Chapter Twenty-Five
ALICE
Kristi and Pete stayed the night. Unlike me, Kristi remembered to bring a bathing suit. She floated in the cool water, a blissful smile on her face at finally being weightless after carrying around her pregnant belly in the heat of early fall.
Pete pulled a kayak from the shed and paddled off with his fishing pole, giving us plenty of time to catch up on family gossip and baby plans.
He returned with a smile and no fish a few hours later, ready to fire up the charcoal grill and toss on the steaks he’d bought in town when they’d stopped for lunch.
They left the next morning after a late breakfast, Pete driving the rental and Kristi behind the wheel of their sedan. My big brother had hugged me tight before he left, his voice gruff as he promised, “If that guy doesn’t make this right, you tell me. I’ll come get you and bring you home.”
I’d squeezed him back just as tight. “Love you, Petey.”
“Love you too, Allie.”
Then they were gone, and I was alone with my thoughts.
I tried distracting myself with Pete’s leftover worms and fishing pole, dangling the line off the end of the dock and pulling in tiny sunfish and baby bass.
I threw them back, one after another, until the worms were gone and the sun was sliding down the horizon.
Dangling my feet in the cool lake water, I watched the setting sun streak vibrant red across the darkly glittering surface. It was too quiet. I was lonely.
Maybe being by myself to think hadn't been the best plan. I was still going in circles in my head, angry and heartbroken, sad and indignant, wanting to rage at Cooper and missing his arms around me.
I hadn't realized how much I'd come to rely on him until he was the last person I wanted to see. This is why friends shouldn’t sleep together. Because when things went wrong, who did I have to talk to? I knew I could call Kristi or one of my friends. I could talk to my mom.
Perversely, I didn't want any of them. I wanted Cooper. And Cooper was the last person I could talk about this with. I already knew what he would say.
I watched the sun disappear into the lake and I forced myself to think.
It wouldn't be long before Cooper tracked me down. I was no criminal mastermind. Cooper knew Pete and Kristi, knew where they worked. Now that the weekend was over and everyone was back from the wedding, he’d have everything—everyone—he might need to run me to ground.
I had to decide what I wanted before he did.
Out of nowhere, it occurred to me that I was absolutely positive Cooper was coming for me. Absolutely positive that despite what he believed about me and his father, Cooper still wanted me.
I had a right to be angry at Lacey and Maxwell, but why was I so mad at Cooper?
I’d been a stranger when Cooper met me. Maxwell was his father. Of course, he’d believed Maxwell. By the time Cooper knew me well enough to judge, Maxwell's story about our affair was buried in the past. Ancient history, just as Cooper had said.
Watching the lake as evening turned into night, I realized that while I was furious with Lacey and Maxwell, when it came to Cooper what I felt was more about embarrassment than anger.
I couldn’t bear the idea of facing him. It was irrational. I hadn’t done anything wrong. He was the one who should be too humiliated to look me in the eye.
So why was it the other way around? Why did I cringe every time I replayed his voice telling me he forgave me for sleeping with his father?
I thought about my desk at Sinclair Security, sitting empty all day. In almost ten years I’d never missed a day of work without notice. Never. Even when I was sick, I still covered email and the phones. As much as a part of me wanted to turn tail and run, Sinclair Security was my place, too.
The boys had rescued the family company from their father not long after Maxwell hired me, turning it from the most successful security agency in the Southeast to the best in North America.
I knew how much they’d billed when Maxwell had been at the helm and that number was nothing compared to the business they did now.
I’d been there every step of the way. Was I just going to leave it all behind?
Not showing up to work would cause problems for more than just Cooper. The angry, embarrassed part of me didn't give a crap. The part of me that had worked her tail off for almost a decade, who took pride in the job she did—that part cared.
It wasn't everyone else's fault that Maxwell was an asshole and Cooper was a dumbass. Most of the office hadn't even been around back then. They didn't deserve to suffer for Maxwell and Cooper’s mistakes.
And I made a killer salary with great benefits, including an on-site apartment that was practically free.
On the other hand, getting free rent for so many years, I'd socked away a heck of an investment portfolio.
If I didn't want to go back to Sinclair Security, I didn't have to.
I needed to work, but I had enough saved to give me time to make other plans.
I missed my family. There were plenty of companies in D.C. that would love to get their hands on someone with my specific skill set. I could move home and see my family more often. I could be there when Kristi and Pete's baby was born.
I'd always wanted to start a family, but I'd held off, knowing my marriage had cracks long before our divorce.
I tried to ignore the tick of my biological clock, but it was still there.
I was self-aware enough to understand why I was so excited about my niece- or nephew-to-be.
Even if I'd screwed up yet another relationship, I could be there for Pete and Kristi's kid.
The idea of going home floated in my head as a hazy, unformed potential. It was possible but held very little concrete appeal. I loved D.C. as the home of my childhood, but it wasn’t my place anymore. I loved and missed my family, but if I left, I’d miss the family I’d made in Atlanta.
I lay in bed Monday night, tossing and turning as I tried to sleep, my tangled emotions slowly sorting themselves out.
I wanted to kill Maxwell.
I could happily never see Lacey Sinclair again.
And I missed Cooper like a hole in my heart.
I was standing at the kitchen counter watching the coffee maker work on yet another pot of crappy coffee when the door to the cabin opened behind me. I whirled in alarm, my fear quickly replaced by the sense of fate asserting itself.
Fate or Cooper Sinclair. Sometimes I thought they might be the same thing.
Cooper stepped through the door and everything inside me stopped. Like a clock wound too tight, I was frozen in time for an endless moment, staring at Cooper, my soul drinking in every inch of him.
Slowly, I became aware of the beat of my heart, the breath in my lungs. Of Cooper waiting at the door, an unfamiliar hesitancy holding him back.
I expected my stored-up anger to sweep in and bring me back to life, but my rage was nowhere to be seen. All I felt was sweet, cool relief, a balm to my soul.
Cooper was here.
I'd run from him because I'd needed space to think, only to find that without Cooper I couldn't untangle the emotions in my heart. Why he should be the answer to a problem he’d helped cause, I didn't know.
I stayed where I was, eyes burning with unshed tears, and waited.
Cooper hovered at the door, a white bag in one hand, his other still closed over the knob. Was he nervous? Kristi had taken one look and said he was hot but scary. I was so used to the scary I took it for granted most of the time.
Watching him stand there, waiting, I realized that I wasn’t the only one who’d been messed up by Maxwell’s lies. I’d thought of Cooper as an adversary, as coming after me because that was what he did. Because it was about ego and him being in charge.
Seeing uncertainty in his eyes, the pale blue a flame instead of ice, my heart thawed. I’d been hurt by Maxwell’s lies, but so had Cooper.
When he stayed where he was, didn't barrel in demanding he get his way, a tight knot inside me relaxed. I opened my mouth, not sure what I planned to say but knowing instinctively that Cooper needed words.
Out came, “You're late.”
Cooper let out a bark of a laugh, tinged with relief. “I would have been here yesterday, but I didn't want to break up the wedding celebration to track you down.”
I focused on the bag in his hand. “What's that?”
“I wanted to bring you Annabelle's, but it's a long drive. The place in town isn’t as good, but I brought you breakfast.”
“Coffee?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“That I did bring from Annabelle's,” Cooper said, pulling a vacuum-sealed thermos from the bag. “Skinny vanilla latte.”
I took the coffee and retreated, leaving a few feet between us. I sipped, savoring the scent, the taste of rich bitter coffee, sweet vanilla, and cream.
Maybe I needed coffee to reboot my brain. Maybe all I needed was Cooper. He opened his mouth and my hand shot up to stop him.
“Before you say anything, I have to ask you a question and I need the truth. No matter what. It won’t change anything, even if it isn’t what I want to hear, but I have to know.”
Lips pressed in a thin line, Cooper nodded.
“I know you said you want this thing with us to be real, but when it first started, was it because of what your father told you? Did you think since I was finally divorced I’d be up for a fling with my boss? Was I just convenient?”
“No!” Cooper barked out the word so fast I couldn’t doubt its truth. His tan skin faded to an ashen gray, and he took a step forward before forcing himself to stop, every muscle in his body locked tight, his eyes aflame with an emotion I was afraid to read.
“No, Alice,” he finally choked out. “It was never a fling. Not for me. My father had nothing to do with it. I swear.”
“Why did you believe him?” I asked, realizing that was the only question that mattered. Why had Cooper believed Maxwell's lies? How could he have thought so little of me?
Cooper shifted the bag in his arms, his eyes never leaving mine, seeming to weigh his words before he spoke.
Finally, he said, “My dad made up the whole story because he knew I had a thing for you.
I wasn't going to do anything about it, you were married, and, unlike my dad, I respect that.
But he knew. He didn't want any of us to get involved with any woman beyond sex, said it was a trap. He made up the story about sleeping with you to scare me off.”
“How do you know?”
“He admitted it to Knox. Apparently, I'm the only asshole who fell for Dad’s story. Knox, Evers, and Axel all knew it was bullshit.”
I tightened my fingers around the thermos, shock chasing words from my brain. Cooper had feelings for me way back then? He was so cool, so remote, I never would have guessed. Not in a million years.
Cooper drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“I should have known he was lying. Maybe I would have, but I was trying to talk myself out of wanting you.
You were married. There was no chance. Ever since you took off, I've been asking myself— Why? Why couldn’t I see through his lies like everyone else?
I think it's because I needed to put you out of reach. Just like he planned, my dad gave me the perfect excuse to convince myself to walk away. To stop pining.”
I was a statue, unable to move, mouth hanging open, eyes wide, breath trapped in my lungs.
What. The. Fuck?
Cooper had pined for me?
Cooper had wanted me so much he couldn't convince himself to stay away?
He waited for me to say something. Anything. I had nothing. Of all the things I’d imagined he’d say, this was nowhere on the list.
He’d pined for me?
I was going to melt into a puddle. Pined for me?
All those years I watched him in the office, admiring him from afar, knowing I’d never act on my crush—
He was my boss. I was married.
All that time reminding myself he’d never have looked at me even if I’d been free, and he was pining? My brain couldn’t fit around that idea.
I must have looked like a fish out of water, gaping at him, my mouth open to speak only for the words to dissolve before they reached my tongue.
Done with waiting for me to get it together, Cooper closed the distance between us, setting the paper bag he still held on the kitchen table, taking the coffee from my hands and putting it beside the bag.
I stared up at him, my heart an erratic drumbeat in my chest, still soaring with hope, diving into confusion, leaving me utterly without words.
Cooper’s hands closed over my shoulders, and the heat of his palms spread through me, thawing me, bringing me back to life.