Love Emerged (5 page)

I dig in my pocket, handing her a ten-dollar bill. “Thanks, Samantha.” I grab it with no intention of drinking it. I’m not suggesting that she would drug me, but her eyes slightly creep me out.

“Oh, you don’t have to pay me.” She fights taking the money, but I push the bill toward her.

“I insist.”

She smiles and sits back down at her desk, tucking the bill in her drawer. “So, what are your plans—”

“Thanks for the coffee. I have a meeting with Tim.” I walk away from her, mid-sentence.

That was harsh of me, and I should be nicer to her. If I turn on my nice-guy charm, she’d probably not want anything to do with me. Everyone knows the nice guy never wins the girl.

I take off my coat and hang it on the back of my chair while my laptop boots up. As I sit down, the anxiety from my contacts dragging their feet with responses from my calls and emails rests heavily on my shoulders. I open my drawer to grab a pen, but I find a neon-green Post-it note.

Seven o’clock. I’ll cook. 524 Maplewood Ln. Apt. 210.

A smile eases on my lips, and I fold the small piece of paper, tucking it into the pocket of my jacket.

“Hey you.” Yasmin saunters in with the coffee Kevin must have brought her this morning.

“Good morning. I really need to inject myself into this coffee rotation you guys have,” I comment, not necessarily to her.

“You want in? I have connections.” She giggles like a schoolgirl gossiping with her friends.

“Okay, sign me up.”

After lunch, my fingers are tired from the personal emails I’ve sent while locked in my chair all morning. In desperate need of something to eat, I walk straight to the break room, needing alone time before going back to my cubicle with Yasmin. Seriously, the girl eats some weird-ass food for lunch.

I blow out a breath once I reach the break room and notice it’s empty. Two o’clock will do that. At three is when the snacking convenes, so I’m good for a little while.

Lucky for me, someone brought in some pastries this morning. Usually, stale coffee cake isn’t my thing, but screw it. Skipping lunch to sketch out a few thoughts has granted me with hunger pains. I sit down, and the cinnamon-swirled sweetness is right at my lips when Bea walks in with her coffee cup in hand.

“Hmm . . . pretty desperate to take a chance on Holly’s latest test, aren’t you?” She heads straight to the coffee pot and opens the top of her disposable coffee cup that has her name scribbled on the side.

“I could say the same about burned coffee at two o’clock.” I turn in my chair to face her, dropping my piece on the napkin.

She’s wearing a shorter skirt than yesterday, showing off her stunning legs with a pair of fishnet stockings. I had no idea women still wore those, but on Bea, they aren’t trashy; they’re sexy as hell. With her black high heels and the small slit up the back of her skirt, my hands itch to travel the length of her toned legs. My eyes are so focused on her lower half that I don’t notice when she twists around until she crosses her ankles. With one arm wrapped around her waist—only pushing her tits out of her blouse, giving me a good look of what I had—she perches her coffee in her other hand, taking a sip.

“You like what you see, McCain?”

I push up my black-rimmed glasses and concentrate on her eyes. “I’ve always liked what I see when it’s you.”

“What’s with the glasses? Trying to be more heart-throbbing?”

I chuckle because the girl never holds back her thoughts. “I ripped a contact this morning, but let’s talk about you thinking I’m heart-throbbing?”

She saunters closer, and with every step, my pulse jolts up a notch. Without stopping, she bends over the table to grab a piece of Holly’s cinnamon coffee cake, leaving her ass so close to my hand that it twitches to harass it. Just as my hand is a mere inch from her round, hard apple ass, Yasmin comes in, and I drop my hand.

Thank God for small miracles.
I reprimand myself for almost losing control. We need to keep our relationship platonic, especially in the break room of our company.

“What are you two doing?” Yasmin stops right inside the doorway, staring at both of us.

Bea stands and slides a few inches away from me, as though she wasn’t baiting me and I wasn’t fishing. “Nothing. I was telling Dylan not to try Holly’s baking.”

“Good thing.” Yasmin disregards what she thought she witnessed and proceeds to the fridge.

Great, she hasn’t eaten yet.

“I found an egg shell in a tart one time.” Her eyes widen as she holds a Tupperware container in her hand.

“Oh, Yas, what do you have for lunch today?” Bea slides into the chair next to me, crossing her legs and leaning forward.

Seriously, this girl could seduce the Pope and have him questioning his beliefs.

“Boiled fish with rice.” She opens the container, and an aroma of saffron leaks out.

She moves to the microwave, and I know I won’t be able to tolerate the smell, so I stand to leave the room.

“I gotta return to my desk. Will you be eating in the break room today, Yasmin?” I ask, hopeful that I can have a one-day break from the smell of her diet food. I think it’s fantastic that she’s lost thirty pounds, but if the girl could just eat in the break room, I wouldn’t mind sharing an office space with her.

“Oh, no, I have a call in fifteen.” She smiles, waiting next to the microwave.

Needing to escape before the heat waves hit my nostrils, I swiftly move to the door.

“I have to finish up the Fraedrich’s account. See you both later.” Bea follows me.

Once in the hallway, I finally breathe.

“Not liking the smells, huh?” Bea laughs, sipping her coffee again. Her heels click on the tiled floor, only making me remember the look of her legs from minutes ago.

Focus forward, and don’t look down.

“Hell no. I need out. Is there any other office space available for me?”

She laughs. “No, I’m sorry. Not until someone makes senior exec.”

She crosses her fingers in the air, and I hate myself for knowing that a spot is being held for me when Bea’s been here for years.

“Hopefully, that happens soon.” I stop us at the crossroads where I’ll turn left and she’ll continue straight. “So, your house?”

A seductive smile crosses her lips. My dirty mind and I could go there with her in a second, but we can’t. Not if I want to keep my job.

“Yeah. You good with that? Don’t be late, McCain.”

She swivels on those black heels, and I can’t help but stare at that round ass as she walks away from me.

“Oh God, you, too,” Yasmin says from behind me.

I cough and swallow down the bile rising up my throat from the smell of her food.

“What?” I ask. Being an ill-mannered gentleman, I walk in front of her just to delay my imprisonment of being downstream from her food.

“Everyone always wants Bea, but you know, she’s kind of—” She stops talking.

I think I know where she’s going, but I’m going to act dumb for the moment. “What?”

“The company pass-around. She’s been with almost every guy in the office—except for Kevin, but that’s obvious.”

“How do you know?”

“Rumors, gossip. People don’t keep those things tight-lipped.”

“So, she’s dated several of the guys here?” I portray a front, as though a knife didn’t just jab me in the chest. Why I care, I have no idea. We’ve agreed—platonic friends.

“Not dated. Slept with.” She shrugs her shoulders. “I mean, whatever she wants to do, I suppose, but maybe that’s why she’s still a junior exec after two and a half years.” Her lips move into a straight line, and she arches one eyebrow.

“Oh, well, gossip is always accurate, isn’t it?”

She stops, her eyes now narrowing at me. “Believe what you want, but I have reliable sources.”

“I wouldn’t think otherwise—unless your reliable sources are jealous and petty, impending on other people’s lives. Whether she’s slept with zero, one, or fifty, whose business is it, really?” I ask, taking my seat and logging into my computer.

Yasmin sits in hers, taking the cover off her food, embedding the smell of fish throughout the small space. My head falls back in annoyance.

“People shouldn’t do things if they don’t want others to know. She’s sleeping to get to the top, Dylan. There are high people on her list,” Yasmin says.

Then, her phone rings, and I release a breath for the break from her mouth. If only I could cover up her food and throw it out the seventeenth-floor window to spread across the street of Detroit, but no such luck. I’ll have to take the reprieve of her mouth in the meantime.

I figured Bea wasn’t exactly closed-legged. I mean, she came on to me in the first five minutes of meeting me. She touched my tattoos and cooed at everything I’d said. It was clear that she’d have fucked me if I had taken her around the side of the Ashbys’ house, but Ava had fucked with me so mercilessly that morning that I couldn’t even screw her out of my head. So, I put up the front that I wasn’t really interested in her body but her mind—until that night at Breaker’s. Then, it was game over, and I couldn’t fight it anymore. I needed to be inside her.

I’m not sure how much longer I can hold off for a second round. That nice guy in me fights it because, deep down, I don’t want a random stream of hook-ups. I liked having a relationship—someone to come home to, to love, and to go to dinner with. I’m not sure Bea wants the same though, and I’d rather keep my distance than break my heart again in this life.

Bea

DYLAN’S LIKE A BAG OF
mixed nuts. I never know whom I’m going to get when I run into him. He seems to be confused as to who he is or who he should be. One minute, he’s sweet; the next, cranky; and, sometimes, he’s downright indifferent to anything and anyone.

One consistent quality of his is his concern for others. He tries to hide the appealing trait, but even John, the nicest guy on our team, told Yasmin that she had to eat her lunch in the break room after she’d started her diet. It’s great that it works for her, but others shouldn’t have to suffer. Dylan sits in that crowded area, smelling the aroma of her boiled fish and whatever else she’s read that will shed the pounds. He says nothing even though he’s gagging at his desk. He’s trying to disguise that he’s a nice guy, and I’m not sure why.

Thankfully, the last few hours fly by. I’m packing up my bag when John leans in close to my ear. I draw back from his nearness.

“Personal space,” I comment.

He laughs. “Who’s the date?”

“Date?”

“I saw you all over the Food Network site. You’re making dinner for someone?” A coy smile sneaks up his lips.

“My mother, if you must know.”

He coughs out, “Bullshit.”

I zip up my bag and swing it over my shoulder.

“It wouldn’t be the hot Clark Kent now, would it? I saw the two of you all cozy in the break room earlier.”

Immediately, my heart rate picks up because, other than having dinner with Dylan and maybe a few hours of being tangled in my sheets, I’m not looking to be involved in the gossip thread. I’ve been there and done that more than once. Yasmin thinks we’re friends, but I know what she says, and that’s why I keep her close. Not that it stops her from spreading untruths about me.

“Try a heartbroken fifty year old woman.” I escape our cubicle with a straight face. How? I have no idea. I’ve never been good at the whole deceiving thing.

“Whatever you say, Lois Lane,” he calls over the partition.

I roll my eyes, not taking any chances of turning around and him seeing my smirk.

I reach the elevator doors before they close. At the end of the day, the ride down could take me twenty minutes with how crowded the elevators become since the whole building leaves at the same time. Slipping through the closing doors, I breathe a sigh of relief that I got the last spot.

As I stand there while the elevator stops and opens on each floor, I contemplate what I should cook tonight. What I witnessed Dylan eating that weekend of the wedding. Mostly, it was whatever Mrs. Ashby had prepared or bar food from the numerous drinking establishments.

Then, someone files out on the tenth floor, and a wave of cologne hits me—Dylan’s cologne. Automatically, my head swivels behind me, expecting to see those green eyes that have recently unglued me. Disappointment fills me when I realize it must have been the guy who left.

Clearly, I’m going crazy, so I clutch my bag around me, determined to be the first one out of the claustrophobic confines. The elevator stops, the doors open on the first floor, and I’m out immediately, but when I see who’s waiting in the lobby, my eager footsteps halt.

My stepbrother is standing in the foyer, his arms tucked into his expensive slacks, with his hair gelled into place. He catches me in the mob of people frustratingly weaving around me, and his lips curl. We’re never happy to see one another.

I inhale a reassuring breath and walk toward him.

“Austin,” I say.

He reaches around me, giving me a half hug. If we weren’t in my office building, I’d shove him off me.

“It’s good to see you,” he says.

I roll my eyes. “Why are you here?” I cross my arms over my chest and pin my eyes on him.