Chapter 2 #2
We’re both barely breathing as catches my hand and tangles his fingers with mine.
And in that moment, I picture it all. Nights out like this.
Even more nights at home. Lazy weekend mornings tangled in sheets and kissing at a sunny kitchen table.
Me meeting his family, him meeting mine.
Cooking together, laughing together, dancing together, falling into bed together.
Maybe even having a couple of mini-Wyatts with my eyes or a bunch of mini-CJs with his thick hair and stubborn chin.
I never gave kids a second thought until tonight, but apparently I, the woman who scoffs at the idea of settling down, am ready to buy a minivan.
The thought should send me screaming from the bar, but with Wyatt’s serious gaze on me and his fingers laced with mine, I’m hit with a wave of sheer rightness and a bone-deep certainty that he feels exactly the same.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I murmur, overwhelmed with all of this seeing and being seen. Of recognizing my other half and absorbing all the comfort and familiarity and lust and belonging that I didn’t know I was capable of feeling.
When Wyatt breathes a shaky, “I know,” all I can think is how much I want to be even closer to him. So I shift until I’m all the way on his lap. He sucks in a breath, his hips jerking upward at the contact before he settles back with a shaky laugh.
“When I take you back to my place, I want you to stay forever.” He presses his palms against the bench seat, pointedly not touching me. “But not tonight.”
“No?” I’m almost shaking with excitement and need, but I still manage a pout.
“I want to. So fucking bad.” His eyes flare as his hand slips back under my skirt, even higher than it was before. Another inch or two, and he’ll know exactly how ready I am to go home with him. How ready I am for him.
But he relaxes his grip on my legs, his throat working as he swallows.
“Here’s the thing.” His voice is strained, the effort to hold himself back clear in his tense shoulders.
“I don’t want to rush our first night together.
Let me take you out for real first. Feed you pasta.
Hold your hand at the movies. Buy you nachos at a baseball game. ”
I stifle a smile. Wyatt’s holding back, but he’s also desperate for me to give him the push we’re both dying for.
“I hate liquid cheese, remember?” I wriggle deeper into his lap. “But we can do the rest of that after you take me home tonight.”
He makes a noise low in his throat as his hands move to grip my hips. “CJ…”
“I think I’ve been waiting for you too.” I press my lips against the hollow of his throat. “Please don’t make me wait another second.”
“Fuck.” His laugh is shaky, and he pulls me down until I’m so tight against him I can feel exactly how much he likes this idea.
A lot. He likes this idea a lot, if I’m going by the hot, hard erection pressing against my ass.
“You’re right,” he growls. “Let’s get started on the rest of our first night.”
Our eyes meet, and we both hear what he isn’t saying. It’s not just the rest of our first night; it’s the rest of our lives we’ll be starting when we leave this bar.
He shifts me off his lap and slides out of the booth, extending his hand to help me stand.
“The sooner the better.” I let him pull me up, loving the strength of his fingers around mine. “I’ve got an early start tomorrow morning.”
“Same.” He grimaces. “My team’s meeting to hammer out a response to an audit we were handed on Monday.”
He’s too busy grabbing our coats to notice my sharpened attention.
“An audit?” I grin, about to tell him that’s the business I’m in, when his face twists into a scowl.
“It’s such bullshit. It’s only a draft at this point, but the auditor’s demanding companywide responses by the end of the week, so we’re scrambling to point out what a hatchet job it is for my unit.”
The sounds around us cut out. “Is the audit being done by a local firm?” I ask hesitantly.
He makes a visible effort to squash his irritation. “I wish. It’s some out-of-town group that our CEO brought in as cover so he can do whatever he’s going to do regardless.” A muscle in his jaw bunches. “Fucking ghouls. Money over people every time with them.”
No. No no no.
He holds out his hand again, but I’m locked in place by an awful, dawning premonition.
“Sounder Benefits Management,” I say, and the tiny spark of hope that he won’t know what I mean shatters when his expression twists into shock.
“I….” Now he’s the one standing frozen. “Fuck. You’re not—”
“The bullshit consultant who drafted a proposal to double your company’s profits by trimming the bloat and reinvesting the savings into the Retirement Products Group?” I yank my coat out of his hands, my heart pounding as I watch him recoil. “Yeah. I am.”
“Charlotte Jane Parrish. The name on the report.” It’s almost like he’s talking to himself, but he immediately focuses back on me. “The one who wants to gut the Financial Wellness Division.”
“You mean the division that replicates what every HR department in the country is already doing? The one with the terrible ROI? That division?”
“That’s right. The division you didn’t bother learning anything about.” His handsome face twists, and my heart twists right along with it. “So fucking lazy.”
“Lazy?” Rage starts to build behind my breastbone. “I’m lazy? I tried to meet with your so-very-important division, but you guys declined a meeting because you’re so behind on your year-end paperwork that you couldn’t take the time to do it. If I’m lazy, you guys are incompetent.”
“What? Who told you that?”
“Your CEO. Maybe you’ve heard of him? Howard Randall? He’s that nice man who signs your paychecks and hired my company to make sure he can keep signing your paychecks well into the future.”
My lips are numb as the last words tumble out. But if I’m ice, Wyatt’s pure fire.
“Not the paychecks of forty percent of my team, if you have your way.” His gaze burns into mine. “You don’t care about that, though, do you? Or the way it’ll hurt our clients.”
Mortifying tears fill my eyes. “You really think I don’t care what happens to the people my recommendations affect? How can you…” I blink, then blink again until Wyatt’s no longer blurry. “Just because I have a job to do doesn’t mean I don’t fucking care.”
His jaw hardens, bunches, and I can’t believe that not even three minutes ago, I was dreaming about sucking on the skin there while he fucked me into his headboard. The image pours pain onto the insults he’s dumped on me.
“I know you don’t care.” Acid drips from his voice, and that, thank god, chips away the ice chilling my blood. “My division runs educational programs for blue-collar workers who want help picking the best retirement funds. We’re crucial to the company mission.”
“We’re crucial to the company mission,” I mimic in an exaggerated growly voice, aware as I do it that my temper’s galloping away from me.
“That’s what every middle manager defending his cushy, overstaffed workforce says.
But the numbers don’t lie, Wyatt. Your division’s expensive as fuck, and your training sessions can be done just as well through online training modules and AI. ”
“AI?” he explodes. “Fucking seriously?” I thought he was somber before, but that’s nothing compared to the glowering wall of fury towering over me now.
“We talked about this twenty minutes ago! I hate AI as much as you do!” I yell back. “But your boss wants recommendations on those kinds of cost savings, and my boss wants to keep your boss happy.”
Somebody needs to pull this back if we want to salvage the evening, and based on how he’s snarling, that somebody’s going to have to be me. I inhale, my shoulders lifting and falling as I blow out a breath and offer him the best smile I can muster.
“Come on, you understand how audits like these work,” I say in the cajoling tone that works with annoyed interns and C-suite tyrants alike. “Let’s take a beat and go to your place. We can talk through where the disconnects are coming from and try to—”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” He laughs in disbelief. “You’re that desperate to get laid? You think I’d take you to my place after this?”
“I… I wasn’t thinking we’d…” My cheeks heat.
I’m used to getting dismissed or talked over by men at the companies I’m auditing and in my own office too, but I never saw it coming from Wyatt, who’s looking at me with so much contempt that I’m not sure why my skin isn’t boiling off my bones.
“I’m not talking about sex. I want to try to work through this. ”
He jerks back when I reach for his hand.
“Work through what? Your shitty, shortsighted recommendations?” The skin around his eyes tightens. “It’s all about the money, the money, the money, huh?”
“Um, yeah. That’s what I was hired to do.” I can barely talk past the lump in my throat. “Why are you taking it so personally?”
“Because it is personal!”
“It’s n—”
“Jesus. Just stop.” He’s back to the scowling stranger under the mistletoe. “Tonight was a mistake.”
My stomach drops at his pronouncement. “A mistake?” A misunderstanding, maybe. An ugly bump that we can navigate if we both calm down and discuss what it is I do, how I can help.
“Yes.” He jams his arms into his overcoat, not meeting my eyes.
And that’s when my temper really takes over. Washing away the pain in my heart. Replacing it with a savage fury at this man who soaked up every word I said tonight, then threw it all away at the first opportunity.
“If tonight was a mistake,” I say with a calmness I don’t feel, “then I suppose it’s possible I’ve made other mistakes too.”
He stills, apparently sensing danger.
“Maybe I should take another look at that draft you’re reviewing.” I tap a finger to my lips in thought. “I bet I’ll find more bloat to eliminate. Sooooo many unnecessary jobs that could help improve your company’s bottom line. Maybe more in your division. Maybe your whole division.”
Wyatt has the audacity to look shocked. “You wouldn’t.”
I shrug, going for confident while everything in me crumbles. I found my soulmate tonight then lost him just as quickly. It makes me sad. It makes me furious.
It makes me mean.
“My recommendations could be much more aggressive. I could go over every little detail.” I give him a smile that shows all my teeth. “I bet your CEO would be thrilled with even more cost-savings options. And you know us bullshit corporate consultant leeches. We’ll do anything to get ahead.”
I wink as he stares at me, his mouth hanging open under the weak glow of the Christmas lights. He looks so stunned, in fact, that it splashes cold water on my anger.
What am I doing? This isn’t me. I’m impulsive, but I’m not vindictive.
I suck in a breath to tell him that of course I wouldn’t intentionally hurt his job. We can find common ground if we can just talk it out. But before I can walk things back, Wyatt opens his mouth and breaks what’s left of my heart.
“I was so fucking wrong about you.”
His words are as hard as his expression, and my voice comes out strangled and choked when I reply, “Not as wrong as I was about you.”
I spin and fumble for my purse, desperate to run away from all of this. For a few hours, I truly thought he saw me. But he didn’t see anything.
“Hey, CJ…”
My head whips up at his voice, a pathetic tendril of hope unfurling in my chest until I see his stony face.
“If we happen to run into each other during this process,” he says in a cold, awful voice, “we’re meeting for the first time, got it? None of this ever happened.”
He wants to pretend this never happened. That we never—
A sob expands in my chest, and I ruthlessly push it down, reaching for my fury to get me through this last bit.
“No, Wyatt.” I force myself to meet his eyes. “Tonight happened. And you’re going to spend the rest of your life wishing it hadn’t.”