Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
His office door is closed. I should turn around while I still can. Maybe I don’t need a key to get out? As hard as I’m willing myself to turn and go, I keep moving forward.
The hallway isn’t long. The half-closed blinds lining the windows to his office are visible from here. I spy movement between the slats and swallow hard. Gareth Branson is right there, so close, moving around, doing important work, not expecting me to barge in after-hours like this, or at any time.
I’m going to take him by surprise and I’m not sure if that’s fair. Or sane. But my knuckles meet the wood just below his title. President. I turn the knob and let myself in before he has a chance to cross the room and open the door.
“Well, hello there, Mr. B Still a workaholic, I see.”
He blinks as if he thinks he might be hallucinating. “Oh, my God. Jewel Alexander.”
“It’s Carrigan now.” My smile is unyielding, like the corners of my mouth have been yanked up and super glued. He looks happy to see me. Unless I’m the one hallucinating.
“Congratulations.”
“Oh, no. I’m not married. Carrigan was my mom’s name. My birth name, the real one.”
“Right. I’m sorry. Please, come in.” He stands and motions toward the leather sofa under the mounted sailfish. It strikes me that his eyes are the same deep blue of the fish’s scales, and I can’t help but look back and forth between them again.
I’d forgotten the depths of his eyes, but his voice is exactly as I remember it, even with the nervous energy I’ve infused into it.
“I’m in town to finalize my father’s estate. His attorney is in the building, so I thought I’d pop in and say hello. Hope I’m not interrupting anything important.”
“No. Of course not. Seriously, sit. I’m going to have a drink. Can I make you one?”
“Sure. Whatever you’re having.” I sink into the worn leather cushions and am overcome with the desire to kick off my shoes and pull my legs up under me, make myself comfortable.
“Make yourself comfortable,” he says, as he plinks ice cubes into whiskey glasses.
Damn. Hope he can’t read all my thoughts.
“Have you seen Shandy?” he asks as he walks toward me, his eyes studying me. I’m not sure if he’s suspicious or simply cataloguing my changes since we last saw each other.
My fingers graze his when I take the drink, and I swear that scant second of contact sizzles the air between us.
“No,” I say. “I haven’t kept up with anyone, so I didn’t reach out. It’s been so long.”
“I bet she’d still like to hear from you. You two were like sisters.”
“We were, but my life was very different after . . .”
I let my voice trail off, the gravity of his likening Shandy and me to sisters weighs too heavy on my chest to say more.
“Your lives are probably pretty different now, too. She’s married, three kids. Soccer mom.”
The high-dollar whiskey I’m attempting to swallow burbles back up from my throat. “I’m sorry. Did you just say Shandy has kids old enough to play soccer?”
“Her oldest is seven. She got pregnant in college, quit and married Connor. His office is right down the hall. I always imagined she’d be the one working here someday, not her husband.”
“Yeah, that was definitely her plan when I knew her.” I don’t mean to rub salt in a wound, and judging from his expression, this truth hurts. “But people grow up and change, I guess.”
“That they do. How about you? What are you doing these days?”
“Designing commercial kitchens. Started out in culinary school. Took me a year and a half to realize cooking wasn’t my passion, but I knew what worked in a kitchen, and I had a good eye for design so, here I am.
I get to travel to restaurants all over the country and work with owners and chefs.
Spend a lot more time mediating arguments and egos than I ever would’ve imagined, but I like the challenges.
Predictability never really appealed to me. ”
“Good for you. You made smart changes, didn’t throw your life away.”
“Is Shandy not happy?”
“Can’t imagine how she could be, but she was always closer to her mom. When we divorced, Shandy was a pregnant college dropout. I didn’t hide my opinions on the subject too well. I’d be the last person she’d confide in at this point.”
“For what it’s worth, I think your opinions were probably justified.”
He shrugs. “Sharing them didn’t help. Didn’t change the situation.”
I sip from my glass and try not to let my true reaction to his failed marriage show. “I didn’t realize you and Allison had gotten divorced. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be. We were no better matched than Shandy and Connor. But you can’t stop your kids from repeating your mistakes.”
I’d always known the Bransons were younger than most of the other parents, but it never occurred to me how much younger.
I see it clearly now. His hair is barely starting to gray at the temples, his jawline still tight, like the rest of him unless that white button down has muscled padding built into it.
My fingers unconsciously tap against my thigh like they’re working over a keyboard in slow motion, but what they’re itching to work is his buttons, to open that pressed shirt and trail through the curls on his chest, clutch a fistful of it to pull him closer.
“You made some damn good choices, too, not just mistakes. I mean, look around. You’ve done pretty well.”
“Yeah,” he says solemnly. “But I definitely made my share of mistakes.”
God, those stormy-night eyes of his are destroying me. “I hope you don’t think of me as a mistake.”
“I was wondering if that’s why you came. To confront me.”
He remembers.
“No, not to confront you. It is why I came, but only because I’ve never been able to get over it.”
“I am so sorry, Jewel. I had no right—”
“No, you’ve got it all wrong. I’m not here for an apology, Gareth.”
“That’s the first time you’ve ever called me anything other than Mr. B.”
“Mr. B is what I called you when I was a girl. I’m a woman now.
And you star in more of my fantasies than I should be willing to admit.
The only hand that had gotten me off before yours was my own.
I’d been fingered before, fucked, too. But they were boys with no idea what they were doing, all stabbing in the dark.
Literally.” I pause to laugh, watching his beautiful mouth break into a smile.
“I barely remember their names. But I remember your kiss tasted like spiced rum and coke, your shirt smelled like smoke from the steaks you’d grilled for dinner, and when I buried my face in it and you whispered my name into my hair, I wanted to freeze time so you could hold me like that forever.
No one had ever made me feel like that. And no one has since. ”
“Jesus, Jewel. You’ve put me on a pedestal I don’t deserve. And if I were a better man, I’d send you out of here right now before I make another mistake.”
“Please don’t remember me as a mistake, Gareth.” I walk to him, position his knee between my legs. “Besides, I’m not that girl anymore. I’m a grown woman now. Any mistakes I make are my own.”
He sets his glass on the floor and I shiver when his cold hand meets my thigh under my skirt. His stare sends an electric current up my spine.
“My actual desires run a little darker than your innocent memories, sweet girl.”
“And I’m not as innocent as you remember, but I’ll be your sweet girl. Teach me, Daddy.”