“Not if you told her to bugger off,” Reid said.
“I ran your situation by Drew,” Gage said. “She agreed you need to tell her.”
“I highly doubt your sister has any insight into Sabrina.” Reid snorted and Gage turned on him, glaring. “I only mean because she hasn’t been around. I haven’t seen Drew in an age.”
“This isn’t about Drew.” Gage let his glare linger on Reid a moment before snapping his attention back to Flynn. “Tell Sabrina you love her. Kiss and make up.”
“We hereby release you from the pact,” Reid announced. “But Gage and I are still in it.” He shot an elbow into Gage’s arm. “Right?”
“I have no plans on matrimony. So, yes.”
Flynn’s head spun. “No one said anything about marriage.”
That he was in love with Sabrina was a massive leap for his head and heart to make.
“Either let her go or allow yourself to be open to it. She walked in here to tell you that she’s marrying someday. So if it’s not going to be you, you should let her off the hook.” Gage was clearly in lecture mode.
“You two should’ve married years ago.” Reid stood as if his business was concluded here. “You’ve always belonged to Sabrina and vice versa. She won’t look at me sideways and I’ve been flirting with her for years. If she’s managed to keep from sleeping with me, there must be something stopping her. In this case—” Reid leveled Flynn with a look “—you.”
Gage stood, too. “He’s right. Go get her. Marry her. Either that or we quit. We never wanted to work for Emmons Parker, and if you don’t show some favor to your neglected heart you’re going to end up just like him.”
“Filthy rich and hopelessly lonely,” Reid summarized.
Then they walked out of his office, yammering about eating naan at Gulzar’s.
Without inviting Flynn to join them.
Twenty-Two
Sabrina had spent her third straight morning in a row at the gym with Luke. She was sad and upset and punishing herself. There was no other logical reason on this planet to do burpees.
Her body took the doled-out sets like a trooper, but that wasn’t really why she was working out so much. She was paying penance for believing for a single second that she could fall out of love with Flynn.
As Luke had told her this morning, “I knew that wouldn’t work.”
She’d slugged him in the arm and asked him why he’d let her do it, but he’d only shook his head and said, “Like you’d listen to me anyway.”
Unfortunately, he was right. Her stubborn nature had shown up at the wrong time—outshining her positive, Pollyanna attitude and leading her astray.
And when Flynn had demanded she keep seeing him, she’d dug in her heels and fought out of principle. He couldn’t tell her what to do, not when she was trying to stop loving him. Turns out she didn’t have to stop loving him, since Flynn probably hated her for leaving Monarch high and dry.
Okay, fine, he probably didn’t hate her. But he’d let her leave and that felt like the same thing.
She’d ended what they had so that they could be friends, but she’d lost him altogether. Couldn’t he see she was trying to help both of them?
“By keeping your feelings to yourself,” she grumbled as she hooked her purse on her shoulder.
Gage had asked her to meet him at Brewdog’s for a cup of coffee. The hip café was a block from her house. She’d told him no but then he’d begged, saying he had a work problem that only she could solve. “The outsourcing Flynn hired, Sab, they’re a nightmare. Don’t leave me hanging. This project is too important.”
Outsourcing that was her fault because she’d walked out without notice. She’d felt too guilty to say no again. Besides, she would like to go back to work eventually. After however long a cooling period she and Flynn needed before they rekindled their friendship.
They had to rekindle their friendship. Living without him in her life was miserable. Monarch Consulting had given her a sense of meaning and purpose. She wasn’t so stubborn that she didn’t recognize that Flynn was a very big part of that. He was important to her, and she’d just have to woman up, convince her heart to accept that he wouldn’t fall in love with her back, and move on.
She could do it. She just hadn’t figured out how yet.
Outside, the spring rain fell in a light drizzle, but she didn’t bother with an umbrella since she’d worn her contacts instead of her glasses. She was as grumpy about the weather as she was about agreeing to help Gage. On the steam of her own bad attitude, she stepped into Brewdog’s and nearly plowed into a man picking up his coffees at the counter.
“Sorry.” She moved aside, but then her gaze softened on the most handsome face she’d ever seen.
Flynn’s.
His jaw clenched, a muscle ticking in one cheek.
“I’m...meeting Gage?” But even as she said it, she doubted Gage was here. This moment had setup written all over it.
“So am I.” Flynn’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “He called two minutes ago, asking me to grab his coffee for him since he was running late. I’m supposed to meet him—”
“At the table by the plant,” they said at the same time.
“Does one of those cups contain a salted caramel concoction?” she asked of her favorite indulgence.
“I knew that sounded off when he ordered it.” Flynn handed her one of the cups and they walked to the corner table by the plant, which was currently occupied by a British guy in sunglasses pretending to read a newspaper.
“Et tu, Reid?” she asked.
He lowered the paper and feigned shock. “What are you two doing here? No matter. You can have my table. I was just leaving.”
“Convenient,” she muttered.
Reid stood and kissed her forehead. “Miss you, Sab.”
That was sweet. The jerk.
She watched him leave and then she and Flynn sat across from each other, her stiffly, with her purse in her lap.
“You feel nothing for him when he pulls that charming shtick?” Flynn asked.
“For Reid? I feel... I don’t know. I feel like that’s just Reid.”
“No butterflies?” Flynn asked. Weirdly.
“No.” Reid Singleton was good-looking and all, but just...no.
They sipped their coffees and sat in silence for a few lingering seconds. The café was filled with the din of chatter and the sounds of steaming milk and the clattering of cups and spoons.
Someone had to end this standoff. That’s why Gage and Reid had set them up. They wanted reconciliation, and had probably convinced Flynn to talk her into coming back to work. She never should’ve walked out on them. Plus, she really did want her job back...
Determined to eat her crow while it was still warm, she would be the first to apologize. “Flynn—”
“I’m in love with you.”
Every word she was going to say next flew out of her head. His expression was desperate, pained. Because he regretted saying it, or because he wasn’t sure if she loved him, too?
“It’s inconvenient and the timing is completely wrong and I’m not sure if you feel the same way, but I’m in love with you and I miss you like crazy.”
Her heart beat double time, the joy in it hardly able to be contained. Flynn was in love with her!
He lowered his voice. “I don’t want the painting.”
Well. That was an odd segue.
“The birds. The birds who only want each other for sex,” he explained a little too loudly. “That’s not what I want. That’s not what I ever wanted. And when I was finally brave enough to take the leap, I did it with the wrong person.”
“Me?”
“No,” he practically shouted. “Veronica.”
She wasn’t going to deny the punch of relief she felt hearing his ex-wife’s name.
>
“She screwed me over and I was sure the universe was trying to show me that my original plan never to marry was the right call all along. If we hadn’t married so quickly, we would’ve ended years ago.”
“You...would’ve?”
“She knew it. I knew it. Neither of us came out and admitted we were unhappy. It doesn’t forgive what she did, but I understand why she left.” His eyes dashed away before finding Sabrina’s again. “I haven’t thought about getting married again. Only about avoiding the pain of having my wife leave me. She was supposed to love me. She didn’t do a very good job of it.”
Sabrina opened her mouth to agree, but Flynn spoke first.
“You do.” He reached over the table, palm up, and she slipped her hand into his. It felt inexplicably good to touch him. To have him here. To listen to the words tumbling out of his mouth like a rockslide he was powerless to stop. “You love me better than anyone ever has, Sabrina Douglas. You show it in every small gesture, and in every action. Even the one that led you to come and tell me that we were through. I’m sorry it took me this long to pull my head out of my ass.”
“Me, too,” she whispered, tears stinging her nose. She blinked her damp eyes, Flynn going momentarily blurry as she swallowed down her tears.
“You, too, meaning you’re also sorry it took me so long to pull my head out of my ass, or...”
He waited, eyebrows raised, and then she realized that she hadn’t told him the most important news of all.
“I’m in love with you, too. And you’re right. I do a very good job of loving you. The only time I didn’t do a good job was when I walked away. But I never stopped loving you, Flynn.”
“God, am I glad to hear you say that.”
His smile was the most welcoming sight she’d seen in over a week.
“I’m not saying you have to marry me now or...ever, honestly,” he told her. “I’m saying that if you try this thing with me and you start imagining the guy at the end of the aisle and see my face—”
“I already do.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Which is nuts.” She let out a nervous laugh. “That’s nuts, right?”
“I don’t know anymore.” His sideways smile was filled with chagrin. She loved it. She loved him. “We don’t have to decide that now, but you do have to decide something.”
“Which is?” She couldn’t wait to hear what he said next considering his every confession had been better than the last.
“You have to come back to Monarch,” he said so seriously that a few banked tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes.
She sniffled and swiped them away. “Done.”
“And you have to be mine. Not like the chickadees, Sabrina. Like...whatever species of bird mates for life. Paint that kind of bird—two of them—and I’ll hang that painting over my mantel.”
“The only species I know that mates for life is black vultures.” She wrinkled her nose.
“How the hell do you know that?”
“I went through a macabre phase in my angsty teenage years.”
“Yikes,” he said, on the end of a deep chuckle.
“Oddly enough, a pair of black vultures is fitting for your apartment,” she teased.
He squeezed her hand, but instead of teasing her back, he said, “So are you. You belong there with me. I used to think I was good by myself. That I liked my space and having things easy, simple. But since you walked into my black and white penthouse, you changed all that. You’ve been too far away during the years Veronica and I were married. Then you came back and brought color into my life, Sab. And you brought love—real love. The patient, kind type of love they talk about in wedding vows. I’ve known for a while there’s been something missing in my life. I used to think it was success or money. But all along, it was you. You’re what’s been missing in my life. I’m tired of missing you. I don’t want to miss you again. Not ever.”
As he gave the speech, an earnest expression on his face, his hand held hers tightly. The words were stacked on top of one another like he was trying to say them all at once.
She had to make sure she understood what he was saying. There’d been too many moments lately where she and Flynn had been vague. They’d paid the ultimate price—losing each other. She wouldn’t risk him again.
“Just to be crystal clear,” she said, “you want me to work with you. And...live with you? Maybe marry you in the future?”
“Yes, yes and hell yes. You’re my vulture, Sabrina.” He winked. “Plus, I was absolved from the bachelor pact.”
“You were?”
“Yep. These two weird guys I know don’t want me in it. They’d rather us be together.”
Okay, she was giving Reid and Gage huge hugs the next time she saw them.
“They said I’ve always been yours. I thought about that a lot this past week. Over the years you and I have known each other, no matter who we were with at the time, we stuck together. You and I have never strayed. I’ve always been yours, but you’ve also always been mine.”
The truth of his words resonated deep in her soul. She, too, thought of the years they’d spent in each other’s company. The easy way they could talk and pass the time together. Of course it’d always been Flynn. Who else would it have been?
“I’ve always known the right place for you was by my side,” she told him. “I never dreamed you’d be more than a friend.”
“Then it’s a good thing I kissed you on the pier on Valentine’s Day.”
A thrill ran through her as she remembered the first contact with his lips. How surprised she was to explore another side of him. Who knew it could get better, then worse, and then better than before?
“I’m taking the rest of the day off.” He stood and pulled her to her feet.
She lifted a hand to his forehead, checking for a fever. “A half day? Are you sure you’re not sick?”
“Lovesick.” He lowered his lips for a soft, way-too-brief kiss and then handed over her coffee cup.
“Besides, we have a lot to do. Pack up your apartment, hire movers—”
“Redecorate your colorless apartment.”
“You’ll bring the color, Sab.”
Yes, she would.
Outside of the café, Flynn paused under the awning as the rain went from a drizzle to a borderline downpour. Fat drops splattered the sidewalks as people ran for the shelter of the coffee shop and other surrounding stores.
“Do you think we’ve been in love with each other this entire time but we’re only just now realizing it?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“How could it not matter?”
“Because you were a different you before this exact moment. And I was a different me. It never would’ve worked out if we’d attempted it before we did.”
He pulled her in with one arm, careful not to spill their coffees as he leaned down to nuzzle her nose. “I love you.”
Her smile was unstoppable. “I love you, too. I don’t know how to not be in love with you, so I may as well stick around.”
“That’s the spirit.” He looked out at the pouring rain. “Nice day for a walk.”
“The perfect day for a walk,” she agreed.
His arm around her neck, they stepped out from under the awning, allowing the rain to drench them as they meandered down the sidewalk. “Plus, no one else makes me M&M cookies.”
“The foundation of every strong relationship,” she said.
“That and sex in the laundry room.”
“Or on the couch.”
“Or the balcony.”
She blinked up at him, the rain soaking her cheeks. “We didn’t have sex on the balcony.”
“Not yet. I read a balcony sex scene in the romance novel you left at my penthouse. I think we should try it.”
“Y
ou read a romance novel?”
“I have a lot to learn.”
“Seems like you’ve learned a lot already.” She gripped his shirt and tugged him close. “Now kiss me in the rain. It’ll make the perfect ending.”
Flynn dipped his mouth to hers and drank her in, the cool rainwater causing their lips to slip. He held her tightly, making good on his promise never to let her go. Rain or shine, apparently.
When they parted, his blue eyes locked on hers, his arms still holding her. Then a genuine, perfect grin lit his face. “Say it.”
“Say what?”
“The ending.”
“Oh, right.” She cleared her throat and announced, “And they lived happily ever after.”
* * *
Gage Fleming has no idea that
the fiery redhead who’d approached him in
the bar asking if she could hire him
to attend her sister’s wedding
is none other than Andy Payne, the guru
he’d hired to help him with his team.
Now, he’ll offer a trade—if she stays to help him at Monarch,
he’ll pretend to be her boyfriend
for the wedding...
Don’t miss Gage’s story!
Temporary to Tempted
Available April 2019
Only from Jessica Lemmon
and Harlequin Desire!
Keep reading for an excerpt from The Secret Twin by Catherine Mann.
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Best Friends, Secret Lovers (The Bachelor Pact Book 1) Page 16