16. Cole
SIXTEEN
COLE
Boisterous conversation rang out from all sides of Rome’s dining table. I sat to his left while Alba chatted animatedly on the other side of me. She was speaking to Rome’s wife, Nikki, who was dressed in a vintage dress that was vaguely reminiscent of pinup, the style accentuated by her shiny black hair and vampy red lips. I caught Rome glancing over at her, and the look in his eyes was one that, up until he’d met Nikki—when he hired her for a very unconventional position at his company directly following a major screwup by me—I’d never seen before. It was a look that was a secret language all on its own. The depth of emotion that they exchanged with a brief glance and a half-smile was something I’d never experienced.
Alba didn’t look at me like that.
“What do you think, Cole?” my fiancée said, turning to glance at me. Her look wasn’t darkly amused and promising fun later, the way Nikki’s was with Rome. It was a glance that said, I know you have no interest in this conversation, but don’t you dare embarrass me.
“What’s that?” I asked, reaching for the cut crystal wine glass filled with a rich Bordeaux wine.
“Penny says we should get a dog.”
I wrinkled my nose, peering past Alba to the redhead sitting on the far side of my soon-to-be wife. “I’m not a dog guy.”
“That’s a red flag,” Penny announced.
Marcus Walsh, Penny’s husband, let out a huff that, coming from him, was basically a tears-running-down-your-cheeks kind of laugh.
“I agree,” Alba said, a tinkling giggle falling from her lips. “How else am I going to know if you’re going to be a good dad?”
A sour gurgling went through my stomach. Becoming a dad? With Alba ? I hid my reaction by sipping my wine and arching a brow. “A child isn’t the same thing as a dog.”
“True,” Penny said. “I love all dogs, but I only love a select few children.”
That made me laugh, and I tilted my head in agreement.
Alba clicked her tongue. “Penny said when we get a dog, she can set us up with an entire dog wardrobe.”
I met my fiancée’s gaze. “First of all, ‘when’ we get a dog?” I shifted my gaze to Penny. “And a dog wardrobe? What’s that?”
Marcus stretched his arm around the back of Penny’s chair, a glittering in his eyes. “You’re telling me Cole Christianson didn’t research everyone coming to this dinner party ahead of time?”
“I know you just sold Sellzy,” I told the other man. He was rich enough to buy a few small countries now, if the reports I’d read about the deal were accurate.
“I’m a kept man,” he said, and Penny rolled her eyes.
“My business wouldn’t even sustain your coffee habit, babe,” she told him, elbowing him in the gut while a smile bloomed over her face.
Across the table, Bonnie glanced up. She was another one of their friends who was married to a man I’d met at a charity event a few years back. Arlo Noble was known for creating and launching companies, and I always kept an eye on what he was doing; it was certain to impact the markets when he decided to make a move.
Bonnie leaned forward and said, “Don’t you dare sell yourself short, Penny. Didn’t you just open your third physical location?”
“She’s had to start working with another manufacturer because her previous one couldn’t handle all the orders,” Marcus bragged.
Penny, copper-haired and fair-skinned, went bright red. “He drinks a lot of coffee.”
Bonnie rolled her eyes. “You’re a businesswoman in your own right, Penny. Just because Marcus made a silly little deal to get rid of his own business doesn’t take that away from you.”
That “silly little deal” was upwards of nine figures, but I made a mental note to check out Penny’s business. It sounded like she was well-matched with Marcus, and that was the kind of information that was valuable to note, in case she ever went public with her company.
Alba lifted her glass. “Ladies, please don’t distract us from the matter at hand. I was convincing my husband-to-be that we absolutely must get a dog.”
Laughter rang out, and I made a show of putting my arm around her shoulders while the staff cleared our dessert plates. “I’ll consider it,” I said, and Alba patted my thigh with a self-satisfied smirk on her face.
My thoughts circled back to her throwaway comment—the one about the dog being good training for a kid. I tried to imagine a child fitting into my life, a little mini-Alba or mini-me. A mini us. It felt wrong, and I didn’t know why.
“Hey,” Rome said, pushing his chair back. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
I nodded, following my friend and ex-boss out of the dining room. We went to a small living room decorated with dark colors and rich textures. Rome poured me a drink—he knew I was partial to port after a meal—and invited me to sit on a large, chocolate-colored leather sofa with rolled arms and a tufted back. I sank into the cushions and let out a long breath.
Rome came around the sofa and took a seat in the armchair to my right. He pulled something out of his breast pocket and handed it over.
My brows jumped at the grainy, black-and-white image. An ultrasound picture. I glanced up. “Another one?”
He grinned. “Number three.” He pointed to the picture I still clutched between my fingers. “And number four.”
I blew out a breath. “Twins.” Catching myself before my selfish, bitter feelings showed on my face, I glanced up. “Congrats, Rome.”
His smile was unlike anything I’d seen before. When we worked together, he was all business, all the time. He’d rarely smile, unless it was a triumphant grin when he closed a particularly juicy deal. “We’re not telling anyone yet—it’s early—but I can’t wait.”
He was a changed man—and I was happy for him.
But as I handed the ultrasound image back and watched as he let his gaze linger on the image, another wave of bitterness went through me.
It felt like we were drifting apart. He was a family man now, with two kids and a wife. He’d taken a step back in the business and wasn’t shy about telling me how happy he was as a result.
I couldn’t relate.
He was my best friend, and it felt like I was watching him turn into a stranger.
“Alba’s great,” he finally said to break the silence. The ultrasound picture disappeared into his pocket again, and he reached for his drink to take a sip.
I nodded. “She is.”
My best friend watched me, eyes narrowing slightly. “Sounds like there’s a ‘but’ in there.”
“There’s no ‘but,’” I said, maybe a bit too quickly. “She’s great. Our families are happy. Alba’s planning a great wedding. It’s good.”
Even to my own ears, my words sounded hollow. I thought about the look Rome and Nikki had exchanged at the dinner table, and I wondered if some people were just luckier than others. Maybe that kind of love wasn’t in the cards for me—the kind of connection that didn’t need words. Two people drawn together like magnets, who could never be apart no matter what circumstances tried to come between them.
Gray eyes blinked in my mind, with pink lips curled into a coy smile. I banished the image.
She wasn’t for me. She never had been.
Rome cleared his throat. “Cole…”
My fingers clutched my glass of port as I leaned the base of it against my knee, and I forced myself to meet Rome’s gaze.
He let out a sigh. “You don’t have to marry her.”
I jerked back. “What?”
“‘Our families are happy?’” he parroted back at me. “‘Alba’s planning a great wedding?’”
My gaze slid away from his. I didn’t know what to say.
“This isn’t a boardroom deal, Cole. It’s the rest of your life.”
“Is this what you wanted to talk to me about? What is this, some kind of intervention?”
Rome was quiet for a while. He let out a long breath, and when he spoke, his voice was quiet. “When you quit your job at my company, I was angry, Cole. Really angry. I took it personally.”
“I remember.”
“It wasn’t until Nikki and I…until I found out…” He trailed off. We both remembered what had happened between them. Rome let out a harsh breath and turned to face me again. “She changed my life, Cole. She changed me . She made me realize what it’s like to have a strong woman at my side. What it’s like to have a partner . And the fact that we have kids now, that our family’s growing… I can’t tell you how much joy it brings me.”
I thought about my own father, about those long, difficult conversations we’d had when I’d first reached out to him. He and my birth mother had had a one-night stand, and he had been all-in on his career. When she told him she was pregnant, he hadn’t had the space in his life for a child. She had no family support and few career prospects; they couldn’t do it on their own. It was better for me if they gave me up to a family that could care for me the way they couldn’t.
At the time, his explanations had made sense. He’d made an effort to keep in touch, had made me feel like he wanted me in his life. And he did—why else would he have offered me a job, allowed me to rise to the top of the company he’d nurtured from nothing?
But hearing Rome’s words made an old, buried doubt sprout in my mind. Rome had made a different decision. He’d chosen his child. He’d chosen the woman he loved.
What if I’d had a father like that? What if I’d spent my childhood feeling wanted , instead of noticing all the little ways that I was treated differently from my siblings? The missed birthdays, the extra chores, the way I was blamed for my siblings’ bad behavior?
What kind of man would I be if I’d grown up whole? Would I be marrying a woman that I didn’t?—
I cut off that thought before it could fully form. Alba was good for me. Our marriage made sense. That was the end of it.
I pinched my lips and lifted my glass toward Rome. “And I’m happy for you, man. You’re my best friend. I want that for you.”
“I want that for you ,” he said, eyes intense. “I want you to be happy. ”
“I am happy,” I insisted, but it felt like a lie. I blew out a breath and tried again. “Work is busy. That’s all. I’m not… The wedding isn’t top of mind right now.”
Rome looked like he wanted to say more, but all he did was nod. “Well, like I said, Alba’s great. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t rushing into anything.”
“I’m not,” I told him. “She’s perfect for me.”
We finished our drinks and went back out to mingle with the rest of the guests. I watched the happy couples laugh, noticed all the casual touches they exchanged, and forced myself to stand beside Alba and stroke her back. She gave me a sideways glance, a brow arched.
When we went home that night, she stripped off the cream blazer she’d worn and swapped her diamond earrings for simple gold hoops. “I promised my mother I’d stop by and go through the seating arrangements for the wedding,” she told me.
“Tonight?”
Shrugging on a cardigan and grabbing her purse from the dressing table where she’d left it, my fiancée hardly gave me a quick glance. “Yeah, tonight,” she said.
“It’s past ten o’clock.”
“The seating charts aren’t going to write themselves,” she said, walking toward the door. “And I know you’re not going to do it.”
Ouch. I called out a goodbye and heard her mumbled one back, then listened for the whirr of the elevator that would take her straight from our apartment to the ground floor.
I was alone.
Slumping onto a sofa, I leaned my head against the back of it and rubbed my temples. She was right. I hadn’t been interested in wedding planning, and I’d been using every excuse I could think of. I was busy with work. I didn’t care about chair covers and flower arrangements—and besides, Alba was better at that stuff than I was. I’d just show up with a tux on and stand where I was meant to.
But that wasn’t exactly fair to her, was it?
How else am I going to know if you’re going to be a good dad?
I dropped my hands from my temples and stared at the light fixture in the center of the room. Alba had chosen it—a custom pendant light made by a specialist woodworker. The lattice of polished wood threw complicated shadows all over the room, illuminating the furniture she’d chosen along with the pendant.
I hadn’t cared about decorating this place, either. Hadn’t cared about making a home with her.
And I didn’t know if I’d be a good dad. In fact, I was pretty sure I’d be a terrible one. How was I supposed to know how to be a father? My own dad had abandoned me to chase his own dreams, and as much as he pretended to love me now, as an adult, it wasn’t the same as having someone who’d decided to stay. My adoptive dad had treated me like an add-on. I was something to be dealt with, not someone to be loved. Then he’d died, and I found the adoption paperwork in the attic, and his treatment of me made sense.
And now I was supposed to think about raising and nurturing a kid of my own? A kid I’d have with Alba? The woman who would allow me my dalliances, as long as I had them after the wedding .
The rich meal I’d eaten at Rome’s left a sick, sour feeling in my stomach. I’d overindulged. Now it sat heavy in my gut, and all these thoughts only made it worse.
Not to mention Rome’s little intervention. He wanted to make sure I wasn’t rushing into anything. I scoffed in the empty room, watching the light and shadow of the lattice pendant play over the walls and bookcases.
Maybe he was right, and I needed to slow down. But with the wedding approaching and my life with Alba hopelessly tangled, how was I supposed to pump the brakes? And why would I? She was perfect for me.
In theory.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, saving me from that dangerous line of thinking. My treacherous, disloyal heart jumped at the name on my screen: Carrie Woods.
The travel itinerary for my next trip out west was enclosed in her email, along with a short, professional note to let her know if I needed anything amended. She’d copied Kaia in.
She was working late.
An image popped into my head: Carrie, ensconced in fluffy blankets, with her work laptop resting on her thighs. I had no idea what her bed looked like, but I imagined it was large, with cozy, comfortable bedding and a few too many pillows. She was the kind of woman who liked small indulgences. The light of the laptop screen would be illuminating her face in an unearthly blue glow.
My finger hovered over the “Reply All” button, then slid over to “Reply.” A blank email addressed to only Carrie sprang up .
This was work related. I wasn’t betraying anyone by thanking my employee for a job well done. And that’s all I did. I sent one word back: “Thanks,” and stared at my screen, feeling pathetic for wanting an answer I knew wouldn’t come.
But it did come, just as I was sliding my phone back into my pocket. One word, and an innocent little smiley face: “Anytime :)”
Very deliberately, I put my phone to sleep and slid it into my pocket. Then I got up and got ready for bed.
When I woke up in the morning, Alba wasn’t beside me. Evidently, she’d stayed at her mother’s. I stared at the pristine pillow on her side of the bed, the sheets still tucked in across from me, and let out a long sigh. Then I rose from the bed and got ready for work.