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“Cole,” I whisper, shutting my eyes, wanting that talk, but knowing it can’t happen.
“Ah, sweetheart,” he says softly. “I do really love hearing you say my name again. Get some rest. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” He hangs up.
Chapter twenty-two
Lori
Ifall asleep thinking about the kiss I’d shared with Cole in his office, and I wake up to a text message from him that reads: I finally figured out what you smelled like the night I met you. Honeysuckle and coffee. No wonder I’ve doubled my caffeine intake since meeting you. I wanted more.
I inhale and let it out with the realization that he really has been thinking about me in the past and the present. Even more so, he’s been contemplating how I smell, in a sexy, want more kind of way. I decide the safest way to answer is with a businesslike explanation and so I reply with: One of my part-time jobs was at a coffee shop, as if that reply somehow deflates the reason he knows how I smell, or changes what “more” means.
He calls immediately and when I answer, he says, “Look, sweetheart, I’m in a car about to arrive at the office and after that I’m going dark for a while, but I think you need to hear what I was thinking about you last night. Do you remember when I told you that you’re different?”
How can I not? I think. I was on a sidewalk pressed against a wall, with his big perfect body, close, but yet, not close enough. “I remember.”
“I read people, too,” he says. “And I know now why I said those words to you that day. I sensed the depth of your character. I sensed the struggles and the fight. It’s what makes you special. Every job, and every struggle you’ve had will make you a better attorney. Remember that. You aren’t behind anyone. You’re two steps ahead.”
The dogmatic intensity of his words, and the unexpected shift from bedroom to boardroom takes me off guard but I recover with sincere appreciation and concern. “Thank you, Cole,” I say, “that means a lot to me, but please do not feel that you have to—”
“Coddle you?” he supplies.
“Exactly. I don’t want you to feel like I’m a delicate flower.”
“You are most definitely not a delicate flower and that’s not what I’m doing. I’m simply telling you what I think as both a man and your boss. As a man, it’s part of why I can’t stop thinking about you. As your boss, it’s fuel for your job. Think beyond the file and the person you’re dealing with, the way you did when you sized me up, but go deeper. Use what you have learned through your struggles to win.”
“I will,” I say, and now I’m dogmatic. “I am.”
“Good,” he says. “And just so we’re clear: none of this means that I’m going to make this journey easy on you or you on me, but that’s okay. I don’t mind working hard for what I want, and I don’t believe you do either. I gotta go and kick some ass. More soon.”
He disconnects, leaving me to linger on the words: I don’t mind working hard for what I want.
He wants me. That is clear. And I want him, too, but there are two problems with a man like Cole Brooks that I can’t forget. 1) He consumes you until there is nothing left, and 2) You want him to consume you anyway, no matter what that means or how that ends.
We need those rules. No. I need those rules.
Forty-five minutes later, I exit my bedroom dressed in one of the only three suits I have to change up with different blouses and shoes, this one black, like my strappy heels, while my blouse is an emerald green. I find my mother still in scrubs in the kitchen. I set my briefcase and purse on the table and she offers me a cup of coffee. “Tell me everything,” she says, as I accept the cup she’s personally doctored my way and rest an elbow on the counter.
“How did you know I was about to be out here?”
“I have you timed. Alarm. Shower. Exit. Forty-five minutes.”
I laugh. “I guess you do, but there’s not much to tell yet,” I say, sipping the warm beverage, “Aside from the fact that my boss is struggling with some of the merger aftermath. He had to go to Houston, so I’m extra busy taking care of things for him today.”
“Is that Reese?”
“No,” I say, leaning on the cabinet opposite her. “His partner, Cole.”
“Ohhh right,” she says. “What’s he like?”
“Arrogant, good-looking, and brilliant.”
She gives me a curious look. “Is that good or bad?”
“Good and bad,” I say, being as honest as I feel I can without worrying her, which is why I change the subject. “What’s up with your architect?”
She cuts her eyes and then drinks from her cup.
“What is it, mom?” I ask. “Did something go wrong?”
