Chapter 28 Thanks, Auditors
THANKS, AUDITORS
Remedies when you’re sick?
Cole: I can’t remember the last time I was sick. I power through.
Bridget: Tea. Like, gallons of it with honey. And before bed, Vicks VapoRub on the soles of my feet and my chest.
brIDGET
Like him, Cole’s building was massively tall, and like mine, it had a doorman.
I smiled at him as we passed on our way to the elevators.
He straightened his uniform jacket and nodded back, but Cole stared straight ahead as he carried his curly-haired daughter like she weighed nothing.
I pressed the button, and when the doors slid open, Cole said, “My card’s in my coat pocket.
Can you grab it for me and tap it to the sensor? ”
I held my breath as I slipped my fingers into his coat pocket.
The lining was satin, and the coat itself was likely cashmere made from the hand-shorn hair of fluffy baby goats who lived on a remote mountainside and ate only the choicest shoots of emerald-green grass.
The card was warm from his body—and the baby goats—when I plucked it out and held it to the pad. “Which floor?”
“It’ll take us straight up,” he said.
Of course Cole lived in a penthouse. I did as he instructed, and we rose toward the top floor.
During the long ride, he gave me a weak smile over his daughter’s head.
She clutched his broad shoulders and dug her knees into his waist as she buried her face in his shoulder.
I looked away, remembering waking up sprawled across her dad in a similar position.
Totally inappropriate. I’d come here for work, not play.
At last, the elevator opened onto a small lobby with two doors. Cole headed left and nodded at the sensor. I tapped the card to it and opened the door.
I’d expected bright-white decor and an open floor plan, but Cole’s space was warmer than that.
The floors were a medium-brown with dark-brown grain patterns.
The walls were white, but modern art hung on them.
I wondered if Zara had lived here and chosen the art, or if Cole moved here after they split, and a designer had picked everything out, or if he’d selected the pieces himself.
The condo didn’t quite look lived-in, but he probably only slept here, spending most of his time in the office or the gym.
He laid Caitlyn on the light-gray sofa that somehow looked hard. He glanced around as if there’d be a blanket, but in the end he took off that soft coat and laid it over his daughter. “Okay?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Her voice was croaky, and she winced before she swallowed.
Turning toward me, he lowered his voice and said, “Do you think we should take her to the ER?”
I almost snorted. This was a garden-variety fever if I’d ever seen one.
But I liked that he was worried about her.
I still couldn’t get my mind around the fact that he was a dad, and I’d admit—though never to him—I’d come with him as much to observe his parenting skills as to finish our work.
“Do you mind if I feel your forehead, Caitlyn?”
She shook her head, and I rested the back of my hand on her tan forehead. It was barely warmer than my skin. “Doesn’t seem so bad. We can confirm if you’ve got a thermometer.”
He stroked his daughter’s hair, then strode down the hall. He returned ten seconds later with a digital thermometer, which he passed over her forehead. “Ninety-nine point nine. But my Children’s Tylenol is expired.”
“Okay, I can run out for some. I saw a drugstore on the drive over.”
His jaw went tight, and he clasped my hand. “We’ll get supplies delivered. We can order dinner too. What would you like, Cait? Sushi?”
She crinkled her nose. “Blegh.”
“I thought sushi was your favorite,” he said.
“Not when my throat hurts.” She tucked his coat against it.
“Okay.” Cole suggested another half-dozen types of takeout, and she rejected every one. He threw up his hands. “What do you want, then?”
I couldn’t help it. “Something simple and comforting,” I said. “How about toast? Or some noodles with butter?”
“Yes, noodles. Please.” She swallowed.
“I can order that on Red Rover.” Cole pulled his phone from his inside jacket pocket.
“You seriously don’t have pasta?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t cook a lot. Like, ever.”
I huffed out a sigh, barely keeping from rolling my eyes. Men and their kitchens. Why did they even bother? “Let me see.”
With a worried glance at his daughter, he led me into the relatively cozy kitchen.
Everything was paneled in a light-grained wood with a few touches of stainless steel and charcoal granite countertops.
In this spotless kitchen, my crocheted potholders and tiles painted by my niblings would’ve slunk off into a corner to die.
He opened the pantry to show me the sparse shelves. “See?”
“Holy hell, Cole. You really don’t cook.” I scanned the cartons of power bars and jugs of workout recovery supplements. “Wait. What’s this?” I pulled out a gift basket that was still bundled in cellophane and tied with a jaunty plaid bow. I untwisted the wire closure.
“Our audit firm sent it for Thanksgiving. My housekeeper must have shoved it in here. Completely useless and a waste of—”
“Aha!” I pulled out a packet of pasta, some fancy shape I couldn’t pronounce the name of.
Emboldened, I said, “What else are you hiding in here?” I opened the Sub-Zero refrigerator next.
It was almost as sparse with a few condiments rattling in the door shelves.
“Ooh.” I snagged a foil-wrapped brick. “Butter, the fancy kind. And…” I opened the freezer side and scanned the stacks of frozen prepared meals to the bin at the bottom.
There were a few plastic bags of vegetables. “Does Caitlyn like brussels sprouts?”
“Maybe? Why the fuck do I have brussels sprouts? I haven’t eaten those since I was a kid and my nanny forced me.”
Of course he had a nanny. I kept from rolling my eyes. “You’ll like them the way I make them.” I shut the door. “Go ahead and order the Children’s Tylenol, though. Grape-flavored is the best. And add some chamomile tea, honey, and Vicks VapoRub. I’ll get started on dinner.”
While Cole tapped on his phone, I located a shiny stockpot and started the water to boil on his fancy French range.
I turned on the oven and massaged some olive oil (thank you, auditors) into the brussels sprouts.
As I waited for everything to come to temperature, I opened the e-book app on my phone and pulled up my selection of children’s books.
When I handed my phone to Cole, his eyebrows went sky high, but he returned to the living room to read it to Caitlyn and wait for the delivery.
Meanwhile, I worked in a kitchen designed for a giant.
Even the range was extra tall, and the gas flames were dangerously close to my boobs when I dumped in the dried noodles.
But I’d lived forty-three years in a world that didn’t accommodate my gender or size, and I made do.
Until I plucked open the top cabinets with my fingertips and gazed up at the plates and glasses above my reach.
I had my ass in the air, hunting through his lower cabinets, when Cole came in, carrying Caitlyn. “What are you looking for?”
I straightened, tugging my skirt back down to cover my knees.
“A stepstool? Normally, I’d climb up on the counter, but…
” I waved at my pencil skirt. I’d have had to hike it to my waist to clamber up there, and Cole and I were no longer at a point in our relationship where seeing my underwear was acceptable.
“I don’t own one.” He settled Caitlyn in a chair at the small table in the breakfast nook.
“Wow, what’s that like?” I asked dryly.
“Daddy,” Caitlyn said. “You’re not wearing your bracelet.”
“Sorry, baby. I forgot.” He went to a kitchen drawer and pulled out a beaded friendship bracelet like the ones Ashlyn and I made sometimes. He tugged it onto his wrist and straightened it so the beads at the center read DAD. He showed her and then kissed her forehead.
He approached me, and a layer of Johnson’s baby shampoo overlaid his regular scent. It was all I could do not to sway into him and inhale him into my lungs. “Glasses and plates?” he asked.
“Please.” Please stop being so sexy.
His usual smirk was absent as he selected three glasses and three plates, then a single wineglass. He must have been really worried about Caitlyn. I patted his shoulder. “Thanks.”
He grabbed my hand and pressed it to his pec, drawing me dangerously close. “Thank you. We’d probably be in the hospital waiting room right now without you.”
“Of course. I’m happy to help.” And that’s all I was doing, helping a colleague in need, I reminded myself as I pulled away from him and spooned noodles onto the plates. I definitely wasn’t playing house with Cole and his daughter.
He poured me a glass of chardonnay. We sat at the snug table, and it felt almost like we were in our bubble in Costa Rica again, except for the coughing little girl between us and the San Francisco skyline lit up against the blackness of the sky at eight o’clock.
I was pleased that, despite her fever, Caitlyn ate all of her noodles and almost all the brussels sprouts. Cole devoured the rest.
“I thought you didn’t like brussels sprouts,” I teased as I finished the last sip of my wine.
“These are amazing.” He scraped up the last of the maple glaze from his plate and popped his fork into his mouth.
“It’s a simple recipe. I’ll…” I winced as I finished, “I’ll show you sometime.” But this was a one-time thing. There wouldn’t be another sometime.
“I’d like that,” he said, going along with the pretense.
It was too much. I scraped back my chair and grabbed the empty plates. “I’ll clean up while you two get ready for bed. I mean, while you get Caitlyn ready for bed.” I all but ran to the sink to hide my flaming cheeks.
“I’ll clean up,” he said. “You cooked.”
“I’ve got it.” I rinsed the plates, but he took them from me and loaded them into the dishwasher. He insisted on scrubbing the pot and baking sheet clean, then I dried them and put them back where I’d found them.
“Braid my hair, Daddy?” Caitlyn had changed into pajamas. She held a stuffed iguana, much cuter than the ones we’d seen in Costa Rica, and smelled like toothpaste. He nodded and reached for the wine bottle.
I narrowed my eyes. “You know how to braid hair?”
“She’s had hair since she was a baby. Of course I know how to take care of it.”
“Of course you do.” My mind reeled. I solved problems every day, but Cole was incomprehensible. He knew how to braid hair, but he didn’t have food in his cabinets. He was a ruthless competitor, yet he had held my hand over his thudding heart like he cared about me.
“Make yourself comfortable on the couch.” He handed me my refilled glass. “I’ll put Cait to bed, then we’ll get back to work.”
Right. Work. I’d almost forgotten that’s what we were here for. I nodded, then took a super-sized gulp of my wine that puffed out my cheeks and burned down my throat.