2. Dana
Dana
M y heart started pounding. I put my hands in my pockets so no one would notice how they were shaking. Why is he here?
The crowd slowly dissipated, splitting into two recognizable groups—one that clearly knew Cole, and one that had likely been hired on without meeting him. How I’d gone five months without knowing he was in charge was beyond me.
I watched as people milled about. Those who knew him slipped away from the room soundlessly while others stayed behind to introduce themselves and speak to him, shake his hand, meet the man who apparently was in charge of us all.
I’d heard whispers about the supposed runaway owner. Everything from an unplanned extended vacation right down to an alien abduction had floated around the office. I’d paid no mind to it under the assumption that he was never coming back.
Maybe I should have.
My feet didn’t follow my brain’s commands to move.
Partly because the floor was so sticky and moving my shoes would take effort, but mostly because I just didn’t have the willpower.
I wanted to go with the rest of them, pretend like maybe he hadn’t clocked me despite our stupidly prolonged eye contact.
Benjamin stepped up next to me, nearly making me jump as I ripped my gaze from Cole. “Come on, I’ll introduce you,” he said, one arm extended toward the line that was forming to fucking shake Cole’s hand.
“I-I’m fine,” I said, forcing a smile, my eyes looking towards the door. “I don’t need to meet him.”
“He’s insisted,” Ben replied. His voice had dropped, an air of irritation dripping in his tone. “Just get it over with so we can all finish up and go home.”
It wasn’t that he didn’t have a point. I was taken away halfway through a guided tour to listen to this bullshit. I had to leave my group in the restaurant with a stack of free meal vouchers as an apology, and it was already pushing against my time to clock out.
“Fine,” I grumbled, finally peeling my boots from the floor and stepping into the line.
I discovered I was sorely mistaken with my hopes that he hadn’t noticed me. He glanced at me between each person, each time lingering for half a second too long.
It only made my heart pound stronger.
And make me want to escape.
I just wanted to get home to my son. My shift was already too long for my liking, and the nanny wasn’t exactly thrilled whenever I was late picking up Drew.
At this rate, he’d be asleep by the time I got there, and I didn’t even want to consider how easy he could go from peacefully sleeping at the nanny’s house to a screeching baby in the backseat.
But the pay here was insane, more than what Lottie could give me.
I should’ve known there was a catch.
I wouldn’t have taken it, no matter the pay, if I knew Cole ran the fucking company.
The line was moving too quickly for my liking. I was caught between wanting to go home and wanting to stay at the back of the line to avoid having to shake his hand and speak to him.
Mistakes had been made.
We’d parted ways.
And now he was my boss.
What the fuck?
I quelled the shaking in my hands as I got closer by picturing Drew sleeping soundly in the backseat. If I thought about calm and peace then I could get through this. I could shake his hand, rush back to my group, finish the last twenty minutes of their tour, and head home. Surely it would be fine.
The woman ahead of me, someone I didn’t recognize but wore the uniform of the bar staff, stepped out of the way and, suddenly, I was face-to-face with him.
Cole fucking Pearson.
The Pearson of Pearson Beers. How did I not put two and two together? God I was an idiot.
He loomed over me, his dark blonde hair looking far too perfect for having supposedly just gotten off a plane.
The suit he wore clung to his arms, not a wrinkle in sight.
His eyes—those stupid, goddamn perfect, green-as-grass eyes that drew me to him in the first place—seemed to be looking straight into my soul.
He was far more attractive than any man I’d managed to grab in my twenty-eight years on this earth.
He was going to be the fucking death of me.
I hoped he could see every ounce of discomfort I was feeling, that my awkward stance and forced smile would clue him in. I hoped he could replay that horrible scene when we had last seen each other, echoing in his head like a bad pop song on repeat. Maybe it haunted him as much as it did me.
Cole dared to smile, that same infuriating, charming smile that had once made me melt. But I had already made up my mind. I would never forgive him for the bullshit that had happened the morning after that hot night.
The man behind Cole, one I’d seen around the brewery a handful of times but knew definitely didn’t work here, looked like he’d rather be anywhere else. I could relate.
But nothing could change what was happening. I was here, standing before the man who had hugely impacted my life beyond just a one-night stand.
I had imagined this moment hundreds of times in hundreds of different scenarios.
Running into him at a restaurant on Pearl Street.
Seeing him at a party at Lottie and Hunter's.
Even bumping into him in the mountains. What they all had in common was that my son, Drew, was never present and I counted my lucky stars he wasn't here now either.
Without me even offering my hand, Cole grabbed it in his.
His touch was warm and firm, a stark contrast to my own hand, which instantly turned into a floppy fish.
A shiver ran up my spine as his fingers wrapped around mine, his grip both familiar and unsettling.
"Nice to see you," he said, his eyes drilling into mine with an intensity that made my heart do somersaults. His hand felt strong and reassuring, yet it ignited a flutter of nerves that I couldn’t quite control, making me painfully aware of the goddamn chemistry sparking between us.
"Mmm-hmm." I faked a smile so wide it probably came off as psychotic as I pulled my hand away.
Cole's expression wavered, a mix of nervous excitement and uncertainty crossing his face as he realized I wasn't falling at his feet.
But there was something else lurking behind Cole's stare — something that made my pulse quicken. An unmistakable familiarity, a reluctance to pretend he hadn’t seen me naked, and worst of all: a desire to actually talk to me.
His mouth opened as if to say more, but I turned away from him as quickly as I could without raising any red flags to the rest of the staff and scurried toward the back of the brewhouse.
There were at least four people behind me still in line, not a single chance of him getting through them all before I was gone.
Or so I thought.
Footsteps echoed behind me, clacking against the sticky floor. I glanced over my shoulder as I grabbed the door handle, those wild green eyes meeting mine once again. He stopped in his tracks the moment I got through the door.
————
About half of my tour group had gone home instead of waiting around. I couldn’t blame them. I did, however, hate the idea that those people might leave me a bad review and Cole would be the one dealing with it.
The campus was massive. It stretched an entire block of downtown Boulder, with a bar at one end and a restaurant at the other.
In between was the brewhouse, with its high ceilings taking up two floors of the center of the building.
The second and third floors consisted of mostly offices and storage for the bar and restaurant.
From the top level of the brewhouse on the overhead walkway, I could see Cole and the man that had been standing behind him during the meet and greet on the lower level. Cole’s hands were flying as he spoke, but with the sounds of the machinery, I couldn’t hear what was being said.
“Is the brickwork original?”
“Huh?” I turned, my hand gripped on the metal railing.
One of the men at the front of the group, an older guy who smelled horribly of cigarettes, held his hand up to claim the question.
“Oh. Right. Yes, it is. The building was built back in the early 1900s. It was meant to be a brewery back then, too, but prohibition hit in 1916 and it was forced to close.”
“What’s this?”
A woman who was absolutely old enough to know better reached far over the railing, her hand wrapped around a pipe I knew next to nothing about — and I did not want to be the reason the entire brewhouse came to a screeching halt.
“Stop, stop!” I pushed through the people between us, forcing them up against the railing. The woman recoiled, her eyes going wide, and slowly but surely she brought her entire body back to the catwalk.
The fact that this was the third time this month that this same thing had occurred made literally zero difference. I didn’t know how to handle it the first time, and I still didn’t know how to handle it now.
“Please don’t… touch anything,” I said, loud enough for the people in the back to hear. “Everything in here is important. There’s a reason we’re not down on the ground.”
“Right. Sorry,” the woman mumbled.
I glanced down toward Cole, hoping to God he hadn’t seen that, but of course, he was staring directly up at me.
————
Twenty minutes. I’d only run over by twenty minutes. I could still make it to the nanny’s before Drew fell asleep.
I pulled on my leather jacket from my old riding days and zipped it up. My purse was somewhere in the sea of hanging bags, and as I searched through them, the door opened behind me. Immediately, my spine stiffened.
“Dana? Can you hang back a minute?”
Not Cole. Breathing a sigh of relief, I unhooked my purse and turned. “I really need to get going.”
Allison, my manager, shifted on her feet uncomfortably, her eyes darting back out into the hallway. “I know. I’m sorry. But the owner wants to meet with you.”
For fucks sake.