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I sighed. “Really great.”
Katie squealed, making all the campus cafeteria patrons look our way. She, though, was unfazed by the attention. “This is so exciting.”
“No, it’s not. He’s…he’s my boss.”
“Okay. And?”
“AndI shouldn’t be sleeping with my boss. And I sure as hell shouldn’t be romantic with him. It’s not like we work in an office, you know. I’m a part of his life. His daughter’s life.”
“Even more reason why he’s totally obsessed with you.”
“Would you stop saying that?!”
“Why are you so defensive?!”
“Because I don’t want to get my hopes up!”
We both went quiet. My eyes fell to the burger I’d barely touched on my plate. Admitting it out loud felt like being consumed by a cloud of melancholy. Now I was vulnerable to getting my heart broken and other people witnessing that sorrow.
“Cara, it’s okay to like him.” Katie reached her hand out toward me. “It’s okay to like him a lot.”
I took her hand. Her touch immediately settled my nerves.
“You should say something.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not?”
I blinked away tears. “Because there’s no going back from that. What if he pulls back entirely from me because I tell him I’m feeling something for him? What if he fires me? He’s doing so much for me already; I can’t ruin it by —”
“Cara, you don’t know until you know. He’s a grown man. And if he doesn’t act like one, you don’t want to be with him, anyway. But it’s useless to sit on your feelings and stress like this when you could just ask.”
I eyed my little sister. Her brown hair, the same shade as mine, was long and sleek; held back in a claw clip, it showed off her strong bone structure and amber eyes. Though she was only twenty-one, she looked so grown up. “How’d you get to be so mature?”
She squeezed my hand. “Well, I’ve had a pretty great mentor.”
I flushed. “Please. I can’t work up the courage to tell a guy my true feelings. I’m not a mentor.”
“You’re being vulnerable to your feelings. That’s so powerful, Car. Give yourself a chance at happiness. If you bottle your feelings, you’re just going to suffer.” Her eyes hardened. “It’s better to know than to guess.”
I looked at the bracelet on my wrist. The little pearl butterfly was calling to me. Wesley had said it himself; I could see beauty all around me. I was freeing myself.
And if I was going to live up to that, I was going to have to take a risk.
Chapter20
Wesley
The pressure of running multi-billion-dollar businesses hadn’t felt so stressful since Cara had entered my life. She had a way of soothing my anxieties. And if I became bogged down by fatigue and endless strain, I could retreat into my mind and imagine everything I wanted to do to her when I arrived back home.
I could also play a game of office basketball with Jenson. Although, admittedly, that activity wasn’t as pleasurable.
“Kobe!” Jenson took a shot from the back corner of my office. The tiny basketball flew through the air toward the door where the basket hung, bounced off the backboard, and missed the net.
“Ooh. So close.”
Jenson sighed, retrieved the ball, and tossed it my way. “Your turn, Lebron.”
