Conflicted (10 page)

Maybe his eyes were on me, and maybe they weren’t—but I didn’t check to see. Either way, it didn’t matter. Because I was
just his assistant.

I was married, and I’d just kissed another man.

When the elevator doors opened, I practically ran through the lobby toward the hotel exit. “Lucy!” I heard a voice calling me. I stopped with my hand on the door.

“Is everything okay?” Luke asked, rushing through the lobby to get to me.

I shook my head. “No. Nothing is okay.”

I pushed open the door, and Luke followed me out. I’d expected a breath of fresh air by stepping outside, and instead I was hit with humidity as I inhaled car exhaust.

I missed home. I missed California and balmy temperatures and warm breezes and fresh ocean air.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Luke asked, falling into step beside me.

“I really don’t.”

“Do you want a friend?”

I just wanted to be alone, but he seemed like he cared about my feelings…something I was currently missing from the men in my life.

I didn’t answer.

“How about someone to walk beside you in silence?”

I allowed a tiny smile.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

We walked a few blocks in silence before Luke spoke. “Okay, I can’t take it anymore. What happened in the twenty minutes since I last saw you?”

I looked around at the tall buildings and the people rushing by me. I spotted a bench up ahead, so I beelined it there and sat. Luke sat beside me, concern etched on his brow.

“My husband asked me to call our building’s maintenance guy because the water heater is out. I hate him sometimes.”

“The maintenance guy?”

“My husband.”

“So you’re married?”

I nodded. “And I think I’m in love with my boss, but I hate his guts.”

He chuckled. “Been there.”

“Yeah?” I asked.

He nodded. “My ex-wife. I loved her so much, but sometimes I really hated her, too. When you feel so much passion for someone, it’s easy for the lines between love and hate to blur. We got divorced when I realized that I didn’t actually like her anymore. I could deal with loving and hating her, but I couldn’t deal with not liking her.”

I thought about my feelings for the two men who were currently starring in my love life. I’d been so sure that I loved John. I didn’t hate him.

I disliked him.

He wasn’t the same man I’d fallen in love with, and the new version of him was easy to dislike. I didn’t feel the igniting spark of passion for him. I wasn’t sure if I ever really did.

And then there was Cole.

Cole set my blood on fire—one minute I wanted to strip his clothes off and straddle him, and the next minute he made me so fucking angry that I wanted to slap him across the face.

It was soul-crushing passion that I felt for him, and even when I hated the hell out of him, I never really disliked him.

And that was the difference. It literally took two minutes of talking to a complete stranger for me to sort out my feelings.

But the feelings I had were absolutely terrifying. I was thousands of miles away from my husband, but the man who’d somehow stolen my heart was just blocks away. I was considering ending my marriage and throwing away five years of my life for someone who looked at me as nothing more than his assistant.

“What happened with your boss?”

“He kissed me and we were interrupted by a knock at the door. I think it would’ve gone a lot farther than kissing, but then he called me his assistant.”

“Isn’t that what you are?”

I sighed. He didn’t get it. “It was the
way
he said it. I’m
just
his assistant.”

“And you’re married.”

I nodded.

“Here’s my advice. Take it or leave it. Tell your husband. I’ve been the guy who was left in the dark. Even if you don’t think you deserve it right now, everyone deserves happiness. Your husband included. Let him in or let him go.”

He was right. I sat in silence as I processed his words and these new revelations.

Finally, I said, “Thanks, Luke.”

He shrugged. “I’m just a guy who found a pretty lady to sit next to at a conference.”

“A pretty lady who is pretty screwed in the head at the moment.”

“We’ve all been there. You’ll get through it, and when you’re on the other side, you’ll look back and remember the sage advice of the dashing man from the conference.”

I chuckled. “You’re absolutely right.”

We watched the people walk by us for a few minutes, and then I said, “I think I need to call my husband.”

“Will I see you at dinner?”

I nodded. “Save me a seat.”

He stood, and I watched as he melted into the crowd on the busy sidewalk. I pulled up John’s contact information.

What was I going to say to him? I couldn’t end our marriage over the phone. But he had to know that I was done.

“I’m in love with someone else.” “I kissed my boss.” “I don’t love you anymore.” “I’m not
your
assistant. Call the super yourself.”

None of those sentences sounded exactly right to me, but maybe this wasn’t something I could rehearse. I pressed the call button, and I waited with shaking hands.

I counted the rings. One, two, three…and that was it.

The call went to voicemail. Usually it took six rings before I heard his outgoing message. Today, though, it had only been three.

He’d sent the call to voicemail on purpose. He’d looked at his phone, saw it was me, and chose to ignore it. It was after five, so even if he was at work, he wasn’t on company time anymore. He could’ve easily picked up.

All the late nights. The feeling like the spark had gone out. The disinterest. Maybe I wasn’t the only one who’d developed feelings for someone outside of our marriage.

I left a vague message. “I need to talk to you. Call me when you can.”

I hung up, realizing right away how stupid my message had been. It could’ve been about the water heater for all of the emotion I’d put into it.

And “call me when you can”? He might not call at all with a message like that, or he might call when I wasn’t prepared to talk. It had taken a lot of effort to dial the phone, and I imagined it wouldn’t be any easier the next time.

I took a deep breath as I slid the keycard into the hotel room door, not sure exactly what I was going to say to Cole. I was still offended by his reference to me as
just
his assistant, but the kiss we shared told me I was more than that.

My heart started beating faster as the nerves coursed through my blood and tingles rushed through my chest.

When I opened the door, I found an empty hotel room.

He was probably off fucking Nicki while I was contemplating the end of one relationship and the start of another.

I sat alone in the hotel room, in the very seat where I’d watched Cole stare out the window just the day before. I stared where he’d stared, looked over the same city and the same buildings he’d gazed over, lost in thoughts of my own.

I didn’t have much time until dinner, so I freshened up. As I walked toward the door to head down, it opened.

Cole’s eyes met mine, and I saw the remorse in his. I just wasn’t sure if the remorse was because he kissed me or because of how he’d introduced me to his little friend.

Seeing him in the flesh only reignited my anger. He’d treated me like trash earlier, but that feeling of anger only reminded me of the conversation I’d had with Luke and the revelation that anything I felt for Cole was magnified because of the passion between us.

He came into the room and the door slammed shut behind him. I waited for him to speak first. I didn’t trust what might come out my mouth given the emotions hitting me from every direction.

We stood for a long moment. I wanted to know what he was thinking, but his face was unreadable.

He finally asked, “Can we talk?”

I shook my head. “We need to head down for dinner.”

“Dinner can wait.”

“We can talk later.” I brushed past him on my way out the door, and he grabbed my arm. He spun me around to face him.

“Or we can talk now.”

Something about the intense way his eyes latched onto mine caused a penetrating heat to trickle down my spine. He let go of my arm and walked further into the room while I stood by the door.

“Then talk.” My voice was filled with angst, and I was proud of myself for standing strong when I really wanted to collapse into his arms.

He gazed out the window when he spoke. “I’m sorry.”

I was shocked to hear those two words fall from his lips. He couldn’t even look at me when he said it. I supposed he was in the vulnerable seat for a change, but I wasn’t going to make this easy on him.

“For what?”

He turned back toward me. “You know for what.”

“No, actually, I really don’t. I feel like there might be two things you need to apologize for.”

He shot me a look. “Two things?”

“Why don’t you tell me what you’re sorry for first?” I supposed I was playing a game—a dangerous one at that—but his answer was going to tell me a lot. If he was sorry about the kiss, he’d spent time thinking about the implications of my marriage and was sorry that he might’ve overstepped a line. He’d be sorry for something that had nothing to do with my feelings.

But if he was sorry for calling me
just his assistant
, maybe he understood how much that hurt me. Maybe he felt something deeper than a physical pull to me. That apology would mean so much more.

I didn’t want him to be sorry for the kiss. I wasn’t.

“I’m sorry that I kissed you. I got carried away. It won’t happen again.”

“Why won’t it happen again?” I challenged.

He sighed and looked away from me again. He was clearly uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation. “Because you’re married.”

“What if I wasn’t?”

His head turned slowly back in my direction. His eyes filled with a carnal ferocity that nearly melted my panties right off my hips. “If you weren’t?” His voice was low and gritty, and he spoke with an honesty that completely unnerved me. “I would’ve kissed you that first day when you walked in late in your pretty little dress.”

I gasped, my jaw dropping at his confession, but he kept talking, his voice gaining in volume while his eyes turned from ferocious to sad. “I would’ve thrown you across your desk the night of the MTC dinner and fucked you hard and fast until you screamed. I would’ve fucked you slowly on the bed instead of sleeping alone on the couch the second I found out that we were sharing this room.”

He walked over to me and ran his thumb across my bottom lip, a sly smile forming on his lips. “I would’ve crammed this pretty mouth full of my cock a long time ago.” He lowered his voice again. “But you are married, and my apology is my way of respecting that regardless of how I feel about you.”

It was his turn to brush past me, but I didn’t grab his arm as he walked out the door. I didn’t try to stop him. I was too stunned to do anything but stand and stare after him.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I pulled myself together, lost in a daze over Cole’s admission.

He had feelings for me.

If he had feelings for me all this time, why was he such a dick to me? I’d always figured he’d just been an ass because he had something to prove. He wanted the world to know that he wasn’t his father, and treating his subordinates like shit was his way of proving that.

But now I wasn’t so sure.

I headed down to dinner as I allowed myself to think about the time that had passed since Cole first started.

If things were going well with John, if I was in a happy marriage, this would be a totally different story.

But that wasn’t my life.

Instead, I wasn’t happy, and I pined away for something I thought I never could have. But maybe I
could
have it. I’d always just assumed that I wasn’t good enough for someone like Cole Benson, but maybe I was. And maybe things would change now that he’d admitted his true feelings for me.

I looked around the banquet room. I spotted Luke with an open seat beside him. As I walked to his table, I spotted Cole sitting between Nicki and the brunette from lunch. His table was otherwise full.

He wasn’t smiling, though, like he had been earlier that day. Far from it, actually. He wore a frown, his eyebrows turned down and his eyes full of sadness. He stared at a spot on the table in front of him, oblivious to my gaze as the two bimbos attempted to turn his frown upside down.

I stopped and stared for a moment, wishing I could hug him to make him feel better.

It was my fault he was full of all that unhappiness.

His gaze lifted, and we locked eyes. His frown deepened, and he turned toward Nicki and started engaging in conversation. He smiled at her, but even from my distance I could see how forced it was.

He was trying to make me jealous. And it was working.

I sighed, feeling the heavy weight of gloom settle in my chest. The only way we were going to move past this was for me to be honest about my feelings, too—that is, if he’d give me the chance to talk to him.

I plopped down in the seat next to Luke.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Don’t ask.”

“The boss or the husband?”

“Both, really.” I took a sip of water from the glass in front of me.

“How did your talk with your husband go?”

“He sent me to voicemail.”

“That asshole!” Luke said, feigning complete shock and eliciting a laugh from me along the way.

“Right?” I smiled, feeling just a little bit better.

“And the boss?”

“Just admitted his feelings for me.”

“Damn,” he muttered. “You really are one hot mess, aren’t you?”

I shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.”

“How did this revelation come to be?”

“He said if I wasn’t married, he would’ve kissed me the day he met me. And he said some other, dirtier stuff, too.”

Luke chuckled. “I get it. Your husband is a lucky man that he captured you, but your boss is even luckier.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, playing along for the moment.

“Because he’s the one you’re obviously in love with.”

“I love how a complete stranger could see in five seconds what it’s taken me a month to figure out.” I played absently with my napkin.

“It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.”

“Oh?”

“You haven’t gone more than five seconds without looking at him since you sat down.”

Salad was served, and we moved away from the heavy subjects toward lighter conversation. I couldn’t help my eyes as they darted constantly in Cole’s direction, proving Luke’s theory absolutely, one hundred percent correct.

We were treated to a speaker during the dessert course, and after that we were instructed to go to the lobby bar for the evening’s mixer. I glanced over in Cole’s direction, desperate to talk to him, but he was gone. And so was Nicki.

I hadn’t seen him get up, but I assumed he’d gone to the lobby. Well, I hoped he’d gone to the lobby. The alternative was too heart-wrenching to consider.

I walked with Luke toward the mixer. My heart dropped when I realized Cole wasn’t there.

I had two viable options. I could sit with Luke and drink my sorrows away, or I could head up to the hotel room and wait for Cole to get back from wherever he’d gone off to with Nicki.

Option two sounded like hell. I’d be sitting there, wondering while I waited. Wondering if he was with her, if he was naked, how deep his feelings for me ran, why he was such an asshole. Wondering when I’d be able to finally talk to John, really talk to him and tell him it was over.

So I sat with Luke. We drank whiskey sours, which turned into just whiskey, which turned into loads of laughing and a whole lot of fun. It was a night I’d needed badly after the strange couple of days…weeks…months I’d been having.

I was definitely drunk by the time he walked me up to my room and bid me goodnight.

To my surprise, Cole was sitting on the couch, his gaze over the city when I walked in. He looked handsome as always sitting there, and I wanted to freeze the moment and just stare at him.

He turned in my direction when the door shut behind me.

“Hi,” he said softly, his expression unreadable.

“Hey,” I said, stumbling on a snag in the carpet. I leaned on the wall with one arm to steady myself.

He stood. “You okay?”

“Yeah, fine. Just great.” My words came out with a bit of a slur.

“You’re drunk.”

I held up my fingers in a pinch and squinted my eyes. “Maybe just a little.”

“Let’s get you into bed.”

“Oh yeah, baby. Bed sounds real nice.”

He chuckled as he put his arm around my waist to help steady me. “You smell like a bar.”

“You smell like you should be on top of me.”

“Christ,” he muttered. “If only you weren’t so wasted.”

“If only,” I repeated, kicking my shoes off and climbing into bed. “And if only you hadn’t spent the night fucking Nicki.”

And then everything went black.