If I Say Yes (25 page)

I NEVER MADE IT
back to my room last night. I never even made it
back into my clothes. After our rendezvous in the shower, we had sex
three more times in his bed, stopping only long enough to get a couple
of hours of sleep before work this morning. Now, as I stand in the
closet full of clothes, I fight to keep my eyes open. I’m exhausted, and
my body is sore in a good way. I feel awakened, like I have been asleep
the last six years of my life. I spot a black dress hanging on the left side
of the closet, and though I haven’t seen the entire collection yet, I know
it’s the perfect dress to wear on my first day back.

I pull the dress off the rack, finding it’s plain and simple and short.
I know once I put it on it will only be long enough to cover my goods. Worse, it’s strapless. Definitely not office attire, but I don’t care. I feel great and want to keep this feeling going. This is the perfect dress for
it. I slip on the dress; the tight elastic material clings to me in all the
right places and accents my body in a way that I didn’t know possible.
I decide to tone the dress down with a simple pair of flats and some
basic jewelry. I leave my hair down and apply very minimal makeup.
The dress is more than enough for me, and while I’m feeling brave, I’m not that brave. I grab a long, white pea coat on my way out.

I leave the closet and skip over to Reid’s room, unable to hide my
excitement to see his expression when he sees the dress I am in. Reid stumbles over himself when he walks out of his closet, his jaw drops and his eyes widen. “Please tell me you’re wearing something over that?” he says in a serious voice as he struggles to straighten his tie.

“Relax,” I walk towards him, “I grabbed a jacket.” I point to the white
coat on his bed and laugh. Reid relaxes his shoulders and relief washes over his face. I grab a hold of his tie and smile. “Here, let me help you.”
I straighten his tie and help him slip on his jacket. The man looks
amazing in a suit, but I prefer him naked. The thought makes me giggle
out loud like a school girl.

“What’s so funny?” He glances at me and raises an eyebrow.

“Nothing.” I kiss him quickly before turning and grabbing my
jacket off the bed. “Let’s go make people talk.”

***

My happy mood is gone as we enter the building. The playful,
brave, adventurous woman I met this morning is slowly disappearing.
What was I thinking about, wearing this dress to the office? What was
I thinking about, coming to work with Reid? I’m clearly out of my
mind, but it’s too late to go back and change my outfit now. My palms are sweaty as Reid and I head towards the elevator. I can feel everyone
in the lobby eyeing us. I know they can’t see the dress underneath the
pea coat, but I might as well have come to work naked with how I’m
feeling. I notice that no one is really paying Reid much attention,
focused instead on the woman hanging from his arm as he whispers
sweet nothings in her ear, and that woman is me. “What’s wrong?”
Reid’s voice snaps me out of my haze on the elevator.

“I-I-I, uh… everyone was staring at us,” I say.

“Well, let’s give them something to stare at.” We’re alone in the elevator, so I don’t know what he is thinking when he said that. He
pulls me close, our bodies pressing against one another, and his mouth
crashes against mine. His tongue darts into my mouth and starts the
familiar dance with mine. I hear a collective
gathering
of gasps, whispers,
and it snaps me out of the kiss. I glance around and find that we are standing in the elevator with the doors wide open on our floor. “We
have nothing to be embarrassed about,” Reid whispers in my ear. “We’re
just two people in love.” With that, he kisses my temple and walks
away with a grin on his face, leaving me there to face everyone on my
own. I lower my head and quickly make my way through the seemingly
endless cubicles and desks until I reach my office and close the door behind me.

I lean against the door and sigh. Until I remember that my office
has glass windows and everyone can still see me. I grab the string above
my door and close the blinds over the window before going and closing
the rest of the blinds. I sink down into my chair and stare at the ceiling
for several minutes before I snake out of my jacket and hang it over the back of my chair. I stare at my computer screen that is glowing in
front of me. I no longer dread turning it on and staring at the hoard of
query letters I once would struggle to read. No, over the couple weeks
I was at the cabin, Reid helped me through that problem. What frightened
me was the possibility of any anonymous emails awaiting me. I have
forgotten about them momentarily, being so caught up in Reid, and now
here I am. Back in the real world and back into contact with technology.

I turn on my computer, waiting for it to boot up, and tap the tip of
a pen against my desk. When my email loads, I hold my breath, and slowly release it when I see that no haunting emails are waiting for me. Unless you count Viola as frightening, but I am about to remedy
that problem now. I read the couple emails she sent while I was in la-la
land with Reid and can’t help but laugh at them. Finally after the last
one, I respond with a quick email and let her know that I have decided
to sign two authors, which was the truth, and am making headway on
signing another.

I work through the morning, reading letter after letter, lost in
thought, and jump when my office door flies open. I look over and
see Reid standing there. He closes the door and leans up against it.
“
Would it be possible to talk you into taking a break and grabbing some
lunch with me?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

As we leave the office, I realize that Heidi isn’t behind her desk, just
like she wasn’t the last time I was in the office, and she was replaced with
some blonde headed temp. I feel guilty for not knowing why Heidi
is absent and wonder if she has been the entire time I was gone. I make
a mental note to call her
tonight
and check on her to make sure she is okay.

We grab lunch at my favorite café down the street, where Reid lets
me know that he was going to be staying late at the office all week to
catch up from being on vacation. He lets me know that while Lawrence
approved our vacation, he certainly wasn’t happy that his nephew had
taken so much time off as well, but that he sent his well wishes and
hoped I was ready to tackle some authors. I feel guilty realizing that I
kept
Reid away from work,
even
though he
assures
me that he wouldn’t
have it any other way. After lunch, Reid walks me back to my office with promises of picking me up from the house and taking me out to dinner to celebrate our first day back at the office.

***

Being
back at
Reid’s
house
alone feels
weird. I didn’t feel comfortable
wandering around without him here. I discover that he has a workout
fiend’s dream gym in the basement beneath his house, that he basically
has a mini movie theater on the far side of his house, as well as an
indoor/outdoor pool on the backside of his house. I walk through
each room, each as grand as the last, getting myself familiar with the surroundings. I don’t know how long I am going to be staying here, and to be honest, I don’t want to leave. I know everything is moving fast, but I really don’t want to go back to my apartment. I don’t want
to be alone. I don’t want to be without Reid. Eventually, I find myself
back in his room. Curiosity wins the best of me, and I begin to snoop
around. It is wrong, and I know it, but I can’t help myself. I try to open the
chest but the padlock is secure.

I search for a key, digging through the large mahogany desk near the fireplace, and come up empty. I move onto the nightstand near his
bed. I pull out the first drawer and find nothing of importance. The
bottom drawer gives a bit of a fight but I finally manage to tug it open,
but inside is only two items facing downward. I pick up the first item,
which is a picture frame, and turn it over. My breath hitches when I
see the framed picture. In the picture is a beautiful brunette. She seems
young, happy, and in love. She isn’t alone, however. In the photo, Reid
is standing next to her, grinning from ear to ear, holding a baby bundled in
a blue blanket.

He had a family…
Tears prick my eyes, and I feel my heart breaking.
Yes, keeping secrets about who I really am, and who my family was, is
big. I won’t deny it. Reid not telling me he might possibly have a brother
is big, but it’s something I can live with. But not telling me that he once
had a wife and a son… I’m not sure that is something I
can handle.

I set the picture aside, my hands shaking, and my heart pounding.
I pull out the little leather bound book. I turn it over and determine it’s a photo album, and I am unsure I want to open it. I do. I open the
first page, and the first photo is a close up of the brunette laughing. She
looks absolutely heavenly. On the next page is an ultrasound with the
name Lily Harder, and a lump forms in my throat, and I struggle to
swallow it down. I shouldn’t be snooping, but I can’t help it. The next
series of photos are of her growing belly. Reid and the male I saw in the
photographs in the hall make an occasional appearance. The pictures
turn to photos of the most handsome baby boy I have ever seen. Several
of them have Reid holding the baby and beaming like a proud father.

The tears rush down my face. Why wouldn’t he have told me about
them?
The same reason you haven’t told him about yourself,
my inner critic
taunts me. I hear someone clear their throat, and I quickly glance up and see Reid standing in front of me, several feet away. “I-I-I…” I’m at a loss for words. “I shouldn’t have been snooping.”

His eyes are dark, and he is tense. He says nothing as he closes the
distance between us and sits down on the bed on the other side of
where I placed the framed photograph. “Lily,” he says softly, staring down at the picture. My heart shatters when he says her name, as if
it’s a confirmation of what I have been thinking since I came across the
photos. I didn’t want it to be true, but the way he is acting only makes
it real. “She was my sister-in-law…”
Wait, what?
“This is Ollie,” he
points to the baby, “my nephew. They died in a house fire.” His words
are weak, and I have no idea what to say. He stares at the photos for
a few more seconds before placing them back into the drawer. For
some reason, I feel like he isn’t telling me the whole story, but I don’t question him.

“I didn’t know you had a brother.” I finally break the silence. Reid
glances at me and nods his head. His eyes are still dark, and anger is
burning in them. “The guys in the photo? Are they your father and
brother?” He nods again. “I-I-I’m really sorry… I shouldn’t have invaded
your privacy.”

He reaches out and pulls me against his chest. Tears prick my eyes
as I feel for his loss. “Don’t worry about it. I should have told you about
them,” he says. He sounds distant, and I get the feeling I’m still not
getting the whole story. “Now,” he kisses the top of my head, “I do
believe I promised you dinner.”

The change of subject makes me realize that he doesn’t want to talk
about it or them. So I squeeze him tighter and nod my head. “Yes, I do believe you did.”

THE RIDE TO THE
RESTAURANT
is tense. I apologize profusely to Reid
a million times for poking my head around, and he reassures me that
it isn’t a big deal. He is still distant, and I wonder what it will take for
him to open up to me. I think about telling him something about myself,
if not all of it, but I still can’t seem to get the words to form correctly.
So I sit in the passenger seat, my head pressing against the cool window,
and watch as the buildings pass us by. Mozart quietly plays in the
background as we pull up in front of a restaurant. It’s a newer one that
just opened up in town, and I hadn’t had the chance to try it out yet.

The restaurant is quaint, nothing too rich and extravagant, just
perfect for a dinner date. Reid parks the car in the back parking area, rounds the car, and helps me out in typical Reid fashion. He rests his
hand on my lower back, guides me around the small building, and
through the entrance. Inside, the place is warm and inviting. Small,
round, intimate tables are placed throughout the dining area with
candle lights. The walls are painted a deep red, and a fire is burning in
a grand fireplace on the farthest side of the room. Over half of the tables
are filled, and the waitress leads us to a back corner table. I shed my
jacket, still wearing the dress I wore to the office today, and take a seat
with my back against the wall.