by Julie James
Cade seemed amused by her question.
Of course he did.
“Yes, I have a guy,” he said teasingly. “You’re in the eighteenth district—you want to talk to Sergeant Joe Ross.”
Brooke quickly jotted this down on a piece of paper. Secretly, she was in awe of the fact that Cade had come up with a name so easily, but given the already-quite-healthy size of his ego, she’d rather go jogging naked through Millennium Park in her red high heels before admitting that.
“I’ll give him a heads-up that you’ll be calling,” he continued. “I don’t know where the GM works, but if your goal is to handle this quietly, I wouldn’t do the arrest at the restaurant. Your best bet would be to bring him to Sterling’s corporate office. Sergeant Ross will be in plain clothes—if it’s a voluntary surrender, and it sounds like it is, he can escort the guy out without handcuffs and put him in an unmarked car. Doesn’t get much quieter than that.”
No, it didn’t. “This is very helpful,” she said in all sincerity. “Thank you.”
“Have I impressed you again, Ms. Parker?” he asked coyly.
She smiled for the first time that day. “Maybe. Then again, it has been a really strange afternoon.” She exhaled raggedly, thinking about the not-so-fun task ahead.
“You sound tired,” Cade said, his voice deepening. “Long day?”
The words slipped out of Brooke’s mouth before she thought about them.
“Long year.”
* * *
EARLY THAT EVENING, Brooke stared out her window, looking at the people below as they shopped, met friends for drinks, or headed off to dinner reservations. And then there were the couples, leisurely walking hand in hand, who seemed to be simply enjoying the Michigan Avenue scene with no particular plans at all.
She wondered what it felt like to be one of those people.
“I see that you’re still leaving the front door unlocked when you’re alone.”
Brooke started, hearing the voice. She turned around and saw Cade standing in her office doorway, looking as handsome as ever in another one of his tailored suits. His dark brown hair was a little mussed, presumably from being outside, and her first thought was that she wanted to sink her fingers into it and get him mussed even more.
She cleared her throat.
“I see you’re still sneaking up on people when they’re working,” she said. “And for the record, I’m not alone. Ian’s here, too.”
Appearing somewhat appeased by this, Cade stepped into her office and shut the door behind him. “I thought I’d see how things went with the arrest. Did everything go okay with Sergeant Ross?”
“Sergeant Ross was very professional and discreet. Thank you again, for that.”
“Why the need for discretion?” Cade asked curiously. He sat on the edge of her desk. “I would’ve thought you would relish the idea of publicly setting an example of someone who stole from the company.”
Normally, yes. “I heard the guy was sobbing. I’ve hung out with his wife a few times . . . I guess I just wanted to do something.” She leaned her head against the chair. “I don’t know how you hear these stories every day, Morgan. Clearly, I would make a terrible prosecutor.”
“Probably.” He reached out and ran his thumb along her cheek. “But I like your soft spot, anyway.”
Their eyes met and held until Cade spoke. “You look burned-out. Maybe you should call it a night.”
She looked at the clock, and then stared at him in bewilderment. “At six thirty?”
“At six thirty.”
He held out his hand.
“It’s not even dark out,” she said. “I can’t leave now, especially after the day we’ve had. It would be unseemly.”
Cade’s mouth curved at the edges, but he still said nothing.
She bit her lip, contemplating. “Can I at least bring work home for later?”
“Nope.”
“You expect me to leave my briefcase behind?” Impossible.
“Yep.”
Maybe she was out of sorts after having a rough day. Or maybe it was his matter-of-fact tone. But suddenly . . . going home sounded really appealing. “Okay.”
With that, she slid her hand into his, grabbed her purse, and left.
She made it all the way to the reception area before panic set in.
“I forgot to shut down my computer,” she remembered.
“It’ll be fine in sleep mode for one night.”
“I think I saw something in my mail inbox on the way out. It could be important.”
“It was just the new ABA Journal.”
Brooke exhaled as they stepped into the elevator. “Right. So, what’s the plan for tonight?”
“You’re going to relax and do nothing.”
She laughed, then saw that Cade was serious. “Oh . . . see, I don’t do ‘nothing’ so well.”
“You’re a smart woman. You’ll figure it out.”
She looked at him for a long moment. “Why are you doing this?”
“Why did you make me take the ibuprofen the other night?” he asked.
Still, with the ibuprofen? “Because you needed it. You were just too stubborn to admit that.”
With a satisfied smile, Cade held her gaze.
“Exactly.”
* * *
BROOKE STARED SKEPTICALLY at the rising water.
She was not a bath kind of girl, hadn’t been a bath kind of girl since she was, oh, about seven. Baths were so . . . idle.
And, apparently, they were also part of Cade’s “evening of nothing” plan.
She was not on board with this.
There was a knock at the door, then Cade stuck his head inside and saw her standing there in her bathrobe. “Oh. See, you’re supposed to get in the tub.”
Ha, ha. “Can I at least bring my phone in with me?”
“No. But you can have this.” He handed her a glass of wine.
“How long do you expect me to stay in there?” she asked.
Cade shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe twenty minutes? Now stop stalling and get in.” He smacked her rear on his way out the door.
Stop stalling and get in, Brooke mimicked to herself as she slipped off the robe and climbed into the tub. Pushy, bossy man, expecting everyone to just fall in line with whatever he—
Oh my God, the water felt good.
She set her wineglass on the edge of the tub, sinking in deeper. Okay, fine. She supposed maybe she could survive twenty minutes of this.
She leaned back and rested her head against the basin. The hot water wrapped around her like a cocoon, relaxing her muscles as steam filled the air in the tranquil, quiet room.
So this was what it felt like to do nothing.
Brooke reached out with one hand and took a sip of wine. Then she set the glass back down and closed her eyes.
Maybe thirty minutes.
* * *
BROOKE BLINKED AWAKE, realizing that she’d dozed off in the bathtub. An actual nap. Something else she probably hadn’t done since she was seven.
She was definitely off her game tonight.
She climbed out of the tub, and had just wrapped a towel around herself when she remembered—uh-oh—Cade. She’d left him . . . come to think of it, she had no clue where he was right now. She hurried into her bedroom and threw on a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt. She spotted her clock on the nightstand and saw that she’d been in the tub for forty-five minutes.
Oops.
She walked down the hallway, expecting to find one of two things: either he’d be annoyed that she’d disappeared for nearly an hour, or he’d smile smugly, thinking he’d been proven right in his assertion that she’d needed to relax tonight.
But when she rounded the corner into the kitchen, she discovered something else entirely.
Cade stood at the sink, pouring a pot of boiling noodles into a strainer, while a second pot with some kind of sauce simmered on the stove.
The man was making her dinner.
Things were getting a little too close for comfort with Cade Morgan.
Twenty-five
BROOKE KNOCKED ON the front door of Ford’s loft, needing to talk to her best friend, the one person in the world who could help her work through her messed-up feelings.
Instead, she got Charlie.
“Brooke! You’re here!” he said excitedly, pushing the door open. His eyes skimmed over the skirt, blouse, and heeled sandals she’d worn into the office. “A little dressy for a barbeque, but we’ll take it.”
Brooke cocked her head in confusion. “Barbeque?” Then she remembered—oh, shit—the barbeque. Ford had sent her an e-mail about it two weeks ago, and she’d meant to respond, but then she’d gotten sucked into a project at work and the e-mail now was undoubtedly languishing at the bottom of her inbox.
“Right, the barbeque,” she said, playing it off with a casual wave of her hand. “Ignore the work clothes, I didn’t want to waste time changing after leaving work.” Brooke stepped inside. “Wow. Full house.”
She took a look around and saw people everywhere—all of them dressed casually. Feeling a little self-conscious in her business attire, Brooke followed Charlie into the kitchen. The counter was covered with hamburger fixings, pasta and potato salads, coleslaw, chips, and fruit.
Ah, yes, of course—she should’ve brought something to eat or drink. To the barbeque she hadn’t even remembered.
She was the worst best friend ever.
“Brooke?”
She turned around and saw a woman with a sleek ebony bob smiling at her. “Oh my gosh, Rachel—hi!”
Rachel hugged her excitedly. “It’s so good to see you!” She pulled back. “It’s been, what, probably about three months, right?”
“Has it been that long?” Brooke tried to think when the last time was that they’d seen each other. Rachel was married to one of Ford’s friends, and the two of them had independently become friends as well. “I guess since the last book club meeting I went to. When was that?”
“Hmm. What was the book?”
Brooke had to think. “The one about the woman who lost her memory every night when she went to sleep.”
Rachel pointed. “Yes. Ooh, that was a good one. And, sweetie, that was five months ago.” She laughed. “I remember now—you hadn’t finished the book yet, and you kept covering your ears when we talked about the ending. That’s not why you stopped coming, I hope?”
Brooke smiled. “No, I just had a hard time making the seven o’clock meetings, and I wasn’t ever able to finish the books . . .” she trailed off, still surprised by something. “Has it really been five months?” She’d always enjoyed hanging out with Rachel. Actually, she’d enjoyed hanging out with all the book club girls, but the meetings had always seemed to come at a bad time with work.
“Ford keeps us up-to-date on all the great things you have going on at Sterling,” Rachel said. “Any new deals on the horizon?”
“I’ve got a couple of feelers out with a few—” Brooke stopped herself, making a spur-of-the-moment decision. “No. Let’s talk about something else. Anything else. For the rest of the evening, I don’t want to even hear the name ‘Sterling Restaurants.’”
“Okay, who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”
Brooke looked to her right and saw Ford approaching her, with his big, familiar grin.
“I can’t believe you actually made—oof.” He was cut off as she half-tackled him in a hug.
She squeezed him tightly, oddly feeling as though it had been ages since they’d gotten together even though they’d just met for lunch last week.
“What was that for?” he asked with a chuckle, when she finally pulled back.
“Just glad to see to you,” she told him.
Charlie and Tucker walked by right then, and noticed Brooke and Ford standing with their arms around each other. Charlie nodded slyly at Tucker, who opened his mouth to comment—
“Still not happening,” Brooke and Ford said in unison.
* * *
AFTER THE LAST of the stragglers had left, heading either home or to the bars depending on marital status, Brooke picked up Ford’s place. He’d gotten a call from his mother, and since Brooke knew how those calls could go, she figured she might as well do something productive to kill time.
Ford came out of his room just as she was wrapping up the rest of the potato salad. “You didn’t have to clean all that up.”
“I don’t mind.” Actually, it eased some of the guilt she felt about forgetting about the party. “How’s your mom?”
Ford sat down at one of the bar stools in front of the island. “She says my dad is talking about going to rehab again. What’ll that be, the sixth time?” he asked dryly. He ran his hand over his face.
“Maybe this time it’ll actually work,” Brooke said.
Ford peered up to give her a get-real look. “There’s a better chance of both Charlie and Tucker getting laid tonight.”
“Ouch. Those are not good odds.”
That got a slight smile out of Ford. She walked around the counter and threw her arms over his shoulders in a backward hug. He squeezed her back. “Let’s talk about something else.”
She understood—Ford’s father had never been his favorite topic of conversation. “Rachel told me she’s pregnant.”
“Good for them. Brandon told me they’ve been trying for a while.”
“Something I probably would’ve known if I’d seen her in the last five months.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Brooke,” Ford said. “Work, family, whatever—everyone’s busy these days.”
“Maybe.” She chewed on that, falling quiet as she began stacking the glasses in the dishwasher.
After they’d finished cleaning up, they sat outside on Ford’s deck and looked out at the skyline while munching on leftover chips and taco dip.
“I think Charlie and Tuck were brokenhearted when Cade didn’t come with you tonight,” Ford said. “They have a big-time man-crush on that guy.”
“No kidding. They asked me four times if I would text him and ask him to stop by.” Brooke paused. “Actually, though, I think I might cool things down with Cade for a while.”
Ford looked surprised. “Really? I thought you guys were having fun.”
“We were. We are. But lately, it seems like things are getting . . . complicated.”
“Huh.” Ford thought about that. “Because you have feelings for him, you mean?”
Brooke pulled back. “Is it that obvious?”
He shrugged matter-of-factly. “Yes.”
“Well . . . why didn’t you say anything?” she asked indignantly.
“I assumed you knew.”
“No, I didn’t know. Not until last night, anyway, when I got out of the bathtub and found him in my kitchen cooking dinner. It just looked so . . . right.”
“Having a good-looking, six-foot-four, former football star turned hotshot prosecutor make dinner while you take a bath? Yeah, I’m guessing that’s an image a lot of women would say looks right.”
Brooke shot him a wry look. “I meant that it felt right. The two of us being together.”
“So maybe it is.”
Brooke thought that over, and then shook her head. “I’ve been down this road. Three times in the last eighteen months. I know how it turns out. Things will be good, at first, but then slowly he’ll start making comments about my job, and how many hours I work. And then the comments will turn into arguments, maybe even something about my success being ‘emasculating’—”
“Who said that?” Ford demanded, cutting her off.
“Spencer.
The Hipster Photographer who came before the Hot OB.”
“An even bigger douche,” Ford scoffed. “You know how Cade’s different from those other guys?”
“He’s not a douche?” she guessed.
“Exactly.”
Brooke smiled, appreciating Ford’s flash of protectiveness, before turning serious. “I like Cade. A lot. But there’s so much happening at work these days, good things, and I need to stay focused. I’m pitching to the Bears on Monday, and I should be preparing for that, or working on the other 137 things on my to-do list, and not skipping out early on a Friday to relax. Because that’s not something I can typically do, and soon enough he’ll figure that out. And I don’t want to start this, only to have Cade tell me in four months that I’m not a ‘big-picture’ girl or some other ‘Sorry, sweetie, it really is you, not me’ line like that.” She shook her head. “I just can’t hear that . . . from him.”
Ford looked over and nodded. “Okay.”
They both fell quiet, looking out at the skyline. Finally, Ford spoke. “You know you brought this on yourself by not following the Rules.”
Smart-ass. “I did follow the Rules.” Well, mostly. “But I somehow ended up here, anyway.”
And, unfortunately, she knew what she needed to do about that.
Twenty-six
ON MONDAY AFTERNOON, Brooke spent the fifty-minute drive from Chicago to Lake Forest getting in the zone.
She was focused, determined not to be distracted by anything going on in her personal life, as she ran through the various points she wanted to make with Curt Emery. While her pitch varied somewhat depending on the potential client and their food service needs and facilities, what always remained constant was the fact that she one hundred percent believed in Sterling and the business they were growing.
Nevertheless, she remained pragmatic about the likely outcome of this meeting with the Bears. While Curt Emery may have been interested enough to hear her pitch, it was still a long shot given the team’s long-standing relationship with Spectrum.