Lena made the check out for two-thousand, knowing if she tried to sneak any more past him, he would probably just refuse to cash it, but feeling the need to pay more than parts. He had been working on her car for days. She ripped it out of her book and held it out to him. “Thanks Eric.”
Eric took it, stashing it underneath a pile of papers on the desk without looking at it, then standing up. “So I guess that's it.”
Lena nodded, moving toward the door. She walked back to her car, her back pin-straight, Eric walking lazily behind her. How was this supposed to go? Was she supposed to hug him? Kiss him? Offer a handshake? Just wave and get in her car? She walked up to the driver's side door and opened it, turning back to him, at a complete loss of what to say.
Eric moved his hands into his front pockets, making his shoulders hunch slightly forward, making him look younger. He nodded at her. “It was nice knowing you, Lena Edwards.”
Lena felt the words twist in her belly and she nodded stiffly at him, moving to get into her car. “Goodbye Eric,” she said, slamming the door, and pulling out of the station as fast as possible.
She forced herself to keep her eyes on the road in front of her, to not look in the rear-view. To not think about him. To not let herself feel the things she was keeping crushed down deep inside.
She was about half an hour out of town, finally moving on to a highway, when she first heard it. A dull, insistent clicking noise. Lena reached and turned off the radio, listening for it. And then there it was again, louder. She pulled the car off onto the shoulder, looking around for something on the floorboard or in the side panels on the door. But there was nothing. She opened the center consul, reaching around and pulling it out.
The bright red rock she had found in the stream with Eric the night of the bachelor auction. She had forgotten all about it. She had thrown it to him and asked him to keep it for her. And he had. And he had given it back to her.
Lena looked down at it, its smooth surface, and felt the tears fill her eyes. She closed her fist around it, hanging her head for a hopeless moment. Her body shook violently as she fought against the sobs. It was stupid. Silly. Pathetically weak of her to be crying over someone she had just had a short little fling with. They had only slept together a few times for goodness sakes.
She wasn't going to be that girl. The girl who fancied herself having feelings for someone just because they had sex. It was beneath her.
Lena swatted at the tears on her cheeks, sniffling as she took deep breaths. She reached into her purse, burying the rock into a pocket inside, then turned the radio back up and kept driving.
She had a life to get back to. A life, as it turned out, that was going to be better than the life she had left before. She was finally moving up in her company. She would be able to prove her worth. Take more control. Earn more money. Get out of her tiny apartment and move into a nicer neighborhood. She would have everything she had wanted for years.
She was getting everything.
A low, nagging voice pulled in the back of her mind, quiet but there.
Yes, she was getting everything she wanted.
Except Eric.
--
Eric watched her drive away, her car pulling out of town, leaving nothing but her memory behind. He reached into his toolbox, grabbing a heavy wrench and throwing it violently against the wall.
He should have said something. He should have hugged her. Or kissed her. He should have worked himself under those walls and taken her to bed again. Taken her slowly, full of all the longing and need he had been feeling since the night before.
He had hauled through the woods, panting and sweaty until he got to the stream. He sat down on the down tree and watched the water.
He wasn't the kind of man who needed to take time and think. He wasn't introspective. He was always impulsive and reckless. He always knew what he wanted from one moment to the next.
And yet there he was, his brain full of unfinished thoughts, barely recognized feelings he didn't want to have to face. All because of her. Who would have thought that some random businesswoman from the city would be the one to drive him to distraction?
Even with Anna... he had known. He had known he cared for her. He had known he wanted her in all the ways possible. It had been foreign, but easy. There hadn't been any denial or doubt or fear.
Then there was Lena. Lena and her mercurial hazel eyes, just as often shooting daggers at him as smiling, her soft white-blonde hair, and her serious face. And, of course, her responsive body. Her shameless need. Her overwhelming response to his touch.
He had experienced more than his fair share of women over the years, all pleasant in all their varied ways. Some who liked things very soft and warm and vanilla. Some who liked to drag out whips and nipple clamps and have him punish them. Some who just needed to fuck their cares away.
Yet not one of those women compared. They, in fact, paled in comparison. Lena had undoubtedly been the best, most satisfying sex of his life. As soon as he was done with her, he wanted more. He had been in a constant state of arousal since the first time he had laid hands on her.
But that aside, it wasn't all about sex for him. He didn't just want to get some and move on to the next. He found himself looking forward to talking to her, getting beneath her defenses and having her open up to him. Find out what drives her. What she feared more than anything else.
He wanted to know stupid little things. Like her favorite song. When she got her first kiss. Why she always wore her hair up in a bun. And why her go-to response was snark. If she swatted spiders with the newspaper or caught them in cups and moved them outside. He wanted to know all the little somethings that make up everything.
He wanted to come home to her in his kitchen, dancing around in his old t-shirts and baking her crazy little recipes, her entire body vibrating with some deep rooted internal pleasure. And then he wanted to kiss her until her toes tingled and take her to bed and get lost in each other until the sun came up.
He wanted her there holding his hand when he walked into town functions. When he went out to dinner. When he sat and watched movies.
He just... wanted her. More than he had waned anything else.
Eric rubbed his face with the palms of his hands. She was gone. And she wasn't going to hit town limits and turn back around. It wasn't some cheesy romantic movie. She wasn't going to bring that red rock back and throw it at his window. She wasn't going to tell him she didn't want her passionless life anymore, that she wanted to spend her days and nights wrapped up in his arms.
She wasn't coming back at all.
And he was just going to have to find a way to deal with that.
Twenty-Two
She had almost thought it would look different. Like two weeks would actually change things. Like Tad would suddenly have long hair and the the office would be made over. But everything was just as she left it. Maybe it was just she who was different.
The elevator chimed, opening slowly. She stepped back onto the floor, three desks lining each side, manned by five women... and Tad. He raised a finger at her as he finished his phone call. Dropping the phone into the cradle, he moved closer, his eyes keen and bright. “Girl,” he said, his tone sharp but feminine. “you don't ever get to leave me swamped with all that work of yours again. I have been here like sixteen hours a day.”
“Welcome to my world,” she said, offering him a smile as she let herself into her office.
“Yes, doll,” he said, throwing himself down on the black and white houndstooth love seat and putting a hand over his head. “but I have a man to get home to. A yummy, yummy man with caramel skin and a huge...”
“Too much information,” Lena cut in, shaking her head as she looked around her desk. Everything neat and organized as she left it, but it all seemed foreign.
“I was going to say vocabulary,” Tad said, looking over at her.
“No you weren't,” Lena laughed, throwing a pen at him.
> “No,” he smiled devilishly, sitting back up. “no I wasn't. Speaking of men...” he said, drawing out the word as if waiting for her to say something. “You're not going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?” she asked, powering up her computer. Going through the motions. Everything back to normal. Nothing unusual had happened in her life at all.
“About what delicious piece of man meat put that... hitch in your giddy up?”
“Hitch in my giddy up?” Lena asked, raising a brow at him. “I think you're reading too many of those southern romance novels of yours.”
“What's hotter than two cowboys getting it on?” he asked, winking. “Come on. Tell me.”
“There's nothing to tell.”
“Listen, lady,” he said, looking serious in his pink and black plaid shirt. “this is the first time you got laid in... what... a year? I want to know who got into your hidden depths.”
“Oh gross,” Lena said, shaking her head. He was never going to let it go. “Fine. I met this guy...”
“Was he tall? And dark? And handsome?”
Lena snorted. “Yeah actually.”
“Come on, details. What was the meet-cute?” he asked, moving to sit on the edge of her desk.
“My car broke. He was the town mechanic.”
“Oh dreamy. Was he dirty?”
Lena threw her head back, chuckling. Thank god for Tad. She was starting to feel like she wasn't going to feel like herself again. “Filthy,” she nodded. “Men like him shouldn't actually exist. They should just be in novels and silly movies that have no basis in reality. No woman stands a chance against his charm.”
“Did you have sex on the hood of your car?”
Lena looked down at her desk, smiling. “Tad. Lay off the porn. Normal people don't do it on the hoods of cars.”
“Fine,” he said, looking a bit deflated. “was it good?” Lena looked up at him, her eyes squinted, trying to put it into words. “Wow. That good, huh?”
“Lena,” EM's voice shouted through the intercom.
Lena jumped, knocking a pile of papers into the garbage. She forgot what it was like to have his voice just... boom into the room out of nowhere. She reached for the papers, feeling frazzled.
“Go, go,” Tad said, shooing her hands away. “I got this.”
Lena send him a clipped smile, reaching for the door that connected her office with Elliott's. She took a deep breath, trying to keep her story straight in her head so she could deliver it believably.
Elliott was sitting behind his desk in his neat, expensive black suit with a light blue shirt and tie. He looked up as she walked in, his blue eyes almost painful to look at they were so intense.
“Lena, you fine thing,” a voice called from the doorway and she turned to see James Michaels standing there in pinstripe gray slacks and a black band t-shirt. Everything about James was light compared to his brother. His eyes were lighter, his hair lighter. His personality bright and sunny. “I've missed you every day you were gone.”
“How many of the days were you actually here?” she countered, her tone teasing. He was never at work.
“None,” he admitted, smiling and making his eyes crinkle up at the edges. “but I missed you nonetheless. I could hardly get out of bed.”
“Lena,” Elliott broke in, his voice deep and professional. “I was just filling James in on your little... vacation.”
“Oh, really?” she asked, silently reminding herself that she didn't know anything about that.
“Yeah,” Elliott said. “Hannah took off to Stars Landing yesterday,” he said, looking at her meaningfully. “you didn't run into her.”
It wasn't a question, but she forced the lie anyway. “No of course not. Was she visiting her family?”
“Yeah. She got home late last night and I filled her in on what we are going to be doing there.”
Filled her in. Lena almost laughed. He made it sound so passionless. So boring. Instead of a giant romantic gesture from him to his wife. “Is she happy about it?”
“Of course,” he said, shrugging. “She actually suggested I send James there to...”
“Irritate Emily?” she supplied and he surprised her by laughing.
“Yeah, I don't know what her motives were there. I've met Emily... she and James are going to clash over everything.”
“Clash?” James asked, moving to sit in one of the chairs and propping his feet on the edge of the desk. “With a woman? Me? I mean... have you seen me?” he asked, winking at Lena. “I'm so good looking she will just melt into a puddle at my feet.”
“Yeah,” Lena said, nodding. “that totally sounds like Emily,” she said, looking at Elliott whose eyes were amused. He had met Emily when he had stayed at the inn. He knew how big of trouble his little brother was about to be in.
“So anyway,” Elliott continued. “I figured we would settle the paperwork with the family in a few weeks. Then we will send James down there this...”
“Fall is good for me,” James supplied, shrugging.
“Alright,” Elliott agreed without a fight. “this Fall.”
“Lucky,” Lena said, looking enviously at James. “they apparently have amazing events in the fall. Especially around Halloween.”
James sent her a strange sideways glance, picking up on the wistfulness of her tone. “Care to join me?” he asked. “We'll probably be the most attractive people that rinky dink town has ever seen.”
“Lena will be here,” Elliott cut in. “taking control of acquisitions.”
“What?” Lena asked, her stomach dropping. Acquisitions was one of the most vital parts of EM. A company that bought and sold companies needed one of the best acquisitions departments in the world.
“Yeah,” Elliott said, smiling at her. Actually smiling at her. “Brian has decided to quit and spend his time painting caricatures in the park.”
“Really?” Lena asked, her brows furrowing. Brian had led the department successfully for almost a decade. “Good for him,” she said, surprising herself. At Elliott's questioning look, she shrugged. “You know. I mean he probably has enough money to retire on by now. It's good that he's doing something that makes him happy.”
She tried to ignore the look James was giving her. Like he saw right through her. Like he knew about the basket full of dessert recipes in her apartment.
“Yes, well,” Elliott said, standing and turning to pour coffee into three mugs. “the job is yours. The salary is...” he said, handing her her coffee, black. Like always. She felt a pang remembering how Eric had known after a few days how she took her coffee. “about three times your salary now.”
Lena looked up at him, her eyes huge. “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” Elliott shrugged. The difference between fifteen dollars an hour and forty-five dollars an hour didn't phase him. But it would make a huge difference in her life. “It's a high stress job and the hours are long. And, unlike this job, there will probably be a lot of travel.”
“You and me, kid,” James said, reaching out and touching her arm. “we'll be the dream team.”
Lena smiled at him. James was who Elliott sent to close the deals. As laissez faire as James seemed to approach life and work, he was actually more educated than his brother. And his ease of conversation and effortless charm made him a brilliant negotiator.
James was right. They would spend a lot of time on the same flights, in the same hotels, in the same boardrooms. Normally, she would have been excited at the prospect. She and James had always gotten along. She made up with his lax approach to work with her fierce dedication; he helped her relax and not stress out so much.
It should have made her happy. But all she felt was a dull sort of acceptance.
She sat there nodding about the transition, reminding herself silently that this is what she had worked so hard for for the past decade. First in high school, forgoing all movie nights and hanging out in someone's basement so she could study. So she
could quality for a full scholarship. Then in college, missing out on her new found independence to stay in the library and maintain her GPA. And then for the past two years at EM, fetching coffee, answering emails, planning his business trips so she could eventually move up. This was it. This was the dream. It was finally happening. And all she felt was numb.
“You made a note here,” he said, holding up a piece of paper. “about a possible gondola lift between this... lodge and the inn,” he said, leaving room for her to explain.
“Right,” she said, sitting up straighter. “in the winter months, the lodge gets full and the inn gets the guests that the lodge can't house. But when the weather is bad, there is no way to get to and from the lodge. The roads close down.”
“Which is bad for the inn and the lodge,” he assumed.
“Right. But because of the steep incline, the only real solution would be something aerial like a gondola between the two.”
“That's a really innovative idea,” Elliot said, looking interested.
“Yes, well. As much as I would like to lay claim to it,” she said, thinking of Devon and his glasses. “it was actually the idea of Devon Windsor who works at the inn. His family owns the lodge.”
“And yet he works at the inn?”
Lean shrugged and waved a hand. “Family,” she said, the word full of meaning.
Elliott nodded, taking out a note and writing. “Devon you said, right?” Lena nodded. “I'll have a talk with his family about his idea. I think it would be mutually beneficial.”
“I agree,” Lena added, hoping Devon would reap at least a little respect from his family.
“As for all the renovations,” he said, stacking his papers together. “I am going to have James handle them. He can call in decorators and contractors and find a way to keep the inn feel but make it larger and updated.
“Showers,” Lena mumbled.
“What?” Elliott asked, brows furrowed.
“Oh,” Lena said, not realizing she had said it aloud. “they need showers in every guest room. Mine only had a tub. It was awful.”
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