Chapter 3
I’m sitting in the kitchen, innocently eating my usual humongous salad lunch, when my mind flashes to Cal on top of me, his deep gaze, the rush of unwanted feelings. I shake my head, coming back to the present to find my cat, Felix, staring at me from across the room.
“I don’t have any tuna,” I inform Felix. “Later. After grocery shopping.”
He’s a tuxedo cat, gray with a white mustache and white chest. It used to be that Felix only loved me, but when Cooper’s fiancée, Rowan, lived with me and Harper briefly, Felix devoted himself to her too.
In all fairness, she was a jilted bride at the time, and my boy here senses heartbreak.
Not that I’m heartbroken. I had a fun, strangely intimate one-night stand. No problem.
I avoid Felix’s stare, banishing thoughts of Cal from my mind. The memory of last night flooded back the moment I woke up, then again on my run, in the shower. I spear a cucumber slice. Maybe I should go for another run to clear my head.
Felix rubs against my leg with a shaky tail. He’s excited to be near me and ever hopeful for tuna. I stroke his cheek and give him a scratch on top of his head.
“Hel-lo,” Harper carols as she walks into the kitchen, holding a cheerful bouquet of flowers and a shopping bag.
We live in a house paid for by our close friend, Shayla Adler.
She’s a movie star like Harper’s mom. I know, we’re so lucky.
Shayla briefly lived here, too, with her assistant, but then she got together with her long-lost love, Harper’s older brother, Owen.
At least I don’t have to worry about me or Harper leaving for a guy.
Neither one of us wants man complications at this point in our lives.
“Someone’s got an admirer,” she says, giving me a sly look. “Found these on the porch. So-o-o, how was it last night?”
My heart hammers. “Those are for me?” I thought the flowers were one of her impulse buys.
She’s the kind of person to go to the store for one thing and come home with three more.
I go with a list. What can I say, I was an accounting major.
I like rules, order, and exact numbers. I’m also an excellent saver.
She plucks the card out of the bouquet and tries to hand it to me, but I evade it neatly. “Card has your name on it.”
We had one simple rule, Cal! Casual. It has to be from him, or Harper wouldn’t be enjoying this so much. I like rules, dammit!
I cross my arms. “You keep it. No, toss it.”
She grabs my hand and pushes the small envelope into it. “Don’t be weird. It’s for you. So how was it with the ball player? It was good, right? You’re glowing.”
“I am not glowing. I just got a lot of sleep and went for a run this morning.”
“You always go for a run and come back looking haggard.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“It’s beyond me why you torture yourself with running.”
I can’t seem to take my eyes off the flowers. They’re not bargain after-Valentine’s Day roses. It’s a pretty arrangement of pink tulips, white carnations, baby’s breath, and mini daisies. I lift my hair from the nape of my neck. It’s unbearably hot in here.
I tuck the note back in the flowers she’s holding. “You keep them. Put them in your room, okay?”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I just don’t like carnations.”
“Mac.”
“Mac is a truck. It’s Mackenzie.”
“You are a truck.” She opens the small envelope and pulls out the card, smiling.
“Sweet.” I bet she read it earlier on the porch.
She tucks the card back into the envelope.
“Wanna know what it says?” Her eyes sparkle mischievously.
Like this is a fun game. It’s not. Someone crossed the line after we explicitly set the rules for a no-hard-feelings encounter.
“They’re from Cal,” she says like I don’t know.
Felix stands on my leg, and I scoop him up, rubbing my chin on top of his soft head.
Harper sighs and sets the bouquet on the counter. “At least put them in a vase. These are better than the kind you get at the supermarket.”
“Fine, but they’re going in your room.”
She shrugs and starts emptying her bag onto the counter—half-price Valentine’s chocolate truffles, a hairbrush, chip clips, and lip gloss. She originally went for the candy.
I go back to eating lunch, my hands a little shaky.
Why would Cal send me flowers? We agreed last night was the end and for good reason.
He’s coming out of a relationship, and he’s a commitment-phobe.
The last thing I want is the heartache of an unsatisfying relationship, and that’s what it would be with him. Classic rebound situation.
And I hate to even let this influence my thinking, but Mom told me to stay away from him, and she’s never wrong about people. It’s what makes her so good at networking and building a client list.
What could Cal have possibly written in that note that made Harper say sweet?
I hoped with him staying in a hotel out of town and his law office situated on a side street I can easily avoid, that I wouldn’t have any reminders of him. Well, at least for long enough to stop thinking about him. When the memory isn’t so fresh.
How did he know where I live? He must’ve looked me up. This is so wrong. It’s worse than wrong. Actually, I’m pissed. Pissed with a capital P. I was enjoying a peaceful lunch with my demanding cat staring at me and now this.
I push back from the table, march over to the offending bouquet, and throw it in the trash.
Harper gives me side-eye. “Is this because your mom told you to stay away from him and you didn’t and now you feel guilty?”
I snort. “This has nothing to do with Mom. Cal and I agreed it was a onetime thing for many legit reasons.”
“Because you’re afraid of love.”
“I’m not afraid.” I glare at her. “I seem to remember Nathan sent you flowers out of the blue last Halloween—”
“Who sends Halloween flowers?”
“And you freaked out. Nathan was trying to mend fences, even though he has no idea what he did to make you hate him.” Nathan is my business partner, a loyal, solid guy. He was Harper’s neighbor growing up, and they used to be close.
“Oh, he knows what he did,” Harper says grimly.
“What did he do?”
She pulls the bouquet out of the trash can under the kitchen sink. “Good thing you just emptied the trash. That would’ve been gross.” She gets a vase from the cabinet and starts filling it with water.
I clench my jaw. “Don’t you see Cal’s breaking the rules of engagement? I never would’ve hooked up with him if I’d known he’d completely ignore the boundaries we set out in the beginning. There are rules for a reason.”
“Uh-huh.”
She plucks the card from the bouquet and puts it on my head. I let it fall to the floor. Felix bats it, and it hits the baseboard by the sink. I stare at the mystery card, torn between throwing it away and reading it.
Dammit, lawyers like Cal are supposed to follow the rules, color inside the lines. I went on a date with a lawyer once, and he may have bored me to tears, but he was definitely a rule follower.
I huff. “Cal must be a terrible lawyer. I bet he defended criminals.”
“Someone has to.” She sets the flowers in the vase and arranges them a bit. They are lovely. “Also, don’t you remember he said he did corporate law, or were you too busy admiring his tall, dark, and handsome self?”
“It was fun. End of story.”
She snatches the notecard off the floor. “Methinks you doth protest too much.”
“I don’t!” His dark soulful eyes as we joined.
“Mmm-hmm.” She removes the note from the envelope, sticks it under a magnet on the fridge, and puts away the chip clips.
I stare at her, refusing to read the note.
She uses the lip gloss, tucks it in her purse, and then opens the bag of chocolate truffles, unwrapping one and putting it in her mouth. “Want one?” she asks around the candy.
“Not until I finish lunch. Thank you.”
“Is that a rule your mom taught you? This is our house. No rules, baby.”
I snatch a truffle from the bag.
She snorts. “So easy. Oh! Felix is licking your salad. Did you have some tuna in there?”
“Felix! No! It was leftover pork chop.”
“Looks like you need a fresh salad from the fridge.” She sounds smug. She leaves, twirling her hairbrush.
I scoop Felix off the table. “You don’t deserve tuna.” I set him on the floor, and he delicately washes his face with a paw, looking pleased with himself.
I dump the salad into the trash, my eyes catching on the bouquet in its full glory in a glass vase on the counter. Ugh, Harper was supposed to take this with her.
I pull out a fresh plate and turn to the fridge. See, this is exactly why Harper put the note here. She knew hunger would win out over moral principles. I steel myself against any sweet sentiment.
Hope we can meet up again.
Cal
I swallow hard. Maybe he meant he’s hoping for another hookup. My stomach dips, an ache of reminder of the incredible pleasure. Slow hands, endless kisses, the heat. My God, the heat.
Would it be so bad to have one more night?
I snatch the card from the fridge and drop it in the trash.
Brooks Campbell Security has a regular Monday afternoon meeting in our office in town.
Our company is three equal partners—Nathan Brooks, Owen Campbell (my cousin), and me.
Nathan’s name comes first because he contributed the most money to founding the company.
I do the accounting, marketing, and logistics to keep everything running smoothly.
Nathan and Owen work on location with our clients for high-tech security systems and cybersecurity.
Business is doing much better than this time last year.
We added clients from the entertainment industry, thanks to Owen’s connections through his wife, Shayla, and Nathan’s close to a deal with the finance sector in the city.
This is in addition to work we’ve already established in pharma and tech companies.