
“Yes. Breast cancer at thirty-eight. She was buried out in California with her mother and sister, both of whom died before forty from the same thing.”
“Wow.”
“She was a florist—actually met my father when he came in to send his girlfriend flowers.” I shook my head. “Should’ve been a red flag right there for her.”
“So you had him buried beside your mom?”
“She’s probably gonna kick my ass for it someday, but yes. Made those arrangements while I was still locked up.”
Layla smiled.
“I was only nine when she died. But they’d been living apart for a few years already. Although she never did divorce him. She said he was the love of her life, and that when you found your one true love, you couldn’t replace them, because you’d given your heart away.”
“Wow. And I guess he felt the same way since he had four other wives, yet wanted to be buried with her?”
“Guess so. They couldn’t be together, but they never stopped loving each other.”
Our eyes locked, but Layla quickly looked away.
“So you went out to California to visit their resting place?” she asked.
“Yes. And plant a giant garden.”
Her forehead crinkled. “A garden?”
I laughed at the crap I’d spent my first full week as a free man doing. “When they first got married, she wanted a house in the suburbs. He wanted to be near his office and live in the penthouse he already owned. They agreed that they would stay in the city for a few years and then move to Westchester or Long Island. She had a huge plan for a garden in the backyard when that happened, with all her favorite flowers and trees. I remember her working on it all the time. It was on big, blueprint-size drafting paper, with all kinds of details. She worked on it once or twice a week for years, constantly adding things and redesigning it. After we moved out of my father’s penthouse, I never saw those plans again. She got sick pretty soon after they split.”
“So you planted a garden for her?”
“Not just any garden, her garden. My father’s attorney had those old blueprints with his will and legal papers. He’d kept her plans all these years and left directions to hire someone to plant the garden where they were buried.”
“That’s oddly romantic.”
“Took me a week to find all the stuff she wanted planted. My neck is still sunburned from digging that thing.”
“You planted it yourself?”
I nodded. “The plan was for me and my mother to make it together. We never had the chance. It was the least I could do. And as much as I despised my father for a lot of things, I hope my parents are reunited and enjoying the garden together.”
The waitress interrupted when she brought our dinner. After she left, Layla was looking at me funny.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “Just eat and don’t make me like any more of the things that come out of your mouth.”
I smirked. “I think you’d like the things I can do with my mouth even more.”
Chapter 8
* * *
Layla
I had been quiet since we arrived at the airport. While we waited in the lounge for boarding to begin, I busied myself on my laptop with emails. I could work twenty-four seven and never work myself out of things to do at my firm. But today, if I was being honest, my head stayed down with my nose buried in work because I didn’t want to talk to Gray.
Last night, we’d made plans to meet for breakfast before our flight. But after hours of staying awake, fixating on the man I’d gotten a glimpse of last night, feeling like I’d been lulled into seeing the man I’d gotten to know two years ago—a man who had crushed me—I needed to use my head and not my heart to put things into proper perspective.
Conveniently, I had a headache this morning and didn’t join him for breakfast. I didn’t need any more personal alone time with Gray. I’d just gotten my life back on the right track, and the last thing I wanted was to reopen old wounds.
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After hearing him out, though, I felt bad. I really did. But it had taken me almost a year to move on, and we hadn’t even been physical. The connection we’d shared was unlike anything I’d ever experienced, and his lie—technicality or not—coupled with his crazy past and the fact that he was now a client, was all just too much.
I didn’t have a good track record with picking the right guy. Neither did my mother. And I was determined not to become her—a woman who spent her life with a man who was never really hers—no matter how much I felt the temptation gnawing at me.
When our fight home reached cruising altitude, I took out my laptop in an attempt to ignore Gray. He gently reached over and closed it.
“It’s going to get expensive if I have to lock you up at thirty-five thousand feet every time I want to talk to you,” he said.
“Sorry. I’m catching up on some things I didn’t get to last night. Did you want to discuss your partnership agreement?”
He shook his head.
I took a deep breath and exhaled audibly. “Gray, you’re starting a new company. You have your life back. You should move on. I’m sure all you’d have to do is snap your fingers to get a date. Did you even notice the way the flight attendant was looking at you when she came over to give us the hot towels? She’s attractive. Why don’t you ask her out?”
He shot me an annoyed scowl. “Do you go out with all the decent-looking men who are interested in you?”
“No. But I am seeing someone.”
“He’s not right for you.”
“And you know this based on one dinner where you disrespected him, and he was forced to remain polite to you because of his job?”
“No. I know it because he’s not me.”
We embarked on a long stare-off. I got the feeling that nothing I’d said on this trip had deterred him in the least. “I’ve moved on, Gray. You need to accept that if we’re going to be working together.”
“And if you weren’t seeing the Pencil Dick?”
“I thought his name was Pencil Neck?”
“I followed him to the men’s room. Trust me, the thin neck is representative of the entire anatomy.”
“You’re such a jerk.”
“You’re not defending his honor to say I’m wrong. Which means only one of us has had the unfortunate experience of seeing his little dick, or you know it’s true and the subject is indefensible.”
“I think you’ve lost your mind. I’m not discussing another man’s genitals with you.”
“That’s good. Because I’d much rather we discuss mine.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Seriously, Gray. How about we don’t discuss anyone’s dick, and instead you tell me what else I can do for you, other than draft the partnership agreement?”
“You can’t ask me that question—what else I want you to do for me—and expect a legitimate answer.”
“I’ll watch my phrasing in the future.”
Gray’s playful face morphed into something more serious. “There’s actually one thing you can do for me.”
“What’s that?”
“Let’s start clean. No bringing up the past or anything.”
Totally not what I had expected he would say. “Okay. I think that’s a great idea. We’ve rehashed it and put it to bed. I think moving forward with a clean slate, if we’re going to be working together, is a good thing to do.” I tilted my head. “Although, I’m a bit surprised you would suggest that since you’ve spent most of the last twenty-four hours trying to make me remember what happened between us in the past.”
My left hand had been sitting on the armrest between our seats. Gray covered it with his and looked up into my eyes. “I just wanted to explain myself. Clarify the facts. But I’m willing to start from scratch to win you back.”
“Gray…”
“I’ll give you a little space now. I know you need it.” He caught my gaze. “But there won’t be any more lies or even omitted facts. That being said, we’re not over. We’re just getting started. Because what we had was real, and real doesn’t go away, no matter how much you want it to.”
Chapter 9
* * *
Layla
2 years earlier
“Tell me something about you that no one else knows.”
Gray scratched at the scruff on his chin. We’d been sitting at the library table for hours, supposedly prepping for the class I had to teach in an hour, which is how we’d been getting away with spending so much time together on Saturdays for the last eight weeks.
“I don’t eat watermelon,” he said.
I squinted. “How is that top secret?”
“It’s not. But no one knows the reason I don’t eat it.”
I leaned my elbows on the table. “Go on…”
Gray pointed to me in warning. “No laughing.”
“I’m not sure I can make that promise.”
He shook his head with an easy smile. “In nursery school, my teacher read us Jack and the Beanstalk. I guess that somehow led me to think giant things could grow from seeds, if planted in the right place. At home, we’d had this round watermelon sitting on the kitchen counter for a while, and one day my mom decided to cut it open. She said it was seedless, and I didn’t see any of the regular black seeds, so I dug in. On my third piece, I told my mom I liked the round watermelons better than the oval ones she usually bought because they were crunchier.”
“It was crunchy? Your watermelon was bad?”
“No, there were little white seeds inside that were soft, but the edges had a crunch to them, I unknowingly chewed up the seeds. My mom pulled them out of a piece and showed me. She said they were harmless. But I had it stuck in my head that a giant watermelon was going to grow in my stomach, and I’d wind up exploding. Every night I went to bed and pushed out my stomach to see if it was growing. And I was so sure it was going to happen, I thought I saw my stomach getting bigger.”
I covered my mouth and laughed. “Oh my God. And you stopped eating watermelon after that?”
He nodded. “Going on twenty-five years watermelon-free now.”
“That’s crazy.”
He pointed. “And there’s the reason no one knows why I don’t eat watermelon.”
I watched as Gray’s eyes roamed my face, flickering to my lips, then climbing their way back up to meet my eyes. “You have freckles on your nose,” he said. “But you try to cover them up.”
I raised my hand to my face. “Apparently I’m not doing a very good job.”
“I like them. They remind me you’re real. Sometimes after you leave, I start to wonder if I’ve imagined you.”
For some reason, that caused my heart to swell.
A guard interrupted by popping his head in for his occasional check. “Everything okay in here?”
I waved and nodded. “All good. Thanks, Marcus.”
“Be back in half an hour for the start of class.”
My face fell. The few hours alone with Gray each Saturday had become the highlight of my week. But they seemed to go faster and faster lately. By the time I’d relaxed enough to again convince myself I wasn’t crazy for starting to fall for a man who lived in a federal prison, it felt like it was time to begin class. I’d started to arrive three hours early every week, feigning the need to prep for the course with Gray. But the two of us really just sat across from each other and learned everything we could in the time we had. It was like a date—I spent extra time getting ready beforehand, felt the adrenaline rush when he walked into the room, and wanted to know more and more about him. The hardest part, though, was trying to ignore our physical connection. It was always present, and last week, we’d ventured into new territory when Gray described the kiss he wanted to give me. I never knew just talking about being physical could be so erotic.
“Your turn,” Gray said.
My mind had jumped the tracks. “For what?”
Gray’s eyes dropped to my lips, and the corner of his mouth twitched like he knew where I
’d gone in my head. “Your turn to tell me something no one else knows.”
When I didn’t immediately respond, I looked back up and found Gray’s hint of a smile had grown into a full-blown grin. I shook my head in an attempt to clear it.
“Ummm…” I thought of something not even my best friend knew about, but might be too crazy to share. “I have a yeahway notebook.”
His brows drew together. “A what?”
“A yeahway notebook. Well, actually, it’s more like seven yeahway notebooks now.”
“What exactly is a yeahway notebook?”
“It’s a list of things I analyze to decide yeahway or no way. Don’t knock the name. I started it when I was seven. I’d asked my dad if we could get a dog, and he said a dog needed a lot of exercise, had to be cleaned up after, and was expensive. I said they were good as watchdogs and would teach me responsibility. He laughed and told me it was a nice try, but the pros outweighed the cons. So that night, I took out a fresh notebook, opened to the first page, and drew a line down the middle. I wrote out all the pros and cons I could think of, and then took another shot at my dad. Of course I’d come up with twenty-five pros and only ten cons.”
Gray smiled. “The lawyer in you came out early, I see.”
“Yeah. My list didn’t change his mind, but my mom did, so we ended up getting the dog anyway. And I found I liked writing out the pros and cons of things. Sort of helped me organize my thoughts.”
“What other type of stuff do you make lists for?”
“Anything. Everything. Should I kiss Danny Zucker in eighth grade? Should I go away to college? Is it worth spending fourteen hundred dollars on a pair of leather boots.”
Gray’s eyes glinted. “Did you kiss Danny Zucker?”
I held up my left hand and started to tick off the pros. “He was popular. He had nice lips. He had experience kissing.” I held up my right hand and ticked off the cons. “His experience included swapping spit with…” I wrinkled up my nose. “Amanda Ardsley.” I ticked off more cons. “Everyone knew all the girls he’d kissed before, so people would probably know I did it, too. Germs. Braces.” I ticked up my last finger on my right hand and deadpanned. “Halitosis.”