For Life (Reclaimed Hearts Book 1) (17 page)
Cassie
I burn like a sex-obsessed teenager all night, tossing and turning and almost reaching for my vibrator about ten different times. My body still remembers Grady’s fingers inside me, his mouth hot and urgent on mine, his cock pressing insistently against me. I want to come so badly but the delicious agony of waiting for him, knowing he’s going to satisfy me and then some, gives me the strength to keep my hands off myself. Despite my restlessness, when I finally fall asleep I slumber deeply.
Waking up the next morning, I find I’m still smoldering. My perpetual state of arousal is a wild tiger on a flimsy leash beside me, threatening to break loose and tear me limb from limb. Every article of clothing is sandpaper on my tender skin where Grady’s lips should be. Between my legs is a throbbing bass line that does not quit. And my mind is as much a mess as my body.
The morning is a disaster. I drop things, burn Pop-Tarts, snap at Caden when he comes downstairs without his retainer yet again. Mr. Tibbles pukes on the carpet in the hallway and I walk right on by it. I’ll clean it up later, when I’m feeling a bit more focused, because at the moment I’m about to split apart from unsatisfied lust.
When the kids are at school, I can finally send him a text message without feeling like a sneaky whore.
—When do you want me?
It’s not subtle and I don’t care. I’m thirty-eight years old, I haven’t had sex in three years, and I’m well beyond subtlety.
—
Now.
Apparently Grady is over the subtlety, too.
—I’ll be over in about half an hour.
There’s a full minute of lag time and I actually worry that he’s changed his mind until he texts back,
Hurry.
And I realize I’m being silly.
* * * *
When the phone rings I’m so sure it’s Grady that I grab it from my purse and answer without checking the display.
“I’m on my way right now. You’re so impatient!” I laugh.
There’s a brief silence, and then I hear my assistant Jai’s voice. “Cassie?” He has politely ignored both my tone and my giggle, which is unusual.
“Yes. Sorry. Everything okay?” I ask.
Another brief pause, and I can tell he’s not alone, because I hear low voices in the background. “We need you here at the office, as soon as you can make it in.”
My heart is in my throat. “What’s wrong?”
“Sounds good,” he says. “See you soon.”
My mind races out of control. Jai’s acting strangely, and that definitely means bad news. He’s professional to a fault when others are around, but in private we enjoy an easy, joking relationship. Although we don’t spend time together outside of work and work-related functions, I consider him a friend as I know he does me. So his tone, his words, the way he didn’t even answer my simple question - all of that has me in a panic.
I start mentally scrolling through all the things that could’ve gone wrong. A major corporate donor pulled support? That might send the board into a tizzy. But we’ve already gotten most of our annual commitments, so that seems unlikely. Our investment portfolio took a hit? Also unlikely. I’ve seen the figures, and we’re in good shape. So maybe Karen Callahan, my director, has succumbed to cancer? That seems the most likely, but why wouldn’t Jai just tell me that on the phone? For that matter, why wouldn’t Karen’s husband just call me? We’ve been friendly for a long time.
When I pull into the parking lot, I recognize enough cars to realize our entire Executive Committee is already here. This isn’t good. Our board president’s car is missing, but he’s known for striding into a meeting on the minute. So I’m not too worried until Jai meets me at the door.
“Jai, what the hell is going on?” I hiss as he takes my elbow and steers me in.
“You’re fine, sweetie,” he answers, his lips barely moving, a fake smile plastered on his face. “But shit’s about to go down. Dragon Lady is on a rampage.”
“Dragon Lady” is our nickname for the board vice president, a woman so universally feared in the community that I couldn’t believe when she was appointed to our board. Our board members are mostly kind, elderly, distinguished members of our community, with local pedigrees. Madeline Danforth is a brash transplant with a razor-sharp tongue and notoriously shallow pockets. She has two high-profile ex-husbands in town, neither of whom will say a word against her though it’s common knowledge both initiated their divorce proceedings. But she gets things done, and our board wanted a “woman of action.” Whatever else can be said about Madeline, she’s all action.
Jai escorts me to the meeting room and politely asks if anyone needs anything before our meeting starts. Madeline curtly dismisses him and he slips from the room, leaving me alone with seven pairs of eyes fixed on me.
“Have a seat.” Madeline invites me to sit in the empty chair that’s usually reserved for our president, and I begin to get really nervous. She says nothing to put me out of my misery until I’m seated at the table. “We apologize for pulling you back from your time off,” she says. “I’m sorry for your family’s loss, and usually we wouldn’t convene so last-minute, especially in light of your family crisis, but it was imperative that we meet.”
I look around the room and see sympathy on the faces of some of the other members, which makes me feel guilty. My day off today was about laundry and getting laid, not grief.
Getting laid.
Shit. Grady will be freaking out. I decide to send him another quick text when the meeting’s over. There’s no way in hell I’m whipping my cell phone out with Dragon Lady staring me down. I just hope he understands.
* * * *
Two hours later, my temples throbbing from the intensity of the meeting, I’m finally free to call Grady. I have three missed calls and six test messages, the last of which says,
You got called in?
“I’m so sorry,” I blurt when he answers. “I was on my way… Jai called and said I had to get here immediately and he sounded weird. And then I got here and I couldn’t call or text. I’m so, so sorry.”
“I called and texted and when you didn’t respond I drove by your office and saw all the cars,” he said. “I’m just glad you’re okay. My first thought was that something happened to you.” There’s a tightness in his voice, and I realize how careless I was considering he just lost his brother to a car accident.
I’m an asshole.
"I’m so sorry, Grady, I was in a panic, and—”
“Cass. Really, it’s okay. I’m disappointed, but it’s okay.”
“I’m disappointed, too,” I murmur. “I was really looking forward to—”
“Later,” he interrupts. “We’ll talk later, yeah?”
“Sure.”
“Bye, Cass.” He disconnects abruptly, leaving me completely reeling.
This is
not
going as planned.
Sighing, I power on my computer and settle in for the afternoon. I’m already here, might as well check my e-mails and see what mail I’ve missed this week. Not to mention process the crazy meeting that just wrecked my entire morning.
Our board president, Skip Malick, was just arrested for an affair with one of the university students. While the girl is now of legal age (barely), the affair started when she was sixteen. He’s a married man and supposed pillar of the community - with two daughters the same age as the girl he was involved with. Now he’s been suspended from all of his classes and the scandal is about to sweep through our community. Madeline was livid in our meeting.
“Thinking with the wrong goddamn head,” she’d thundered in the meeting, color rising in her perfectly made-up cheeks. “And now our entire organization will be dragged into his unsavory mess. We don’t need to be tainted by his behavior.” She’d already set up interviews with several local media outlets to take an offensive stance toward the inevitable public outcry.
But there are a ton of issues that still need to be addressed, and now they’ve all fallen squarely in my lap. First, Skip’s wife, Julie Malick, has been head of our gala committee for years, and now she’s out, with four months to go till our biggest fundraising event of the year. We’re in crunch time with no one to head the gala preparations. I honestly don’t even know what still needs to be done, because Julie took care of everything. Second, there was a long voice mail from Karen’s husband, essentially saying that he doesn’t think she’s going to be strong enough to come back to work - something he doesn’t want the board to know yet. So I am in a truly difficult position, because they need to know this, and they need to know it
yesterday
. And third, if Karen’s out, then I need to make my case for sliding into her position, which means I not only need to convince Dragon Lady that I can do Karen’s job, but I also need to convince her to open a search for my position. I cannot face the next year alone, not even with Jai’s help.
These things aren’t as urgent as a sex scandal, but they’re pretty damn critical. Not to mention time-consuming. Both kids have a lot going on and the holidays are coming. I won’t have time to take a breath.
And then there’s Grady. He was irritated with me, and now I’m irritated with him. He has no idea what I’m up against. He has no idea how this morning’s revelations have just thrown a giant monkey wrench into my life.
Meanwhile, I’m going to need him to help out more with the kids. I’ve never asked for his help, not once since we split, as a point of pride. I’ve paid sitters, I’ve enlisted the help of friends, I’ve even brought them to work with me on occasion, but I have never called Grady for help with our kids. But now maybe that’s appropriate.
Or is it?
I need to talk to someone. I send an e-mail to Dr. Gaul, since she never answers her phone during office hours. I need some coffee and a good stretch. And I need to make some lists. My head is like an aviary, with more squawking and shrieking than I can make sense of without paper and pen.
It’s an hour later when my phone chirps and I read Grady’s message.
Busy? Lunch?
Busy. But not too busy,
I text back.
—
Want me to bring something or do you want to meet me?
—
I’ll meet you. Towne’s in half an hour?
— See you then.
At the thought of seeing him,
all my earlier feelings rush back in. I feel his words, low and delicious, in every cell of my body:
I want you in my bed tomorrow
. It’s like being seventeen again - the second I think of him, my mind starts cranking out butterflies and unicorns and everything unpleasant gets a bit hazy.
But I don’t have time for that. I don’t have time to get wrapped up in some sex haze with Grady, no matter how irresistible that thought is. I need to focus so I can start crossing things off my very long list. He’s just going to have to understand.
Grady
She’s wound tight as a drum as she tells me about the emergency meeting and her new board president. It sounds like she’s about to get wrapped up in a clusterfuck that could take months to sort out. And she’s going to work like a dog with very little to show for it. She shouldn’t have to beg for the director’s position - she’s already earned it. She’s been doing it for months now - without any extra pay - and they should be begging her to stay with them. But I suspect they know Cassie well enough to understand her sense of responsibility, and the fact that they’re exploiting that makes me furious.
Right about now I hate her job. It kept her out of my bed today, and it sounds as if it's not going to be the last time that happens. She keeps rubbing her eyebrow, fiddling with her napkin, fussing with her phone. She stopped fidgeting for about two seconds to place her lunch order, but that’s it.
“Hey.”
She looks up at me.
“It’s going to be okay.”
She nods, but she doesn’t believe a damn word I’m saying. I take her fingers in mine, and that’s when she finally settles a bit. I trace the creases in her palm and she closes her eyes and just breathes.
“How can I help?” I ask softly, and her eyes fly open. She looks surprised.
“Help?” she repeats.
“Yeah, help.”
“The kids…”
“Of course, the kids. That goes without saying. What can I do for
you
, though?”
She stares at me for a minute. “I don’t…” When she stops speaking she looks down at our hands.
“Can I cook dinner a couple nights a week?”
“For the kids?”
She really isn’t getting this. “For all of us.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks flush, but her eyes fix on me, curious. “You cook?”
“Are you kidding me?” I ask. “I’ve been living on my own for over ten years. I would’ve starved to death by now. Of course I cook. In fact, why don’t I cook tonight?”
“Tonight? Oh… I didn’t think we were…”
She trails off and I realize my mistake. I’d laugh if we weren’t both in shitty moods. “So you were planning to be in my bed all day and then just go home tonight like nothing happened?”
“Not exactly,” she says defensively. “I just figured that maybe afterward you might… I don’t know… Want some space?”
“Why the hell would I want space from you?”
“I don’t know!” she cries, pulling her hand from mine. “Maybe because you’re a guy and that’s what guys do. Maybe because this is new. Maybe because you don’t know what you want.”
“I know exactly what I want,” I growl.
“Well I don’t!” she fires back.
A lead balloon sits in the middle of my chest. I try again. “Cass. I know everything is new. But I thought we agreed last night that we were going to give this a shot. Me and you.”
“The operative word, Grady, is ‘new.’ If we were just dating and didn’t have two kids together, I would not be making you cook me dinner. You would not be at my house every night. We would’ve had sex today and then maybe seen each other in a few days, when thing slow down.”
“Well, sounds like I should be glad we dated in the nineties, then.” The words are out before I can second-guess them, and Cassie glares at me. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t funny. But Cass, come on. I’m not a stranger. We used to do this every day.”
She laughs bitterly. “Oh my God, you are rewriting history. We did
not
do this every day. In fact, I don’t even remember you being around every day when we were married.”
A low blow, and even though it’s partly true, it’s also a shitty thing to say. She knows it, too, because when her eyes finally meet mine they’re apologetic.
“Sorry,” she says finally. “That wasn’t fair.”
“No, it wasn’t. And you either forgive me or you don’t. But you can’t say you forgive me and then throw the past in my face every time you get pissed off.”
“I know.” She’s quick to reply. “I’m sorry. I’m just freaked out about everything.”
I take both her hands and draw them across the table. I fold my hands around hers and squeeze. “Let. Me. Help. You.”
She nods, but then the waitress appears with our food and Cassie lets go.
After our meal, when I walk her to her car, she allows me to fold her into my arms and hold her, just for a minute. When she pulls back I keep hold of her waist and brush a soft kiss across her mouth. She sighs and nestles back into me.
“In some ways it’s harder,” she says, and I know exactly what she’s talking about. “Are we just really stupid?”
“No.” I resist the urge to tell her this isn’t stupidity, it’s love. “We’re not being stupid. And we’ll figure it out.”
“Okay,” she whispers. “Okay, Grady, I believe you.”
