Frustrated, he punched buttons on the remote, pausing on 50 First Dates. It looked like something Olivia would love. He watched for a few moments before he realized the cat had shut up, so he turned the volume to a more reasonable level and left it there.
And he wondered what he’d do with fifty chances.
Probably blow fifty-one of them.
Frustrated and very much not in the mood for a rom-com, he turned off the television and let the cat meow.
He was fucked.
Not even the appearance of his elderly neighbor, Mrs. Harmon, who had showed up, beating down his door and demanding the return of her “stolen” cat, had righted his world. He hadn’t said a word, because “her Mortimer” had simply stalked through the open doorway, nary a hello or good-bye in his vernacular. With the neighbor’s ranting and raving, Grady didn’t have the chance to ask where she’d been. He’d just let them go.
He’d let everything go.
Business as usual.
It was easier that way.
At least it should have been.
In the day since, he’d done little more than think of Olivia. He didn’t have any undying love to declare, but they had a connection that went well beyond physical. Considering they’d met over a shared desire for no-strings sex, the fact that he couldn’t seem to push her out of his mind didn’t sit well.
Maybe it was the part where she’d lost her job. He didn’t feel guilty—hell, he’d been doing his job—but she was too good to lose hers, much less leave the field entirely. He’d actually been impressed by her work. Doubly so knowing it had been unfinished, because he’d never had to try so hard to hack anything. If that was her half-assed, he was already in awe of what she could do.
And he couldn’t shake the need to tell her that.
But first, he did some recon—the part she couldn’t. He understood why she couldn’t track through her firm who had sent her program live, but her reasons didn’t apply to him. He took the time to do it for her, taking and printing screen grabs. Then he called a friend and shared snippets of Olivia’s program. Not enough for it to be duplicated, but with Grady’s recommendation, enough for the man—who was CEO of a small but explosive development firm—to practically salivate over the idea of hiring her. If she’d signed a non-compete agreement with Langdon & Walker, that might prove problematic, but he held in his hand a pretty powerful tool of negotiation.
That and a letter of recommendation that may or may not mean anything to her, but he hadn’t been kidding. Her work was brilliant. He’d noticed that right away, and now that he knew why the program had such gaping anomalies in it, he was more than comfortable writing a rec. He was no Langdon & Walker, but his word had clout, and his own connections in the field ran deep.
He genuinely wanted to help her, but more than that, she deserved a second chance. And the mother of all apologies from her former employer.
As if a simple commentary on her job performance had anything to do with why he needed to see her.
Showing up at her apartment when she’d never given him her address would be one of the creepiest things he’d ever done, but she loved romantic stuff. As far as he was concerned, most of those romance flicks would make good stalker-horror movies with a change in cast and lighting, but that did nothing to justify his showing up at her place.
It was not a plan, but he looked her up and did it anyway.
A mile later, he stood on a dirty sheet of ice that had melted and refrozen at least twice, wondering if falling and hearing his bones snap was worth this.
Deciding maybe it was.
He hit the buzzer.
“Yes?” came the reply.
He loved her voice, even slightly distorted by the intercom.
“It’s Grady.”
He waited but no reply. He hit the buzzer again.
“My neighbor has an ugly cat. We broke the—”
“I know who you are,” she said quickly. “No need to dredge up the past.”
Ouch. That had been quick. “There might be some value in dredging this.”
“Why?” she asked through the intercom. “Like you said, it doesn’t matter. Neither of us wanted more than a night. We got stuck. We improvised. No big deal.”
“What if it is a big deal?” he asked.
She didn’t reply. After a moment, the door opened, and she stood before him, all beautifully tousled and unbelievably sexy in an oversized sweater, jeans, and warm-looking boots. “It can’t be a big deal,” she said. “No matter how good it was, because you don’t want to be the romantic guy.”
“Actually, I’m here about your job.”
Not to get his breath stolen. He’d have to remember that. Somehow.
He tore his attention from her mouth and gestured with the folder. “You might want to see this.”
Her eyes widened. “What did you do?”
“Retrieved the truth. Because you couldn’t.”
She crossed her arms. Classic defiance, but when she spoke, she sounded wary. “Let me guess. Thad Foster.”
“Let me guess. Your ex.”
She stepped back. “It’s freezing out here. Come inside.”
He followed her, soon finding himself yet again next to her on a sofa. Her apartment was bright, sunny despite the lingering clouds. It fit her.
She fit him.
He tried not to think about that while she looked through the pages. Fitting didn’t matter. Not when he couldn’t be what she wanted.
When she got to the job offer from his buddy, she froze. “Grady, this letter is from Jacob Chandler.”
“I kind of realized that,” he said dryly.
“Do you have any idea who he is?” She stopped and shook her head. “Never mind. Of course you do. There’s not a soul in this business who doesn’t know who he is.”
“Plus, I brought you the job offer,” Grady reminded her.
She covered her mouth with one neatly manicured hand, the pink polish on her nails a perfect match to her lips. “Oh God. You did.”
“You didn’t hear this from me,” Grady said, “but if you decide to go back to Langdon & Walker, you just might incite a bidding war.”
“Who says they want me back?” she asked, dropping her hand to her lap. “And for that matter, who says I’d go?”
“I thought you might want to clear your name,” Grady said.
“I can’t take them this. The job offer is amazing, but if I don’t clear my name…wait.” She woke the computer that sat open on the coffee table in front of them and typed something so rapidly his head spun. The page opened to a dating site.
What the hell?
She pulled up a page. A suited frat-boy type stared back. “That’s Thad,” she said.
Grady wasn’t sure what he should have said, but hating the guy for having touched Olivia probably wasn’t on the list of proprieties. He hated him more, though, for what he’d done to her.
She didn’t seem to notice that he hadn’t replied. She’d picked up her phone and dialed, then hit the button for speaker.
“Who is this?” some guy answered. Probably Thad.
Olivia shot Grady a grin. “Deleted my number, did you?”
“Olivia? Sorry. I’m not interested in getting back together.”
“Actually, I wasn’t offering.”
“Then what do you want?” Suspicion touched his tone, not to be beaten out by superiority.
“I have proof you pushed my program live prematurely and put the entire company at risk with a hole in security that you could drive a truck through. Are you going to tell them, or am I?”
Thad laughed. “Whatever.”
She started typing, managing to log in to his account on the second try. “You’re so predictable.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m updating your Tinder profile here to note your tiny dick and overinflated ego.”
Thad swore, then clicking echoed over the line.
“Start somewhere else,”
she told him while her fingers clicked rapidly against the keyboard. “I’ve already updated your recovery email address and changed your password on this one.”
“Fuck you.”
“That’s not nice, Thad. Especially not because, as I said, I have proof. You can have your sorry dating life back if you cop to that little hat trick of yours to upper management.”
“I’ll lose my job,” he said, uncertainty finally edging into his tone.
“Well, that would suck,” she said, rolling her eyes at Grady. “Send an email to them and copy me. You have ten minutes, or I’ll keep going with your online profiles. I need something to do to occupy myself between now and Monday morning when I go in there to get this straightened out. I bet you’re on Match and eHarmony, too….”
“You won’t get your job back.”
“I don’t need it,” she said. “I have a written offer from Jacob Chandler.”
“You’re going to get me fired for nothing.” Thad’s voice dripped with disdain, and maybe a touch of defeat. Olivia’s triumphant smile seemed to confirm the latter.
“Actually, you got yourself fired. Ten minutes.” She ended the call and gave Grady a grin that hit him right in the chest. “I wouldn’t ordinarily name drop,” she said, “but he’s been dropping Jacob Chandler for a while now. Apparently Jacob has been trying to hire him on, but Thad wanted to stay with a big corporation.”
Grady managed to keep his jaw hinged, but he doubted he kept the surprise off his face. Adopting a neutral tone, he said, “For what it’s worth, Jacob didn’t talk like they knew each other at all. And I know for a fact that he isn’t impressed by Thad now.” When her eyes widened, he explained, “I may have dropped a name myself while I explained your termination.”
She leaned back, settling against the plush cushion. “So you actually know Jacob?”
“I do,” he admitted, “but that doesn’t color that offer one bit. That man is not going to surround himself with anything less than the top one percent.”
“I know,” she said. “I could so kiss you right now.”
She probably hadn’t intended those words to be personal. It was a pretty common phrase, after all, but they hung there.
A chance, if he’d grab it.
He didn’t.
He wanted to be that guy. More than he’d ever wanted to be anyone’s that guy. But he couldn’t, and he didn’t know how to go backward and stop wishing otherwise any more than he knew how to move forward, pretending he hadn’t fallen for her.
Pretending she wasn’t someone he could see himself one day loving.
He needed to shake it off.
“Grady?”
He realized he’d been staring at a picture that hung across from him. He recognized Olivia. He guessed by the resemblance that the other four people with her were her parents and sisters.
His gaze hitched to hers.
“Thank you. I’m pretty sure no one has ever believed in me the way you did today.”
“I do,” he said. Which made his throat feel thick, like he was on the verge of something.
Something he was too chickenshit to follow.
Because he couldn’t go there.
He tugged at his collar. Her apartment had heat, and about a thousand degrees too much of it. “Your, uh, work impressed me. It deserves recognition.”
“Oh.” She sounded small, and that single syllable faltered.
Before he could respond, the buzzer rang. Her face fell. “Crap.”
He watched while she stood and went to the door, but with his thoughts jumbled, he barely saw her. Instead, he fought for equilibrium he’d probably never regain.
Not with her.
Not without her.
When she opened to a man standing there with flowers and a fucking heart-shaped box of what had to be candy, his stomach dropped.
Grady desperately hoped that asshole was there for her roommate. The one he’d seen nothing of.
Because not nearly enough days had passed for Olivia to have moved on.
From what? This thing they didn’t have? The one he definitely didn’t want them to have?
“Um, Grady, this is Officer Montgomery.”
The officer, tall and blond and decked out in a suit and tie, closed the distance while Grady clumsily got to his feet. Inside, he was reeling.
Olivia’s date, blissfully unaware, reached to shake Grady’s hand. “David,” he said. “I caught her trying to sneak out during the storm.”
“You’re the police offer she mentioned?” Grady asked, too numb to return the introduction. This guy was from his time with her. Granted, Officer Montgomery was the one who’d sent her back in to Grady, but still.
“Yes,” Olivia said, her voice a bit shaky. “Thank you for what you did. About my job, I mean.”
Grady forced the tightness out of his chest. Or tried and failed. She’d given him an opening. One apparently with a thirty-second expiration.
He couldn’t do this. “Have a great time, Olivia. I hope it’s…great.”
If the friendly neighborhood cop thought his response odd, he didn’t show it. Instead he nodded, then took the spot by Olivia that Grady vacated once he got his feet to work. Grady caught the slightest glimpse of regret on Olivia’s face, but he didn’t stay to examine it.
She was moving on.
He wished he could.
If he didn’t, he’d break.
Hell, he was already broken, and he needed to see her, but he waited until late the next morning, figuring if she’d spent the night with Officer Friendly, she’d be home by then. Assuming she still wanted to avoid the morning after, but with his luck, she’d suddenly decided to embrace it.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of a single non-creepy thing to say. He settled for a text that read I hope your date was everything you wanted it to be. He stared at it a minute before adding, sort of.
That felt honest enough.
He hit send.
He didn’t expect a reply, but he got one a few minutes later. He did everything right, she said. Completely by the book.
His fingertips hovered over the screen. Sounds like there’s potential for a fairytale ending.
He tried to kiss me, she wrote. He’s not you.
What was that supposed to mean? He needed a translator. I guess it was your lucky day after all, he wrote. And meant it. This guy showed up with flowers and candy, while all Grady had managed was to scrape snow off the fire escape for her.
She deserved more.
A few minutes passed before she replied. I guess. Thanks again for everything.
You, too, he wrote. Then he proceeded to read the conversation about a thousand times.
He’s not you. That part caught him, again and again.
Maybe that hadn’t been a good thing. Had he missed an opening? He tried to tell himself it didn’t matter, but it did. She did.
The next day, because he was feeling masochistic, he rented and watched a half dozen schmucky romance movies—stupidly, because that was the exact opposite of forgetting about her—while Hell Cat sat next to him, placidly staring at the television. Maybe the old woman next door didn’t watch TV. That explanation made him feel better than thinking Mortimer had actually taken Olivia’s side in this thing.
But the real question was, why hadn’t Grady? The question haunted him, and by the time the credits started rolling on While You Were Sleeping, he was standing in front of her apartment again, rose in hand, an entire evening planned if she said yes. To what, he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t offering her forever, but he wanted more than another night.
Much more.
To his surprise, the door opened seconds after he rang her buzzer.
An unfamiliar woman stood in front of him. “You’re Grady, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Is Olivia here?” He peered past her to see a huge, top-heavy bouquet of roses on the counter. His heart sank. “Are those yours?”
The woman sighed. “No. They’re hers. From the nice
officer who took her out.” She paused, probably watching his face fall. “Are you okay?”
Either this woman was some kind of psychic, or he really had turned as green as he felt. “He brought her flowers twice? For one date?”
She nodded. “These were delivered. Though I guess that’s still a yes.”
His heart dropped. “Then it’s serious between them?” It was a stupid question, but she’d known the officer almost as long as she had Grady, and damned if he didn’t feel what serious was.
“I’d say that’s a tall order for a first date, but apparently it’s a thing with her.”
“So they are serious?”
“Not him, genius. You.” She tugged back her long blonde hair, gathering it in a ponytail she held briefly with her hand, then released. “If she wasn’t crazy about you, I wouldn’t say this. Actually I probably shouldn’t anyway, because she’s been driving me insane talking about you, and while I gather you did some evil, terrible thing, apparently it wasn’t anything amazing sex couldn’t overcome. Anyway, there’s absolutely nothing between her and this guy, which is somehow your fault.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“There’s no chemistry. She said the sparks when he tried to kiss her were non-existent. Apparently there was something going on between the two of you that three dozen roses cannot overcome.”
“She said amazing sex?” The words had snagged him and still held on.
“I don’t get it either,” the woman said. “But I know things about you that would make us both blush. Anyway, save your spiel. She’s gone.”
“Gone?” The word sank in slowly, as though it was in some undecipherable foreign language. One he clearly didn’t speak.
“Apparently the city has a little too much ex-job, ex-boyfriend, and ex-one-nighter in it for her. She bought a one-way ticket to, and I quote, somewhere warm.”
“She’s gone?” Yep, still working on that translation.
The woman gave him a somewhat friendly smile. “Not for seven hours. She has a red-eye. She booked a spa package—”
He opened his mouth, but the woman held up a hand. “Interrupting a woman’s pampering time is no way to seek forgiveness for whatever you’ve done. Trust me. Besides, she’s not going to stay gone forever. Her stuff is still here, and she didn’t tell me to find someone else to split the rent with, so odds are good she’ll be back. But I happen to know she has enough money in savings that she can stay gone for quite a while if she wants to, although she did say something about a possible new job…? Anyway, can I leave her a note or something?”
One Sexy Mistake (Chase Brothers) Page 8