AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Alex winks at me. “Don’t be trying to fix me up or the deal is off.” He motions to Cole. “He likes me just how I am.” He leaves and I turn to Cole.
“What’s his real story?”
“Foster child shoved from bad home to bad home, but he’s brilliant, as in really brilliant. He got into Harvard with a full scholarship. Landed a big firm job. Made some cash, invested well, and then started his firm.”
“So he’s broken.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“Yes,” I agree. “But he’s alone and broken.”
“And so was I until I found you. Let’s go to the hotel.” He tosses cash on the table and helps me to my feet.
About fifteen minutes later, we pull up in front of Ashley’s old building. We don’t go in. We just sit there a few minutes, talking about her, and laughing at her big personality. We say our goodbyes. When we finally head back to the hotel, we enter our room, and stand at the window, me in front of Cole, his arms wrapped around me. We don’t make love and it doesn’t feel wrong.
We just enjoy the fact that we’re together.
We are no longer alone.
It feels like we are settling into a new place together, one that isn’t just about passion and intensity, though we are those things. But here, now, we’ve created a shelter, a small space in the universe that is only ours, where it’s safe and calm. One we’ve relaxed inside, as we’ve escaped fear and doubt and even pain. We’ve found more than love. We’ve found peace, the kind that doesn’t care what hell rages around us. We can step into this space together, and everything else fades. There is just us.
I’m pretty sure that means we’ve finally fit all the broken pieces of our lives into one perfect heart that we now share.
Chapter eighty-five
Lori
Cole and I dress in work attire for the trip home to New York City to allow us to go straight to the office when we land, him in a blue suit and me in a simple, travel-easy black dress. We’re settled into the leather seats of a private plane, both doctoring our coffee when I have this surreal moment of this being my life. I’m living my dream, sitting next to the man I love who is my husband, on my way to New York City, where we will go to work, and I love my job. I’m doing what I wanted to do. I’m doing what I always wanted to do and I’m doing it with this man.
I reach up and stroke his cleanly shaven jaw and he catches my hand, kissing it, giving me an inquiring look. “What are you thinking?”
“That daring to have a one night stand was a really good decision.”
His eyes warm and soften. “Yes. It was.”
He kisses me, his hand coming down on my face in that possessive, wonderful way of his, his tongue licking into my mouth, only to have his cellphone ring. Cole groans this deep, masculine tormented groan that is sexy as hell, partially because it’s his distress at the interruption. “It could be Alex. I better take it.” He grabs his phone and glances at the screen. “Reid.”
“Oh, good,” I say. “Hopefully he finally finished negotiating with the DA.”
He answers the call and I listen in with little success, but thankfully I don’t have to wait long. The call is fast and Cole’s relaxed demeanor tells me the news is good even before he says, “It’s done. Reid’s emailing me a final look at the contract, it won’t be long before we sign and release the settlement proceeds to the victims’ families.”
“What about a press conference?” I ask.
“Reid will set it up quickly once we ink, that way we get the press attention off of us right after we make the deal,” he says. “I’d rather let them burn themselves out next week during working hours.”
“I’ll forgot about the press after the press conference,” I say. “I’m sure we’ll have a good week of hell, but it will be worth it. You did a good thing for the victims’ families, Cole.”
“We did a good thing,” he amends. “Now we hold Royce to his word and make sure he takes down the DA which,” he adds, “we’re going to need to share with Alex before this plane takes off. I should have addressed it at dinner and I didn’t. He needs to know the path we’re traveling.”
It’s right about then that Alex walks onto the plane, and a few minutes later, we’re sitting at a lounge table in the back of the plane with the DA bombshell hanging in the air. Alex smiles. “If you didn’t have balls of steel,” he says, “I wouldn’t be on this plane.”
From there, the rest of the ride only gets better. Alex and Cole get along well and soon the three of us are talking about their old cases, Alex’s current case, and the future of the firm. Alex is friendly with a good sense of humor, but I get the sense that I see this because he trusts me by way of Cole. I don’t believe many see this side of him. He’s hard beneath this friendly encounter with an edge that feels gritty in a street boxer kind of way. He’s a fighter in every way, hard to the core, ready for war. That has me wondering if that’s not exactly why I have no doubt he is an opponent to be reckoned with.
Once we land in New York City, we head straight to the office where Cole, Alex, and Reese hang out behind closed doors. I, in turn, sit down at Ashley’s desk and look for clues I know I shouldn’t look for. She’s gone now. She’s safe. I have to accept that. I find only one thing that feels significant. A piece of paper where she’s scribbled over and over: Why? Why? Why? I pray she has those answers now, that she at least has that peace of mind, even if the answers aren’t good answers. Maybe the man she loved really did love her.
With the party Saturday night, and Alex here now, I call my mother and arrange breakfast for Saturday morning at her new place. I then call a temp service and line up interviews to replace Ashley for Monday. I deliver this news to Maria, who arches a brow. “What happened to Ashley?”
“The relocation wasn’t the right one for her,” I say cautiously. “Which I hate, but we’ll suffer through it.”
