Chapter 13
Thirteen
My finger jams the lobby button of the elevator, and the annoyance I’m feeling seeps into the small steel box to wrap Jules and me in its angry cloud. “You should have given me more of a heads-up.”
From my peripheral, I can see Jules lift her oblivious face from her phone to look at me. “Are you really upset? I don’t see what the big deal is. You’ve been here for two days, and you already look as angry as a hornet. Is the office that bad?”
A vibrating buzz begins in my inner suit pocket before the familiar sound of my ringtone mixes with the jazzy elevator music. Pulling my phone out, I see it’s a business call that should have come through hours ago.
“I have to take this.”
Jules nods, her attention going back to her cell without another word.
The conversation takes longer than I anticipate, lasting the entire car ride to the restaurant and all the way through ordering our entrées. As I finally set down my phone, her bright eyes are glued to my face, a knowing smirk etched across her Botoxed lips.
“What?” I snap with more annoyance than she deserves.
She sips her sauvignon blanc slowly before responding, “We all knew coming back would be hard on you, Law. I just didn’t expect it to take its toll so soon.”
My filet melts on my tongue. It’s possibly one of the best steaks I’ve ever had, but I can’t enjoy it because all I can keep thinking about is the way Lucy looked when Jules arrived.
When I agreed to return to Chicago, I never dreamed we’d run into each other again, let alone be working together.
Our few stolen moments and one very big mistake on my part are set aside in a rainbow-colored box in my mind—part of my past, where it needs to stay.
Yet, it seems as if no time has passed at all. Lucy and I are both very different people now, and still, the attraction remains as strong as it was then—stronger because she’s a woman now—a young woman, but not an eighteen-year-old girl anymore.
Would it really be so bad, Lawson?
I recognized the flash of jealousy in her eyes when she saw Jules, and fuck if it doesn’t confuse the hell out of me. Why would she care? Is there a chance she’s feeling what I am? The strong pull. That electric spark.
Yes, it would be. You crossed a line back then and encouraged something you shouldn’t have. She would have never thought of you like that otherwise.
Think of Rhys.
My son barely speaks to me as it is. If he ever finds out that I’m even entertaining the thought of starting something with Lucy …
“Lawson?” Jules’ voice cuts through my thoughts. Shaking my head, I realize I’ve been absentmindedly staring out the glass of the solarium.
My shoulders hitch in a noncommittal shrug as I focus my attention back on her. “I’m fine.”
Being one of my closest friends for the better part of the last six years, she knows when not to push the subject.
Candlelight bounces off her face as she cuts another piece of her herbed chicken, lips pulling wide as she glances at me from beneath her lashes.
“You must be thrilled about your new secretary.”
“Assistant lead,” I correct automatically. M.I.G. stopped using the term “secretary” years ago. “And why do you think I’m thrilled?”
Because where Lucy is concerned, you’re too damn easy to read.
“I think we both know why, Lawson.” Her eyes narrow as she focuses on a random spot behind my head. “Lucy… She looks young. Maybe around Rhys’ age?”
I can feel the sweat beginning to bead at my temple. And because Jules knows me too damn well, her eyes grow wide as she puts all the details together. She sets down her fork and picks up her wine, settling back in her chair while I reach for my water glass and down half of it in one gulp.
“It’s her, isn’t it? She’s why you like the red wig so much,” she muses, rubbing her glass along her bottom lip.
Jules and Cameron don’t know all the details of what happened between Lucy and me, but they know enough.
When I moved to New York, I was broken. I’d committed what I felt was a heinous crime, and I didn’t even go after Lucy to try and rectify it.
I didn’t check on her to see how she was.
I blocked her from my life and ran from my problems.
I don’t know what type of life I would have fallen into if it weren't for them. They took me in and helped me learn a lot about myself, even though I was thirty-seven and should have had my shit together.
“It makes sense now, why you’re so grumpy.”
“Can we not talk about it?”
“She’s beautiful, Lawson. And looks like she adores you. She wanted to stab me the second I walked into your office,” Jules laughs. “I imagine she noticed how much I look like Charlotte, too. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall when she realizes you prefer redheads.”
“She isn’t going to find out,” I grit out derisively, motioning for our server to bring me another whiskey.
“Well, that’s a damn shame. You two look positively edible together.
” Her tone drops suggestively, a recognizable heat filling her gaze as she licks her lips.
“Can you imagine if Cameron had taken the job? You’d have never known she worked for us, and I guarantee he would have had her on her back in the first week. ”
The thought of Cameron touching Lucy instantly brings my blood to a roaring boil—a feral, possessive monster ripping through my chest in a way it didn’t when I thought of her and Mike together.
Lucy was prepared for Cameron to take over.
She’d studied him. Knew his likes and dislikes.
She was eager to please him, yet she keeps giving me so much sass.
If she sassed Cameron the way she does me, he’d have put her over his knee and punished her, company policy be damned. He’d throw caution to the wind in the same way I want to but can’t.
Not with her.
Roughly, I push my plate away as the server appears with my new drink. “Thanks, Jules. I’m no longer hungry.”
“Aww. Did the whittle baby lose his appetite at the thought of his friend bending the woman he wants over a desk?” she mocks in a child-like tone.
An abrupt cough flies from our server’s throat as he clears the table silently. I glare at Jules while she beams a Cheshire grin back at me. “I can’t wait to fill Cam in on all this.”
“There’s nothing to fill him in on. I’ve already decided I’m going to pass the office off to Randall once it’s integrated. Shouldn’t take more than a year.” I fish my wallet out and pluck two hundreds and a fifty from it, handing them to the server. “Keep the change.”
When he leaves with a thank you, Jules eyes me skeptically. “And then what? Come back to New York and go back to your old ways?”
“Sounds like a good plan to me.” I knock back my whiskey.
New York helped me bury my sin before it taught me all the things I should have already known about myself. Charlotte and I had Rhys so young that I never had the opportunity to find myself after high school.
Now that I know who I am, it’s even more reason to stay away from Lucy.
“Have you tried to talk to her about it?” Jules asks, setting her empty glass down. “She didn’t appear frightened of you or uncomfortable. Perhaps you’re making a big deal out of nothing.”
“She was a child.” My teeth clench together so hard I swear I hear my molars crack.
“She’s not a child now, Lawson,” Jules parries. “And what will you do when Rhys finds out? Or are you planning on keeping it from him for a whole year? Isn’t he moving back in a few months?”
“Have you always been this much of a nag?” I deflect.
“Darlin’, you know I’m only quiet and subservient in the bedroom,” she teases.
While we wait for the elevator to take us back down to street level, Jules turns to face me full-on. “You know, I think I will join them at that bar for drinks.”
“You can’t fuck the employees,” I remind her, though she doesn’t need reminding. I happen to know she gets away with it in the New York office because no one blinks twice if a woman in power wants to dally with men who work under her.
“Like I told you earlier, Law. They aren’t my employees.”
From the outside, Lauren’s Fault looks like a hole in the wall with a blue neon sign. The L and F are dimmer than the rest of the letters, and a bunch of newspaper clippings are plastered over the front window.
Inside the bar, however, it’s all smooth black walnut, with maroon and forest green vinyl booths and golden stools with tufted vinyl cushions.
The establishment stretches far beyond the large bar and pool table area to a patio.
And hanging on the walls are framed news articles from various major events throughout the years.
I recognize the flash of Lucy’s wild mane at the end of the bar as she throws her head back with a shot of something clear lifted to her lips. She slams the glass on the table with the rest of the group as they all cry out, “It’s Lauren’s fault!”
Jules hears them before she sees them, grabbing my hand to pull me through the crowd toward a bunch of employees I haven’t bothered getting to know yet.
“Whoo! Looks like you all got the party started already!” she shouts.
Many sets of eyes turn our way, but I can’t pull my gaze away from the deep hazel ones currently glaring in Jules’ direction before they fall to where our hands are still locked together.
Untangling my fingers, I turn toward the bar without greeting anyone, sneaking glances at Lucy as she walks toward one of the dart boards, where Anna and Justin are having an animated conversation over a pitcher of beer.
Lucy’s let her hair down from her ponytail, and the curls are tousled like she’s just run her hands through them—or like she just got fucked roughly into a mattress.
Her dress is a swatch of rainbow watercolor fabric that hugs her breasts and is only secured by thin straps around her neck.
A cutout over her sternum shows a stretch of sun-kissed skin before the skirt ripples down, kissing the tops of her toned thighs .