by Liz Meldon
“I don’t know what’s happening with him, and honestly, I hate feeling like this,” Skye told him, gripping his arm gently before pulling away. Finn yearned to follow, but he held firm as she carried on. “But I don’t want to call it quits on us either. I… I can’t imagine not waking up to a message from you, and I’m so sorry for that. Really. I’m sorry for all of this. It’s all my fault.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks. With a hand half covering her face, she tried to excuse herself, but Finn reached out for her, the brush of his fingers along her back stopping her.
“Hey, hey, it’s all right,” he murmured. “Shit happens, Skye. That’s life. I’m not…angry with you, if that helps.”
He always felt so helpless when women cried, because all it took was one wrong word, a slip of the tongue, for everything to go from bad to worse. If they weren’t in the car, he would have wrapped her in a hug and not let go until the tears stopped. Given their current situation, however, that didn’t seem possible, so he made do with what he could. Finn rubbed a hand up and down Skye’s back, stopping it at the nape of her neck.
“Hey,” he whispered, catching her chin and steering her back to him. “It’s not the end of the world.”
“Sometimes it feels that way,” she told him, tears flecked with mascara streaking down her face. Finn smiled and brushed the damp trails away with his thumb.
“I know. Love has a habit of doing that to you, the merciless bitch.”
Skye laughed, a real one this time, and set her hand on his knee. “Thank you.”
“Anytime.” He caught the way her eyelashes fluttered, wet and sticking together, when she looked from his eyes to his lips, lingering there. Finn knew he ought to dissuade her, to say something else to make her laugh, to break the tension—but he didn’t. He waited. He stroked the back of her neck and leaned just a breath closer, if only to catch a hint of her natural scent again.
That was all it took. Eyes fluttering closed, Skye closed the gap between them, pressing her lips to his. There it was again—that feeling. He’d had it the first time he saw her, standing there covered in wine and cursing up a storm. Affection. A warming in his gut, a tightening in his chest.
Before he could deepen the kiss as he wanted, eager to explore every inch of her, she pulled back.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her eyes wide. “I shouldn’t have done that. I…”
“Yes,” he cupped her face and dragged it back to his, “you should have.”
Finn cherished the little gasp that escaped her before he reclaimed her mouth. Her hands wandered along the length of his forearms, the tender caress of her fingertips igniting a fire within that he knew would be damn near impossible to extinguish. So, Finn savored her while he had the chance. The taste of her tongue—she’d recently enjoyed a mojito—as he stroked it with his own, the kiss deep and desperate and verging on unhinged. The feel of her in his arms again, her body quivering at the touch of his hands, exploring at will, determined to commit every dip and curve to memory—until she started to pull away, a groan caught in her throat.
Finn knew he could have held her tighter, dragged her across the seats, albeit a bit awkwardly, and planted her squarely in his lap. She’d feel his hardness against her, and perhaps it would encourage her…
He sighed softly and opted for restraint instead. Tonight wasn’t the night for that. Not when she was drunk. And had been crying about all this. He couldn’t do that to her in good conscience. Besides, Finn wanted her to remember and savor every perfect moment of it too. If their previous fucking suggested anything, it was that Skye Summers was just as eager as him to indulge her sexual appetite.
She withdrew gasping, as though breaching the water’s surface after the tsunami struck, cheeks flushed, her eyes wild with desire. Finn recognized that look. He’d seen it before, staring back at him in the mirror when he’d worshipped her lovely body for the first time. Only tonight, he knew the look wouldn’t last.
“I should…” Skye tucked loose red strays behind her ear. “I should go.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that.” He stole one last nibble of her supple lips before easing back in his seat. “I mean it.”
With a nod and a little half smile, she climbed out of the car and scurried back to her building. He watched her go in the mirror, and once she was inside, Finn slumped forward and sighed.
It was time to get this sorted, and he knew precisely where to start. Unlike a certain someone, Finn had no problems putting his feelings on the table. Taking his phone out of his jacket pocket, he tapped around until he reached Cole’s profile, then pressed the call button.
Cole answered on the second ring.
“Lunch,” Finn ordered before his friend could get a word in beyond hello, “tomorrow. Put your work aside for a half hour, you tit. There’s something we need to talk about…urgently.”
5
A Gentlemen’s Agreement
Finn tapped a finger twice on the brim of his glass, eyes narrowed at Cole as he wove through the patio seating, a hostess at his heels. When his friend was finally within hearing distance, Finn nodded to the seat across from him.
“Sorry I’m late—”
“Sit,” Finn ordered. “Now. And turn your phones off, for goodness sake.”
The hostess batted her fake lashes as she looked between them, then set a menu down in front of Cole and scuttled off. Pleased that his friend was merely fifteen minutes late rather than the standard half hour, Finn took a quick sip of his rum and coke, ice rattling against the glass, and then uncrossed his long legs and straightened. He had specified this particular table to his assistant when she made the reservation, knowing it was the farthest from the kitchen and closest to the water. A white wood fence enclosed the outdoor dining area, and, given the time of day, post-lunch-rush, it was about half full of quietly chatting patrons. The Pacific crashed against the shore some ten feet away, a soothing accompaniment to what was bound to be an awkward conversation.
“I feel like I’m being scolded,” Cole remarked, grinning ever so slightly as he shut off both of his phones and set each on the table between them as proof. When Finn didn’t reply, his eyebrows shot up. “Am I being scolded?”
“Possibly.” Finn shook his head when Cole started to open the menu booklet. “I’ve already ordered for us.”
“Typical.” Cole let the weighted cover drop shut. “So, what have I done now? I haven’t had one of these little talks in years.”
“Perhaps I let it go on for too long, then.”
“Finn.” Cole cocked his head to the side. “Fuck off.”
They smirked at each other when the waitress arrived, setting a water down in front of each and rattling off the specials for Cole’s benefit on the off chance that he would change his mind. But Finn knew him better than that. Cole had fish and chips every time they dined at The Crest, Coral Bay’s exclusive harborside yacht club. Every bloody time. Fish and chips, like he was a caricature of English stereotypes. Finn had opted for an eel roll and a seaweed salad positively laden with sashimi.
The white linens strewn over the table fluttered in the seaside breeze, and Finn watched his friend take a quick sip of water after the waitress disappeared. No alcohol. Never. Caffeine? Always. Perhaps Finn should have ordered him a coffee too, judging by the bags under his eyes.
“We need to talk about Skye Summers,” Finn stated, noting the way Cole instantly stiffened, his grip tightening around the bulbous water glass in hand. “Is she the woman you’ve been…” Lips pursed, Finn refused to use the appropriate terminology—because it made him nauseous to even think it. “…financially supporting for the last few years?”
Cole swallowed hard before setting the glass back on the table. Carefully. Precisely. Cautiously. Three adjectives that had always suited him best.
“Did she tell you?”
Finn fiddled with the silverware, knowing someone would be around shortly to replace his f
ork with chopsticks. “In a way. I guessed the moment I saw you two together at my soiree the other night.”
Cole’s expression turned incredulous. “Soiree? Really?”
“Orgy,” Finn clarified, grinning at the plum-colored blush blossoming across his friend’s face, “is that better?”
Jaw clenched, Cole turned his attention outward, his gaze on the ocean. “Sure.”
“She’s rather smitten with you,” Finn told him, as if he didn’t already know. How could he not? “However, I think, recently, she’s become just a little smitten with me.”
“Is that why you called me here? To stake your claim?”
“Hardly. I appreciate that you think so little of me.”
Their eyes met and held for a moment before Cole let out a long, tired sigh, his shoulders slumping. “Sorry. I know you wouldn’t…but…”
“But,” Finn chose his words carefully, “we appear to have found ourselves in a situation, one that seems to have left Miss Summers a bit flustered herself. I thought it best we discuss it before anything happens.”
“Have you two…?”
“I think you already know the answer to that.” Finn spied their waitress approaching, food in hand. “Just as I know that you two have recently…furthered your relationship.”
“And here we have the fish and chips,” the waitress trilled. She set the plate down in front of Cole, who looked as though he’d just smelled something ghastly, before expertly maneuvering Finn’s rather large plate into the small space before him. “Is there anything else I can get you?”
“We’re fine,” Finn told her with a quick smile. “Thank you.”
The silence that followed was one of a handful of awkward pauses he had ever experienced with Cole. He had hoped to be frank and matter-of-fact about all this. After all, they were two logical, reasonable men. This was an issue that affected them both, and if they didn’t sort it out now, their future with Skye was in jeopardy. However, Finn hadn’t factored in that matters of the heart were not logical or reasonable. If he played his cards poorly, he might end up losing both Cole and Skye—which would be a devastating loss indeed.
“Do you love her?” he asked, watching Cole pick up a fry, then set it back down, then pick it up again. At no point during that little dance did the damn thing end up anywhere near his mouth.
“I don’t have time to love her.” Cole grabbed the ketchup bottle and shook it over his plate. When nothing came out, he smacked the bottom. When that yielded no results, he set it back down on the table, slamming it harder than necessary.
“That isn’t a no,” Finn told him. In the following silence, he unwrapped his chopsticks and started eating. Cole had always been a man who was quick and decisive in business. Tech was his game and had been long before the rest of the industry caught up. Where he faltered, however, was just about every other category of his life. He forgot birthdays, and, on the off chance that he did remember, he always chose an inappropriate gift. He was infamously terrible at punctuality and struck many in their social circles as awkward. He couldn’t flirt worth a damn—and Finn had tried to teach him many times over; Skye was something special if she managed to bring out the charming side of him. Other women Finn had attempted to set him up with the past hadn’t been quite so fortunate.
Finn had been able to look past all of that years ago, spying a socially inept diamond that just needed a polishing. His friend had certainly changed over the last decade, all for the better, but his near-absolute dedication to his job, to his company, and to the thousands and thousands of people he employed had not.
Yet to Finn, it was clear that Cole’s inability to separate, to step away from the job, hindered him. It was also obvious that when it came to Skye Summers, it pained him, too.
“You know I would never do anything to ruin our friendship,” Finn said softly as Cole added a liberal amount of salt to his beer-battered cod. A head bob told him the man acknowledged, understood, and agreed. Finn knew him that well. “So, let’s sort this out, then. If you could be with her, would you?”
“I don’t entertain the thought because I can’t,” Cole said hoarsely, stabbing his fork into his lunch with thinly veiled anger. “My work is my life, and sometimes that makes it difficult, but you know I could never step back and sign everything away to a board of trustees.”
“Even if you chose them yourself?”
“I want to make sure my people are taken care of,” Cole muttered. “At every level, down to the person sweeping the floors at our factories. How can I promise them they’ll be looked after if I’m not steering the ship?” He dunked his fish in tartar sauce. “Skye… Sometimes I wish I didn’t care.”
“About her?”
“About the job,” he stated, frowning. “I wish I could just walk away. I wish I could pull myself out. I’m not in it for the money. I could sign on the dotted line now and never have to work a day in my life again. I wish… I’d give anything to be that man, but I’m not.”
Finn wouldn’t have admired, respected, or enjoyed Cole as much as he did if he were that man.
Halfway through his eel rolls already, Finn set the chopsticks down. “Cole… If you could be with her, would you?”
“Yes,” Cole whispered, then cleared his throat, his voice louder—and his hand flexing in and out of a fist, signaling a spike in stress, “but I’ve fucked it all up. I’ve been a complete twat, and she’s going to cut and run.”
Straight to you. Cole didn’t utter the sentiment aloud, but Finn could read it plain as day in his eyes. He exhaled softly and took another sip of his drink. At that point, one of the ice cubes had melted completely. Not that he minded. It was barely noon, for goodness sake. No need to delve into the hard stuff—although, thinking of where he intended to steer this conversation now that he had the facts, perhaps he could have used something stronger.
“What if we could offer her a solution that would be suitable for both of us?” he asked, snatching up a gorgeous piece of raw octopus from his salad. By the time he’d popped it in his mouth and savored it, Cole appeared to have recovered from his funk.
“Such as?”
“Polyamory.”
“For fuck’s sake, Finn.”
“No, no, listen”—he held up a hand to stifle Cole’s indignation—“because clearly she’s upset over this. I think it has a little to do with your, well, ridiculous inability to express yourself, but also because she’s realized she has feelings for both of us—”
“Because you know her so well, right?” Cole pushed some fries around, though Finn wasn’t sure he had seen the man take a single bite of his meal yet.
“Who, out of the two of us, has actually spoken with her in the last twenty-four hours? Hell, the last week?” Finn raised his eyebrows, waiting for a response—and ignoring the fact that Skye hadn’t responded to his usual good morning text message yet. “Hmm?”
Cole pursed his lips for a moment. “Fair enough.”
“What if,” he steeled himself, fully aware that this was a long shot, “we present her with the opportunity to date both of us? Exclusively.” Cole’s expression turned skeptical, as expected, but Finn carried on, finally releasing what he’d been mulling over since last night. “You can continue to work knowing that Skye’s emotional needs are met by someone, someone who has a shared understanding of the expectations of the relationship. She can get over this fear that falling for two people is some sort of mortal sin.”
Finn had always had an open mind to the full spectrum of sexual proclivities that the world had to offer. Sex parties. Bi-curiosity. Multiple partners. The rest of his family had been appalled when he shared his philosophy of healthy sexuality with them back in his twenties, and he hadn’t broached the subject since. Besides, it wasn’t that he frequently found himself in open relationships where he or his partner dated other people. In fact, all of his past relationships had been unfulfilling and painfully ordinary. He was just open to the possibility of more than what societ
y dictated. He’d never wanted to attempt such a complex affair with anyone either—until Skye and Cole. Finn wanted to be with Skye. Cole was one of his best friends. Finn was seldom the jealous type, and Cole had never struck him as such either. The likelihood for success here was high if everyone gave it a fighting chance.
“This way, I don’t have to sever ties with either of you. For Christ’s sake, Cole, I can fly her out to wherever you are in the world when you’re missing each other.” He paused to catch his breath, then offered what he suspected Cole truly desired out of all this. “And you two can finally eliminate this ridiculous contract and just be with each other without you worrying you’re going to lose your business… or her.”
“That…” Cole licked his lips, and Finn stilled, noting that he looked like he was considering it. However, a quick headshake and scoff dashed all his hopes in an instant. “That sounds positively mad. Absolutely insane.”
“Does it? We’ve shared before.”
“Skye isn’t a one-night fuckfest in Istanbul, Finn,” Cole said pointedly. “Sharing a girl for a night is, is… easy. What you’re talking about is sharing an entire relationship.”
“Obviously we’ll need to figure a few things out,” Finn argued, “with Skye’s input, of course.”
“Why would you even want this?” Cole sat back in his chair, appraising Finn with the same calculating gleam in his eye that he used on rivals in the boardroom. “Why not just let her and me crash and burn, then swoop in and get the girl all to yourself?”
Finn frowned. “What in the history of our friendship suggests that I would want that for either of us?”
“Perhaps I’m just failing to see what you get out of this proposed ménage à trois. I know you’ve slept with her, but what other interactions have you had? Why the sudden interest?”
Finn shook his head, smiling. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
He had asked Skye if she believed in love at first sight the first time he showed up at her apartment with edible roses. Naturally, both had laughed the absurd notion off—but, when Finn had thought about it after seeing her last night, love at first sight was the only thing that made sense.