Chapter Eight Max
We’ve officially hit crunch time. Everyone’s heads-down, hitting deadlines and pushing through fatigue. Even the holiday cheer outside the windows feels like it’s moving faster.
“Heading into a meeting!” Josh calls as he and Ryan disappear into the glass-walled conference room.
I barely glance up from the progress reports, eyes aching. I don’t even hear Emma walk over until her voice breaks the silence.
“Dashboard mock-up’s in your inbox. Want to go over it?”
I finally look at her—sweater, snowflake, sleepy eyes—and feel something in my chest shift.
“I’ll check it after I finish these reports.”
She touches my shoulder lightly. “Max, your posture is offensive. It’s lunch. Come outside with me.”
I hesitate. “I’ve got too much to do.”
“So do I. That’s why I need a break.” She smiles like she already knows I’ll give in.
I straighten up and turn to face her, my gaze narrowing a little. “I don’t want to be gone long.”
Emma smiles, her eyes lighting up with victory. “We won’t. Come on.”
I watch her grab her tablet off her desk and tuck it into her shoulder bag. She beats me to the elevator and hits the button for the lobby, seeming much looser and more awake now.
I guess we’re all threatening to run ourselves into the ground to get this project done on time.
Luckily, it’s not as windy today as it has been lately, but a few flurries still fall from the sky as we walk away from the office.
I glance around, seeing people carrying shopping bags full of presents and wearing red and green attire.
Part of me is a little bummed that I’m missing out on the holiday so much, but we can’t slow down.
“Where are we going?” I ask her as we round the corner.
“Just up here,” Emma says, not slowing her pace. She crosses the street and leads me around another corner, and the sight ahead answers my question.
An ice skating rink with the exterior donned in golden lights, red bows, and garland.
“I don’t think we have time to skate,” I tell her, raising my voice a little so that she can hear me over the Christmas music playing from a few speakers.
Emma shakes her head. “I just want to watch. And one of the best hot chocolates that I’ve ever had is sold here.”
We walk next to the ice skating rink as people twirl in the middle and coast along the edge, laughter and gasps ringing across the ice. Some people look like they’re professionals, while others hang onto the rail for dear life.
I can’t exactly judge them because that would most likely be me.
“Two hot chocolates, please,” Emma orders at the small trailer next to the rink. She rubs her hands together and blows on them to keep them warm as we wait.
I have to keep myself from taking her hands in mine. Instead, I pay for our drinks before she can even take her card out, ignoring her protests. “You managed to get me out of the office. That deserves a reward.”
“You know that sounds kind of sad, right?” She leads me over to a bench so that we can watch the skaters.
“Coming from the person who worked late yesterday and the day before,” I say as I give her a smirk. When it comes to overworking, we’re pretty even. At least I had help from two other guys to start my own business.
Emma sips on her hot chocolate instead of arguing, coaxing a chuckle from me. “We need to relax for a minute. Just a minute.”
I fidget a little as my mind trails to all the work that I have to do today. Meetings, calls, emails to send. Paperwork to look over. Changes to program.
Emma grabs my hand and lifts my cup of hot chocolate toward my lips. “Drink and relax. Don’t make me force you.”
I cock an eyebrow at her. “And what would that look like?”
Emma’s face flushes as I call her bluff. She releases my hand and flips her hair behind her shoulder as her eyes shift forward. “Maybe I’ll steal your work key and lock you out of the office.”
“I can just work from home,” I point out.
Emma rolls her eyes, but an amused smile tugs at her lips. “You are so stubborn. Do you know that?”
“I’ve been told that once or twice.” I move closer and bump my knee against hers. The simple contact affects me more than it should, warmth spreading through me. “I’m sure you’ve been told that too.”
Emma lets her smile break through as she nods. “Just a few times.”
When her eyes meet mine, my heartbeat doubles. It has been great working with her. She’s smart, flexible, and dependable, but the problem is that she’s a huge distraction too.
She makes a damn Christmas sweater look like lingerie. And when she smiles at me like I’m the only person in this city worth looking at, it’s a miracle I’m still sitting upright.
I want her. So much it’s starting to scare me.
But every time I think about acting on it, I see Andrew’s face. Ethan’s. The years of friendship. The loyalty. The rules we never had to say out loud because we just knew them.
She’s not just their little sister anymore. She’s my weakness. And I’m not sure I can keep pretending she’s off limits.
“You look good in this coat,” Emma says as she touches the lapel of my dark gray overcoat. She sets her hot chocolate down on the bench next to her and pulls out her tablet, her fingers plucking out her drawing stylus.
“What are you doing?” I ask her as she scoots away from me and faces me, hiding whatever she’s drawing.
“Practicing,” Emma replies as her eyes flicker back and forth between me and her tablet.
When I realize that she’s sketching me, tension forms in my stomach, and I look away from her, unsure of what to do. She gazes at me all the time during the work day, but right now, she’s studying me.
I remember her sketching on the porch steps, feet bare, pencil smudges on her cheek. She used to draw everything—birds, leaves, sneakers, shadows on the wall.
Now she’s drawing me.
I wonder if she knows what that means. If she realizes how much space she’s taking up in my head. If she feels it too—that shift, that heat, that low buzz under the surface whenever we’re alone.
I should tell her that we need to go back to the office and get to work. I think I would do that with anyone else, but she has proven to be a surprising outlier. A curveball that I never saw coming.
“Am I making you nervous?” Emma asks as she continues sketching. She gets more comfortable by stretching her legs out and draping them over mine.
Blood rushes downward, accompanied by heat, and it takes everything in me not to shift just enough to feel the friction between us If she moves her legs any higher up my thighs, she’s going to drive me even crazier than she already has.
And I shouldn’t be letting this happen. Not with her. Not when her brothers are practically my own.
What the hell am I doing?
I’ve never had to fight against myself this way to keep my arousal in check. . There are people everywhere around us.
“No,” I finally say, my voice coming out strangled.
Emma smiles to herself. “You’re supposed to be relaxing. You work way too much and way too hard. You’re like the Energizer bunny.”
I breathe in slowly through my nose as I watch a few people skating, trying to take my mind off of the weight of her legs on mine. “It’s just… if I’m not working, I don’t know who I am.”
The words come out more honest than I meant. But Emma doesn’t mock me. She just nods, like she gets it.
“You’re going to burn yourself out, and you’ll be no help to anyone,” Emma replies before sighing. “I guess I should take my own advice.”
My eyes move over to hers as she lowers her tablet to rest on her lap. “We won’t leave late tonight then.”
Emma nods in agreement. “And you won’t come to work at five in the morning.”
Part of me wants to argue because I’m most productive in the morning, but she’s right. I won’t be any help if I burn myself out in the middle of this project.
“Okay,” I say as I rest my hand just below her knee, unable to resist myself. Unable to resist the feel of her against my palm.
“Okay,” Emma replies with a satisfied look.
She pulls her legs off me and scoots closer until our bodies are nearly pressing together.
The heat radiating between us is enough to fry my brain, but it seems completely one sided.
She doesn’t seem phased at all, even though I’m affected enough to will an erection away just from the brush of her legs.
She shows me the screen of her tablet where there’s a rough sketch of me gazing out at the rink.
Of course it’s good. Even her quick sketches feel like they’re pulled from some inner place only she can see.
But what guts me is that she chose me as her subject. In the middle of the chaos, she paused and saw me.
“You were meant to do this,” I say quietly, the words pulling themselves out of my chest. “You see people in a way the rest of us don’t. You should hold onto that.”
Emma’s eyes flick up to mine, soft and startled. And then—briefly, unmistakably—they dip to my mouth.
I freeze.
One lean forward and I could have her lips. One touch and this thing between us would explode.
But behind her face, I see Ethan’s. Andrew’s. The years we spent earning each other’s trust.
I clench my jaw and look away.
“We should get back,” I manage, voice tight. “Before they think I went rogue.”
Emma’s smile falters for half a second. Then she nods and powers down the tablet. “Yeah. Okay.”
I down the rest of my hot chocolate like it’ll douse the fire she lit inside me, toss the cup in a trash can, and follow her back down the sidewalk.
I got out of the office. I relaxed. I even smiled.
But there’s no unwinding when the one person who makes you feel most alive… is the one you can’t have.