Sweet Surrendering (39 page)

I can’t stop thinking about you, even if I wanted to. I never believed in fate, and I didn’t believe in love at first sight either, but I have no other way to describe the feeling that went through me when you walked down that hallway and I saw you for the first time. Oh, yes, there was lust. I knew I wanted you, and I wanted to be inside you. I also knew that I shouldn’t pursue you. It is very, very against the rules. I’d been with other women when I went undercover before, but that was different. Those were strictly physical no-strings.

He went on to tell me so many other things, some I wanted to know and some that were hard to read. Like his parents, and how it felt to lose them. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what that had been like for him, but I kept reading, even as tears started to fall down my face and the page became blurry.

Lucah had poured his pain and his past into this letter, and the only way it wouldn’t have affected me was if I didn’t have a heart. Well. I’d had a heart but I’d given most of it to him. That was what love did to you. Made you give parts of yourself to someone and they could do whatever they wanted with them and there was nothing you could do about it.

I finished the letter and went back and read it again. And then a third time. And then I put it down and went to a secluded corner outside the café and cried. It would be much better if I could go home and cry, but I had to actually go to work. Dad was out of town for a few days, so the company was kind of in my hands. Yes, there were other people that shared the burden, but he was my father and I had more of a burden of responsibility. It also meant that I couldn’t confront him about Lucah until he got back. That wasn’t something you did over the phone. I was going to put that off as long as possible.

I got myself together and popped back into the café to fix my face. My eyes were puffy, but my crazy expensive mascara and eye makeup were still in place. They should put that in the advertisement; will withstand heartbreak and ugly crying.

There was nothing I could do about my puffy eyes, so I wet a paper towel with cold water and put it under my eyes for a few minutes. A few other women came and went, and some stared at me and some made sympathetic faces and others just glared at me for taking up space in front of the mirror.

Why couldn’t I cry like girls in the movies? Even if those bitches were sobbing, they always looked cute doing it and their eyes were never red afterwards. So many people said they wanted a man from a movie, or a house, but I wanted to cry like girls in the movies. That would be great.

The cab ride back to the office didn’t feel long enough and when I walked into the office, I wanted to turn right back around and go home.

My head hurt from the crying and my heart was torn to shreds and I just didn’t give a fuck about work right now. But I straightened my jacket and walked to the elevator.

Lucah wasn’t at his desk when I walked by it. There was a note on the edge of it.

Had a meeting. Be back later.

-Lucas Blaine

He couldn’t put more detail in it in case someone walked by the desk and saw it, and he signed it with his alias.

His alias. I really hadn’t sat down and thought about that. How many times had he done that? How many names had he had? How long had he been doing this corporate investigator gig? How did he get into it?

Even after that massive letter, there were still questions, but I couldn’t talk to him. I was actually relieved he wasn’t here, because then I didn’t have to shut my office door.

I checked my phone and saw all the missed calls and texts. The last one was explaining that he had to meet with the Board of Directors and give them his evidence and what he’d found. I stared at the message for so long I didn’t hear someone calling my name.

“Rory?” It was Mr. Craig. Ugh, not now. I did not want to hear about his stupid car, or his stupid golf course or his stupid summer home in Bora Bora.

“Oh, yes? Sorry, I guess I’m busted.” Cell phones other than for work purposes were prohibited. I tried to laugh casually, but it sounded deranged, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“I just wanted to know if you father had left any files with you? I needed something in one of them.” I stared at him blankly for a second and then remembered that Dad had left me some files. I really needed to get my shit together if I was going to get through the rest of this day.

“Oh, yes, sure. They’re right here.” I handed him the stack of files and he thumbed through them.

“Thank you very much, this is just what I needed.” He was absorbed in the files and kept staring at them as he left my office. Guess I wasn’t the only distracted one.

When I finally got home after the longest day in the history of long days, Sloane was waiting right by the door with a glass in her hand.

“Don’t say anything, just drink.” Usually we had wine, but this was hard liquor. And I tipped the glass back and swallowed as it burned down my throat. I wasn’t going to ask what was in it.

“I needed that. Thank you.” I took my drink and walked to the couch as I shucked off my heels. Sloane grabbed a glass, joined me and waited for me to speak.

“He wrote me a letter. This big long letter telling me all these things about his life and his past and things I didn’t know and he talked about losing his parents and Sloane . . . I . . .” I had to set the drink down because I was going to lose it again and I didn’t want to spill all over the floor.

“Oh, honey.” She pulled me into a fierce hug and let me cry some more. Couldn’t I be done with the crying? At this point, I had no idea where the tears were coming from, or what they were for. My emotions were on overload and something had to give.

“And even though he lied and he wasn’t who I thought he was, I still fucking love him. I love that son of a bitch,” I said through my tears.

“Of course you do, Rory. That’s what unconditional love is.”

“But I don’t want to love him,” I said as she handed me a tissue so I could blot my running nose. “I want to hate him. I do, a little, but not enough to stop loving him. I mean, he didn’t cheat on me, he didn’t do anything technically wrong. He was just doing his job and he didn’t choose to fall in love with me. Asshole.”

Sloane laughed and I glared at her. This wasn’t funny.

“I’m sorry! I can’t help it.” I smacked her in the arm, but I could feel a smile starting on my face.

“Are you done being dramatic now? Ready to build a bridge and get over it and have fantastic makeup sex which may or may not cause you to get knocked up with a ginger baby?” Well, when she put it that way . . .

“No. I still need some time to think and process. I have no idea how this is going to work. I mean, he’s not in the CIA, but his job would make things kind of hard. What about the next time he goes somewhere? I can’t follow him. My life is here. He’s a gypsy and I’m not. This is home to me. I can’t imagine living anywhere else but Boston.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Sloane said as if she knew a secret that I didn’t.

“What are you talking about?”

“Honey, that boy is never going to leave your side. Where you go, he will follow. Like a puppy.” I gave her a look.

“What? It’s true. Wherever you go, he’ll find you.”

“Now you’re making him sound like a stalker.” She shrugged.

“Stalker, boyfriend. Kind of the same thing.” Uh, no. Not really.

I got up and threw away my disgusting tissues and tossed back the rest of my drink while Sloane made me another. I kept staring at my phone, waiting for him to call, or text, or anything, but it was silent.

When I finally went to bed, I was still staring at my phone. I couldn’t sleep, so I just scrolled through Lucah’s texts. I could almost feel the desperation in them, and I finally decided to call him.

He picked up right away.

“Hello? Rory?” Oh my GOD, I’d missed his voice and it had only been a few hours since I’d heard it.

“Yeah, it’s me.” He let out a breath and I did the same. It was such a relief to finally be with him, even if it was just on the phone.

“Did you read my letter?” he asked.

“I did. Three times.”

“And?”

“And it made me cry and fall in love with you and hate you and wish I’d never met you and then thank God that I did and want to call you and punch you and kiss you and fuck you.”

He didn’t say anything right away.

“Can you come downstairs?”

I sat up.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been outside your building trying to talk myself into going up for about two hours, and if I’m not careful, I’m going to get arrested for acting like a creeper.” I vaulted out of bed and ran from my room to the elevator. It didn’t matter that I was wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top and no bra or shoes. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have my key to get back into my apartment. I ran through the lobby, out the front doors and right for him, diving into his arms. Luckily, he was ready and he caught me. I wasn’t the only one wearing their pajamas. We were a matched pair.

“Oh, Sunshine,” he said before our lips locked and I never wanted to let him go.

Now, having sex on the sidewalks of Boston was generally frowned upon, but Lucah and I were pretty close to going ahead with it anyway.

“Come home with me,” he said into my mouth.

“Okay,” I said and he waved his arm for a cab before he picked me up in his arms. “I don’t want you to hurt your bare feet,” he said as he put me inside. The cabbie had probably seen a whole lot weirder things than a girl wearing her pajamas and no shoes. Lucah gave him the address and then pulled me onto his lap and held me close while he kissed me. His hands started moving under my clothes and I didn’t care there was a cabbie just a few feet away.

I let him touch me and it was the best cab ride ever; even better than the first one, when I’d “kissed” him.

He carried me out of the cab and through the empty lobby of his apartment. He didn’t even set me down when we were in the elevator. I was worried about him getting tired of holding me, but he didn’t seem to mind. I didn’t know if this was because I wasn’t as heavy as I thought I was, or maybe he was just really strong.

My feet didn’t touch the ground at all, even when he unlocked his door. He’d mastered the art of holding me and using his key at the same time. This was a valuable skill to have.

Instead of throwing me on the bed, he set me down slowly, as if he was afraid I was going to break. He was rarely this gentle with me, and it was almost like he was hesitant. Like I was going to run away if he pushed too hard.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said as he lay down over me, careful to hold the majority of his weight with his arms.

“You’d better not, Sunshine,” he said, giving me another light kiss. What the crap was up with that? “Remember that first night when I said we would take it slow? Well, we never did, so I think tonight is going to be a slow night. We are going to make this last.” I had a feeling he was talking about more than just the sex, although I was fine with making that last too.