Back In The Bedroom (The Wrong Bed #29)(49)

And then, unbelievably, she started walking back toward the glass doors.

“Wait.” He shook his head to clear it, but she was still walking away from him. Lunging forward, he grabbed her hand. “What did you just say?”

“Oh, Reilly. I’ll never forget you,” she murmured and touched his face. “I had a great time.”

She pulled free, then moved through the doors toward the elevator, which was still open. She stepped on and pushed the down button. Her eyes were suspiciously damp but she was smiling when she turned back to wave. “Bye. Good luck.”

But…that sounded like a very final goodbye. Even if—and he couldn’t believe his father had done this—she wasn’t going to work for him anymore, that didn’t mean they couldn’t see each other. Right?

And in any case, he wanted her to work for him. He wanted those cheery smiles. He wanted to hear her talk and sing and laugh.

He wanted…her.

Damn it.

The elevator doors closed. And just like that, she was gone.

He whipped around and stared at Marge.

She stared right back, still not a smile in sight.

He knew Marge never smiled at work. She didn’t sing either. In fact, she often turned off the stereo on him. She often left the shades closed.

And she hated doughnuts. Now that he thought about it, that was practically sacrilegious in itself.

“Where are today’s files?” she asked, no-nonsense. Nope, no dallying for this woman.

She’d done a great job for him for a long time. She always came through when he needed her and she was a wonderful worker, but…

She wasn’t Tess.

And, he realized, it had nothing to do with work at all and everything to do with the way his heart felt as if it had just been ripped in two.

Having felt that feeling before, he braced for the cold iciness to descend. Waited to feel…nothing.

It didn’t happen.

Instead, he felt a bone-deep certainty that this time, if it went bad, he had no one to blame but himself.

He raced for the doors.

“Mr. Ledger?”

“Take the day off, Marge.”

“Mr. Ledger!”

He waved, and even added a smile. “Go ahead, take it off on me. Go do something you normally wouldn’t.”

“Well,” she said, blinking. Then for the first time in his presence, she smiled back. “You do the same, Mr. Ledger.”

He planned on it.





18




TESSA WAS HALFWAY to her car, halfway to a nice pity-party meltdown, when someone grabbed her arm and whirled her around. She knew who it was before she turned, of course. And though her throat was already far too tight, her heart jerked hard at the sight of Reilly standing there, a little out of breath, his eyes unreadable, his mouth closed in a firm, unhappy line.

When he saw her face, he made a rough sound of regret and brought his other hand up to take her other arm, bringing her close. “You’re crying.”

“A little,” she admitted, and tried to step back from the body she’d grown to love so much.

He held tight. “Don’t go.”

And her heart broke all the more. “I have to,” she said.

“I don’t understand,” he said. He looked so confused. “Make me understand.”

“It’s simple, really. Eddie—”

“This isn’t about work. I don’t give a shit about work. What I do give a shit about is that you’re not just walking away from my office, you’re walking away from me, aren’t you?”

“Actually, it has nothing to do with you.” She blinked and another tear fell. No more, she promised herself. Not a one. “Remember when I told you I signed up with Eddie for the adventure?”

“Yes.”

“His ad promised one.” She gave him a watery smile. “It appealed to me because I’ve lived…well, let’s just say conservatively. Part of it is my family and their assumption I can’t do anything on my own, but part of it is just me falling into that trap, you know?” But he wouldn’t know because Reilly was and always had been his own man. He’d never run his life by the dictates of anyone else. “I wanted more,” she said. “And Eddie promised it.”

“Well, I’d say you got more than you bargained for on that score,” he said softly and skimmed a thumb over her throat.

“I did.” So much more. She’d fallen in love. “But now he’s offered me this job in the Greek Islands, on a yacht—”

“For how long?”

“It’s not that big of a deal, I’ll just be doing the books, and—”

“How long?”

“Three months,” she replied. She held her breath. “A perfect adventure, don’t you think?”

He stared at her for a long moment during which she waited for him to say that a better adventure would be for her to stay, to be with him.

Instead, he slowly nodded. He took his hands from her and slid them into his pockets. “I hope it’s everything you wanted.”

No, everything she ever wanted was right here in front of her. But sometimes people had to go for their second choices. “Thank you.”

“When do you leave?”