Page 44 of One Mistake

Ever.

The offices were posh, too. Opulent. Extravagant. Even mine. Which was on the floor below the one the lawyers worked on but was bigger than the apartment I shared with Beth in college. It had its own bathroom complete with a shower, an exercise bike, the obvious desk, chair, visitors’ chairs, and sofa, along with a kitchenette with my own single cup/full pot coffee maker combo.

I hadn’t run into Ryder’s mom yet—kind of hoped I wouldn’t—but I expected she had more important things to do than welcome me to the payroll.

“Miss Winthrop?” I lifted my head from the very enthralling tax form I was filling out. A young woman with a sleek, severe hairstyle and sensible shoes stood in the doorway. “Mr. Kennedy was wondering if you could meet him downstairs in the lobby.”

I nodded. Moment of truth. I hadn’t seen him…not even sent or received a text since he’d left the house that day I’d called our relationship catching up.

The elevator ride was impossibly long, but it gave me time to get my head together. To wrap my mind around working with him every day and not touching him. To tamp down all my unrequited lust and repeat the mantra that I couldn’t—wouldn’t—sleep with the boss.

When the doors whooshed open, I was mantra shmantra. Only thing I wanted to do was throw myself against him, feel his body under my hands. Touch him like I owned him.

Pull it together, fool. This job was my saving grace. My escape from loneliness. A gateway to bonding with my friends and establishing relationships that would last. Even if one of them couldn’t be with Ryder.

Who would’ve thought that kidnapping him would have led to all of this? I’d traded my fishnet stockings in for more traditional pantyhose and my tutu in for a pencil skirt. I’d even twisted my hair into a bun and strapped on a pair of black pumps I borrowed from Avery.

Ryder looked me up and down, cocked his head, and nodded. “This is new.” I nodded because I couldn’t speak. I’d never seen him in a suit before—a form-fitting, three-piece suit, with a silk tie and a starched shirt with pants that hugged and accentuated and…fuck! How the holy hell was I supposed to resist all that?

“I can be Harley Quinn after six.” Although I had to say, I’d never been so uncomfortable in clothes. How Avery managed to dress like this every single day for class gave me a new admiration for my already quite admirable friend.

He grinned. “And here I thought you were going for Goth Witch Glenda from Oz.” His gaze burned up and down my body. “This is good, too, though.”

When he held out his hand, there was nothing I could do but take it. It didn’t mean I was holding my boss’s hand. It meant, my boss was carefully guiding me to whatever it was he wanted to show me. It was a safety measure really. A precaution to ensure his employee wasn’t injured in the workplace. OSHA would be so proud.

We walked out of the building together, side by side, hands still joined. We could’ve been anyone other than who we were—two people on the edge of losing each other. Again. Spinning out of relationship control with only ourselves to stop the forward thrust. And I was screwed. Waxing poetic was more Felicity’s style than mine.

On the sidewalk out front of the coffee shop at the lower level of the building, he pulled out a chair for me then sat across the table and scraped his nail back and forth in a one-inch space across the wooden top. Not looking at me. Not touching me anymore. We sat quietly for about three minutes before he looked up. “I’m not broke anymore.”

I nodded. “I see that.”

“I don’t want to go back to being the way I was before I was broke.” He took a quick glance at me then shuttered his gaze back to the table.

“And how were you?” Just because one of us needed to fill the silence.

“Stupid. I made some mistakes.” He blew out a short breath. “Hurt some people.” I couldn’t have moved if I wanted to. More than moving, I wanted to hear where he took this. I sat back in my chair and waited. He continued scraping the edge of the table. “There was a girl.”

“All the best stories have a girl in them.”

He nodded. “Not like this one.”

My heart had its own new rhythm. Fast. Hard. If I had to choose a description, I would have called it desperate. Like me and every cell in my body. “And how was this one different?”

He shook his head. “She was perfect without acting like she was perfect.” Oh, God. If this was just a line…it was working. “Beautiful without knowing it. So fucking sexy I couldn’t breathe most of the time.” He looked up. “Still can’t.” Now he sighed and a little corner of my gut churned. “And I lost her.”

There were a hundred things I wanted to say, but I couldn’t put a single set of thoughts together to make a sentence. Instead, I sat. Quiet. Hands folded in my lap. Prim. Waiting.

“I didn’t mean to hurt her. And now, I don’t know…I mean, I think I’ve lost her for good this time.” He shook his head and looked up at me.

“Well, you never know. Maybe you’re looking at it all wrong.” An ounce of weight lifted off my heart. “I heard she got a great new job that’s going to keep her close.” So much for not sleeping with him. If he glanced at me one more time with those big sad eyes, I might have thrown him on top of the table and had my wicked way with him right there on Dunne Avenue. “And she bought a house over on Hampstead. The family home, I heard.” He didn’t smile yet. “Pretty great memories in that house. The more recent ones especially.”

“Yeah?” Almost a grin.

“Mm-hmm. So, what I’m saying is that”—I cleared my throat because even though I was rethinking all my mottos and mantras from the last decade and beyond, I was nervous as hell—“I think if you want her, now would be a good time to take your shot, you know? Aim for the fences. Try to put it between the uprights.” I made the touchdown signal then pulled my arms back to my side and refolded my hands in front of me.

He stood and walked around the table to pull me to my feet. “Did you know that I find sports analogies very arousing?” There was nothing in the world I liked more than looking at his smile, except for maybe his eyes when he smiled. They sparkled. And if I would’ve died right then, it would have been as a very happy woman watching a man smile at her. I couldn’t think of a better way to go.

Unless it was to keep him smiling at me. “We could, uh, run a two-minute drill?”