23. Rachel
23
RACHEL
“ F uck,” I whispered in the bathroom stall. I snuck away to have a break from acting like everything was fine and dandy. It was not. Nothing felt good or right tonight.
Ever since Nate heard me telling my family that I’d been in love with him forever, he’d been distant.
He was at my side. We were together. Holding hands, schmoozing, laughing. The works. He didn’t look like a loner to laugh at here. He looked like a man enjoying himself with his date.
That was what he projected. But I knew better. I could tell that he was surprised and confused, and maybe even a little cautious.
I closed my eyes and sighed. Taking in another deep breath to steady myself and calm my nerves, I tried to understand how this could have impacted him like this.
Would it be so terrible to know that I loved him? Would it?
We’d joked about my having a crush on him, and he hadn’t seemed bothered that we were starting a mature connection now.
I don’t understand!
If he was worried about me causing drama or something, then that was understandable. This night was an important event for him. It triggered him to think back to when Yasmin’s infidelity had been exposed to him, when she accused him of being a lousy husband she wanted to leave.
He needed me to be his support, and I damn well was. But only on the surface, and that stung.
I wanted to go back to mattering, to being the woman he wanted and cherished. Not this plus-one to use as a prop.
I just need one minute. To talk to him. To explain. To make sure he wasn’t thinking the worst or assuming something crazy.
Sure, it was a huge bombshell that he’d heard. Love wasn’t a trivial little thing.
Maybe I’d fudged it that I’d been in love with him all these years. I hadn’t been. I’d been with Kyle and gave it my all even when he couldn’t give me anything at all. But I was in love with Nate now . I didn’t see an end to it, either.
I returned to the party, finding him with that simple smile on his face. It wasn’t my smile, the soft, slow one he reserved for me.
Dammit. I need to just explain it all.
I didn’t. I couldn’t. The party was just too loud, too busy, and too hopping. There wasn’t a single chance to get Nate off to the side and have a private conversation, but I desperately wished I could.
Through the smiles and small talk, I rehearsed in my mind how I’d clear up this confusion. I could tell him that I loved him. I could share this newer realization that I’d felt it for a while but was too nervous to tell him. I could open up and explain that he had nothing to do with why Kyle dumped me, that the relationship ended due to no fault of mine or Nate’s, just that Kyle was gay.
“I’ll be right back,” Nate told me toward the end of the night.
“Wait.” I grabbed his hand before he could move away.
He paused, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “I’ve got to do this speech…”
“No. Wait.” I frantically looked around. “Can we just talk for a second?”
“Rach.” He chuckled. “I’ve got to talk to everyone for a minute.”
“But—”
“And now,” the company president said on the stage, “help me welcome our CFO, Nate McIntosh.”
Applause rose for him.
Oh, shut up. I sighed, releasing Nate’s hand so he could go up to the podium.
This was where Yasmin ended their marriage. This was the stage she stood on when she accused him of being a lousy, cheating husband. The screen hung back there was the same surface where the video showed the evidence of her infidelity.
Yet, Nate went up there, all smiles and charm. He spoke clearly, congratulating teams and individuals for their hard work, naming specific projects throughout the year. A few jokes were shared. None made sense to me, but the people who were involved cracked up in the audience.
I stood there, nervous and partly holding my breath for him to handle this well, and he did.
Without pause. Without a falter. And no one heckled him.
I wanted to think that he handled it because he knew I was here, supporting him, but that couldn’t be true.
He didn’t look at me once.
My heart felt fragile as he stepped off the stage, returning to my side for the next speech. And the next.
Why won’t you look at me, Nate?
Why can’t I explain?
He took my hand, holding it again, but as far as PDA went, it was chaste.
Julie sidled up to us after the last speech. She waggled her brows and tilted her head toward the dance floor. “Aren’t you two going to dance at least once?”
No. God, no, Julie. No matchmaking now. Read the room.
“Yes,” Nate said, to my surprise. “We should dance.”
I furrowed my brow as he led me out there to dance to a jazzy version of, yet again, another Christmas song.
I picked at his words, thinking that his reply that we should dance held a hell of a different meaning from let’s dance.
The second he embraced me, though, holding me close but not flush to the point of intimacy, I sighed and faced him fully.
He smiled, but still, it wasn’t the one for me.
“Nate?”
He arched a brow. “Hmm?”
“I told you that I’m clueless.”
He frowned. “What?”
“I told you.” I licked my lips, feeling a surge of urgency to explain it all. To ramble and unleash this funky anxiety that I could’ve screwed this all up somehow.
“I’m clueless. I told you that I’m na?ve about men. How to talk to them, how to read them, how to handle them.”
He opened his mouth but I rushed on.
“You haven’t been a mentor. Not at all. You haven’t given me lessons on how to be confident with men. You haven’t provided advice for all these complicated situations and laws of attraction. I still have no idea how to strike up a conversation with a man I am interested in, and I still don’t understand how someone can say they’ve got moves.”
He stared at me, piercing me with the intensity of his gaze.
“And I am really clueless how to properly tell a man that I love him. That I’m in love with him.” I exhaled. “Through no fault of his own.”
He didn’t say anything. Slowing his steps, he focused his energy on just staring at me. “Rachel?”
“No.” I shook my head. “That was only the first part of the ramble.”
“There’s more?”
I nodded. “Lots more.”
“Can you pause for this?” He leaned down, capturing my lips with his. The kiss started soft. Tender, even, but once my brain clicked on and I realized he was kissing me, I grunted with surprise and reached up to kiss him back harder.
He was kissing me, holding me closer and showing all who might be watching that we weren’t just dates to this holiday party. He was with me.
When he backed up, watching me, I struggled to speak. Opening and closing my mouth, I was at a loss for what to explain, or ask, next.
“Hold that thought,” he interrupted.
Without giving me a chance to reply, he grabbed my hand and led me off the dancefloor.
I followed, hurrying to keep up with his stride as he left the dancing area. We wove through the crowd, dodging all the people drinking and mingling and all around having a pleasant night.
I’d been so frantic to score a moment alone with Nate to explain myself and tell him how I felt. Now that he was practically rushing me out of the whole ballroom, I had no clue what to think or feel. That kiss was awfully promising. But didn’t he need to see this damn party to the end?
He hadn’t wanted to come here and face those painful memories alone, but was sneaking off with me the way he wanted everyone to remember him at this year’s holiday party? It was just as scandalous.
Maybe even more so.
He didn’t slow or stop, not until he snuck me into an elevator and jabbed the button for an upper floor. Through a twisting, confusing series of turns, I followed him and quickly felt lost.
When he pushed through another set of doors, though, pulling me into an office space that looked familiar, I realized belatedly that the Malley, Inc. building was connected to the posh venue.
“Huh,” I said. “I never realized we were somehow on the same block.”
Skyscrapers blended like that for me, and I sort of liked how the metropolis just merged into a huge spread of architecture, reaching for the sky.
“And I never realized,” Nate said as he led me into his office, then closed and locked the door, “that you and I were somehow on the same page.”
I panted, out of breath from the run out of there and from the heated look he seared me with. He stalked toward me, backing me up to his desk until my legs knocked into its edge.
“Same page?” I asked. “Which page is that?”
He growled, kissing me hard. His fingers curled, cupping my face, and I sighed into his mouth.
This. This was what I needed, what I feared I’d lost when he seemed so distant. This raw, carnal need, the passion.
“The same page,” he said between kisses, “where we both fight for what we want.”
I gripped the front of his tux jacket and hauled him closer. Using the leverage of his body, so much taller and stronger than mine, I had the lift to scoot up onto the edge of his desk.
Parting my legs wider, I was grateful that the slit in this gown could accommodate me like this. That it could accommodate him grinding against me.
My fingers moved too quickly to work well as I hurried to undo the buttons on his shirt, but he wasn’t any better. He shoved at my dress, bunching the material in messy folds as he tried to reach for me.
“No.”
I pushed at him so I could stand. As soon as I did, he spun me around and tugged on the zipper. Keeping me facing forward, he tipped my head until I could kiss him again.
With the angle of him leaning over me, I bent forward, over his desk, and I wondered if this was how his dream went.
I smiled, shivering as he shoved my dress down. It pooled on the floor, leaving me in just my panties and a thin bra. He covered my back as he pushed me to rest against his chest, and I'd never felt more secure. More wanted.
Like I belonged right here, bewitched with this raging desire that never stayed calm between us for long.