by KB Winters
“Aha.”
I snapped upright and nearly tumbled backward as I scrambled to put some distance between us. Finn popped up to his feet and handed me my small white phone with a triumphant smile. “This the one?”
I nodded and took it from him, careful to avoid brushing my fingertips against his.
“Lyss, you okay?” He asked. “You look a little…flushed.”
I gave another dumb nod.
“You sure? You want another bottle of water?” He smiled. “One for the road?”
It hit me like a Mack truck. I wanted more than that. I wanted him. His touch, his lips on mine, his fingers lost in my hair. Feelings came rushing back from the depths of my heart, just as powerful as if they’d coursed through me the day before—not years ago. Then, whiplash fast, my heart ached. A subconscious reality check of the pain left behind when he walked away.
I backed up another step, bumping into the arm of the second chair, and mumbled my thanks. “I’m fine. Thanks for helping.”
I turned and hurried from the room as fast as my spiked heels could carry me.
Chapter Eleven
Alyssa
“Knock, knock.”
I turned to glance over my shoulder and Rafe wandered into my home office. The ride home had remained frosty and as soon as we were inside, he stalked off to the master closet to pack for his trip and I’d retreated to my office to catch up on work. I’d tried to get some emails done during the car ride home but I hated typing long messages on my phone. Besides that, my autocorrect and I were constantly at war with each other and I didn’t want to end up sending a message about the “dog good” instead of “dog food”. Sure, the recipient would get the point, but it wasn’t professional. I might spend most work days in jeans, Hunter rubber boots, and a Hearts & Paws t-shirt, but that didn’t mean I didn’t care about how I came across. I was still a CEO and wanted to be seen that way—even when covered in dog slobber and mud.
“Come in,” I said, my tone cool.
Rafe sauntered into the room. He was still wearing slacks and a button-up shirt from the morning but had ditched his tie and jacket somewhere in the middle of his packing. I’d avoided the closet while he worked and was also wearing my outfit from the morning, but had kicked off my heels and piled my hair up on top of my head in a messy topknot. I was also wearing my computer glasses with the yellow-tinted lenses.
Super sexy.
Rafe went to the corner by my bookshelf and dragged the grey armchair I kept there over to the opposite side of my desk. I closed my laptop. I took off my glasses and laid them on top of my computer. Rafe’s eyes searched mine for a long moment. What is he looking for?
I frowned and waved a hand at my closed laptop. “I’m kind of in the middle of some things here.”
Rafe sighed. “You are mad.”
Ding, ding, ding. Someone get the man a prize!
“I don’t want to argue with you, Rafe. Not tonight. I’m exhausted from the day. All I want is to get a cup of peppermint tea, change into my pajamas, and finish these emails.”
He looked down at the floor. “Are you happy, Alyssa?”
His question stunned me into silence for a moment. I stared at the crown of his head. His normally impeccable hair was a mess as though he’d been running his hands through it. Something he only did when he was agitated or anxious.
“What?” I finally whispered.
He lifted his chin. “Are you happy? Here, with me?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
Why now? Can’t you see my head is full to bursting already? Damn you, Rafe. This is supposed to be easy. You were supposed to be the safe choice and now, I am more lost and mixed up than ever before.
“You’ve been distant these past few weeks. At first, I thought you were stressed with work or something that would clear up, but now I’m wondering if there isn’t something more going on in that pretty little head of yours.”
I blew out a puff of air. “I am stressed about work. That part is true. But…” I stopped myself and let my eyes wander to the far corner of the room.
“But what?”
My eyes snapped back to Rafe’s. Might as well get it out now. “But, I’ve been wondering more and more what your expectations are. Going forward, I mean. I always thought you supported my business and were proud of me for all I’ve accomplished. But the other night, after the charity car thing, you said some things that made me think you see all that I’ve built as just a temporary thing. Something to keep me entertained until you’re ready for me to be more involved in your life.”
To his credit, Rafe sat silently considering me, as if mentally replaying the words inside his head. He laced his fingers together and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his thighs. “You’ve made some comments about wanting to get engaged. You want to have a wedding and settle down. Likely, children would follow that.”
“At some point, yes.”
I was by no means in a hurry. Hearts & Paws was my baby for now and I was more than okay with that.
Rafe nodded. “As you know, my own businesses require a lot of time and effort to keep running smoothly. You’ve always been so gracious about allowing me time and space. You’re not like my exes who nagged at me to spend more time at home or to take more vacations. You don’t even care if I leave the table to answer a phone call.”
Not true. I do mind. I just don’t call your ass out on it.
It would be a waste of my time to even try.
“I’ll admit, I’ve been hesitant to enter into the next phase of our relationship because I don’t want things to change. I’m satisfied with things as they are. You have your business. I have mine. We spend time together when we want to.”
“So, what was all that about me giving over control of my business? You said I needed to be more available to you for charity and business events.”
Rafe scoffed, almost to himself. “I was upset. You know how I get when you’re late.”
My mouth formed a hard line.
“I think you should turn over some of your management tasks, yes. That’s just good business. And yes, as a fringe benefit, you’d be more available to me. Weddings—at least the kind that is expected of us—take a lot of time and energy to plan. If you can’t be on time for a charity dinner, how will you find the time to plan a wedding?”
I shook my head. “You’re unbelievable.”
Rafe’s brows furrowed. He truly didn’t get it.
“You want me to have my own life, so I’m not around to nag and peck at you. And on the other hand, you want me at your beck and call. You want me to have some crazy superpower of being able to go from putting in a ten-hour day mucking out kennels, walking dogs, and cleaning up poop to being in an evening gown with coiffed hair so I match perfectly with all the other ladies at these lame-ass events you drag me to.”
I paused and took a deep breath before I continued. “And…and the stuck-up snobs who go to these things, wearing their thousand-dollar gowns and priceless vintage jewelry, don’t even care about the real things that matter! They might get their hands dirty!”
I threw my hands in the air and rolled back away from my desk. “That’s what’s wrong. Rafe.”
To my surprise, Rafe didn’t so much as blink. He was completely placid and stone-faced. “Are you finished?” he asked, his voice maddeningly calm as I sat on the verge of tears.
“No. Not even close!”
He sat back in his seat and folded his arms. “What do you want me to do about it? I can’t change what people spend their money on, or if they even care. You know that. I give money to charity work both here and abroad. I do my part.”
“Answer one question. Do you think anyone at those charity events even cares about the cause? I swear, half the time no one even knows what it’s for. It’s all a big social gathering where you network and hobnob and show off. That’s not what I want my life to be about.”
“You’re a business owner, Alyssa. Just like me. You
should understand that we all do things we don’t want to do in order to move on to the next thing.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand that, actually.”
“When you wanted to open an animal shelter, but the bank wouldn’t give you the loan based on your existing, online based work, what did you do?”
“I held a fundraiser…”
“Okay. And do you think everyone who came to that event cared about homeless dogs and kittens?”
“That’s different—”
Rafe smiled. “No, it isn’t.”
“I used the money for the business and the people who came did care about the shelter, or they wouldn’t have been there. On top of that, anything we had left over from the dinner was donated to the women’s shelter down the block from the future site of Hearts & Paws.”
“Oh, yes, Saint Alyssa,” he mocked.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “At least I give a shit, Rafe. At least I’m trying to make the world a better place.”
“What is it you’re really trying to say here? You’ve danced around it long enough. Spit it out.”
I drew in a sharp breath. “I’m saying that our values are too different.”
“We’ve always wanted different things, Alyssa.” He leaned forward, his smile turning dark. “Remember back in the beginning? You lived for nights like this. Debates like this one would get you all fired up and hot.”
I tightened at the memory. He was right. We’d go through the daily news and debate and argue and somehow always ended up in bed together, tangled in sweaty sheets, breathless and satisfied. Had it always been that way? Fueled by anger and pent-up frustration?
No, it couldn’t have been. There’d been good times too. When he went with me to my grandmother’s funeral and held me while I cried my eyes out. Or the time he’d walked out on a board meeting to race to the hospital after I’d been bitten by a rescue dog who was having the animal-equivalent of a PTSD flashback. He stayed at my side while I got seven stitches in the side of my hand.
I looked down and ran my thumb over the thin white scar.
A small voice reminded me of one other memory…
The one and only time he ever told me he loved me.
Tears burned in the backs of my eyes.
“Alyssa?”
I looked up, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from letting even a single tear slip loose.
“We’re different people. We see the world in very different ways. That is both one of our greatest strengths and weaknesses. You open my eyes to new ways of thinking of things and I’d like to think I’ve exposed you to a different side of the world as well. There’s nothing stopping us from moving forward and having a full, wonderful, and satisfying life together. One where we can both achieve everything we’ve ever wanted. But, we have to stop doing this. We have to stop spinning the tables on one another and attacking what we don’t understand.”
Despite my efforts, a single tear slid past my lashes and streamed down my cheek, quickly followed by a second.
Rafe stood up from his chair and came around the desk. “Come to bed with me.” He reached for my hands. “I miss falling asleep with you. We don’t have to have all of the answers tonight.”
Chapter Twelve
Finn
“You drew the short straw today, dog.”
I turned at Miles’s statement as he came into the garage. He’d been in his office most of the morning while I continued the battle with the Stingray. We were creeping toward the deadline and its owner had made it crystal clear that missing that date would be detrimental to business.
“What the hell are you talking about? If you’re even thinking about sending me on some damned coffee run, I’ll chuck this socket wrench at your head.”
Miles laughed off my idle threat. “No, although now that you mention it…”
I rolled my eyes and then shifted my attention back to the disassembled engine. “You’re gonna have to get your own Starbucks, there, Chief. I’m so deep in shit on this damn thing that I can’t even see straight.”
Miles leaned down beside me and analyzed the spread of pieces before me on the drop cloth. “This baby’s a real bitch, isn’t she?”
I frowned at the mess. “That’s an understatement.”
He clapped me on the shoulder. “Listen, you take a break, get your head together, and then I need you to call Rafe Wade.”
The name alone was enough to make my hands clench. “Why?”
Miles smirked at me. “Because you’re lead on the project?”
“Unwillingly.”
“And you’re getting the entire commission…”
“You suck. You know that, right?”
Miles had expertly dangled that carrot over my head a few hours after Rafe and Alyssa left the shop following their consultation. The commission was likely to be in the low- to mid-four-figures and Miles knew I needed the cash. On top of that, I think he simply liked watching me squirm. His wife, Penny, assured me it was a sign of affection.
I ground my teeth and then asked, “What do we need from the esteemed Mr. Wade?”
“I want to put in the order for the seats before the weekend because you know how Mark likes to fuck around. Anyway, I need to know what color his lovely fiancée wants to go with for the interior.”
Fiancée?
A single word. That was all it took to stop my heart. My thoughts scrambled into rewind and I tried to remember if she’d been wearing a ring the day they’d come in. No—she most definitely hadn’t been. I would have noticed.
I cut a glance at Miles. “fiancée?”
“Is she not?”
“Neither of them said that and she doesn’t wear a ring.”
Miles shrugged. “Either way…wait…why were you checking her for an engagement ring?”
“Fuck.”
Miles roared with laughter. “I knew it! You still have a thing for her after all this time.”
I shook my head. “I don’t have a thing for her. I looked out of habit. I know you’re all old and married, but those of us that still hit the bar scene know to look for wedding rings. Come on, Miles, word through the grapevine says you know exactly what I’m talking about. You were a special breed of player before Penny wrangled you down.”
A wide grin spread over his face and a glassy look filtered his dark eyes. I couldn’t tell if he was daydreaming about his time as a single guy, bagging a different woman every weekend, or if he was thinking about Penny wrangling him. Knowing Miles, it was likely the latter. He was a lovesick puppy when it came to her.
I pushed away from the Stingray and wiped off my hands. “I’ll call about the colors.”
Miles snapped back to attention and nodded. “Thanks, man.”
I started toward the office, already reciting what I would say.
“Finn?”
“Hmm?” I stopped and turned back.
Miles was leaning against the car. “Did you love her?”
The question picked at the wound on my heart and released a surge of deeply buried emotions. They were all familiar: heartbreak, gut-wrenching sadness, despair, and the most vicious of them all, regret.
I gave Miles a firm nod and then went to the office without another word.
With the door shut behind me, I threw myself into the rolling chair and leaned back as far as I could without tipping over. I raked both hands through my hair and stared up at the ceiling, wincing against the harsh fluorescent light. Did I love her? At least he hadn’t asked if I still loved her. That was a question I wasn’t willing to answer. Not even to myself. Though the pit in my stomach and ache in my chest whenever I thought about her—which was damn near constantly since that night three weeks ago—went a long way toward answering the question whether I asked it or not.
I’d run through every scenario in my mind. At first, I tried to convince myself that the whole thing grated on me because I didn’t like seeing her with someone else. But that was a piss poor reason and I knew it. It di
dn’t hold up for long. It wasn’t that she’d moved on. And it wasn’t even that I thought the guy was a total tool. No, that wasn’t it either. It was that three years of convincing myself that I’d made the right decision by ending things was quickly coming unglued, and I knew I didn’t possess the strength to rebuild it all.
She was going to wreck me.
I slammed my feet onto the ground and jerked upright. All the more reason to get her car done so I could get her out of my life. Hopefully this time for good. She lived in Atlanta, a good hour and a half from the shop. The odds of us running into one another again were slight. I needed to get her car done, collect my commission from moneybags and move on. Again.
With a few clicks, I located Rafe Wade’s contact information and dialed him up. I forced a smile onto my face and hoped it would be enough to keep me from coming across like a complete grizzly bear.
“Hello?”
Shit. I hadn’t anticipated Alyssa answering. My eyes tracked back to the computer screen and double checked it was the right number, the one Rafe had given. I’d assumed it was his cell, not their house line.
“Hello?” Alyssa repeated. “Is someone there?”
“Hello, Lyss, it’s Finn.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry, I was actually calling for Rafe. Is he available by chance?”
“No. He’s out of town—the country, actually. Is there something you need?”
I leaned against the desk and dug one hand into the roots of my hair. “Actually, it’s something you can help me with. Miles is ordering the interior seats today and needs to know what colors you decided on. Any idea? Did you see the swatches?”
Alyssa sighed. “To be honest, I don’t really care. Go with whatever you think looks best. I trust you.”
My eyes went wide.
“I mean, I trust your judgment,” she hurried to add. “With cars.”
A muffled curse followed and I smiled sadly into the phone.