Beg for It(25)

Before Peyton could answer, the house phone jangled, catching them all off guard. The landline rarely rang, especially this late in the evening. It was almost bedtime.

“Yeah?” Corinne kept her voice hard, ready to put the smackdown on a telesolicitor. “Are you aware that you’re calling past nine p.m.?”

“I forgot about your phone rule,” said a familiar male voice. “I apologize, I should’ve called earlier.”

“Reese. Hi.” Turning, the phone’s long cord twisting as she did, Corinne kept her face away from Peyton’s curious look. The kid had eagle eyes, and Corinne didn’t want to give anything away with her expression. She also avoided Caitlyn’s scrutiny. Hell, she wasn’t sure what she was going to say or do.

“I have some questions on a few things about the accounts, and—”

“And you couldn’t wait until tomorrow morning?”

“You’ve taken tomorrow morning off,” he reminded her. “You won’t be in until the afternoon, and I’m heading back to Philadelphia in the morning to tie up a few things.”

He paused. She wondered if that was meant to be an innuendo. If it was, there was no way she was going to react to it.

“I won’t be back in Lancaster until next week,” Reese added. “I didn’t want to wait.”

“What kinds of questions?”

Reese hesitated before answering, though when he did speak his voice was strong and confident. A bit overbearing, actually. Arrogant. Another of those slow, rolling shivers that had so often run through her when they were together made its twisting, curving journey into her nervous system. He was putting on a show for her. Pushing her buttons, trying to get a rise out of her.

“I want to go over some of the numbers with you, make sure everything is properly squared up. There are some discrepancies.”

“In my work?” She’d closed her eyes, one arm crossed over her belly to tuck her elbow into her palm while she held the phone to her ear. She opened them to see both her daughter and sister staring, and she waved them out of the kitchen with a fierce look.

“I have questions. That’s all.”

She pictured him in the business suit he’d been wearing in that restaurant, the first time she’d seen him in fifteen years. Now she pictured him in that same suit but on his knees in front of her, head bowed. Hands behind his back, crossed at the wrists, the position he’d so willingly gone to for her, so many times.

I think you’ve got the wrong idea. I’m not your boy anymore.

He could not have been more clear. She could not have been more stung. Lifting her chin now, cheeks heating, Corinne opened her eyes. From upstairs she could hear the faint noise of Caitlyn urging the kids to get ready for bed.

“It’s getting late, Reese. I need to get my kids settled for the night.”

“This can’t wait,” he said. “I’ll need to talk to you about it tonight. Put your kids to bed and call me back.”

Corinne had never been a switch. It was true that after Reese, she’d never had another boy the way she’d had him, and that she’d settled into a pattern of traditional, vanilla relationships that had rarely even hinted at her proclivities. But she had definitely not gone in the other direction, ever, not in her personal or working life. At his arrogant assumption that she would rearrange everything to give him what she wanted, she smiled without humor. The rusted-shut tumblers of a long-abandoned lock began to click open, one by one, inside her.

“Tell you what,” she said. “Why don’t you come over here. They’ll be in bed and I’ll be able to address your issues without distraction then. Forty-seven minutes.”

Not forty-five. Not an hour. Forty-seven, a specifically odd number, meant to remind him of who was in charge. Meant to make him think hard about making sure he got it right.

“Fine,” Reese replied in a steely voice, giving her no hint as to whether or not he’d remembered all the other times she’d set him such a specific task. “I’ll be there.”





Chapter Thirteen



Reese pulled into her driveway exactly forty-five minutes after they’d hung up from the call. It would take two minutes to get from the car to the house. Arrival time, precisely forty-seven minutes.

He didn’t get out of the car.

He turned off the ignition and slipped the key into his pocket. He gathered the handful of folders he’d brought along. Patted his pocket to make sure his Parker fountain pen was in its place. He waited, hating the fact his heart had started to pound faster with every passing minute that he was late.

When I tell you to be ready at a certain time, puppy, I expect you to be ready. I despise being made to wait. It’s disrespectful.

Corinne’s words from the past echoed in his mind. Yet here he was, dallying in the front seat of his car on purpose just to f*ck with her because she’d had the audacity to pull that forty-seven minute business with him, like even after all this time he was going to jump at her command.

Inside the house, the upstairs lights went out. A minute or so after that, the front porch light also went dark. Then the ones in the front room. She wasn’t going to wait up for him.

He’d pissed her off. Good, Reese thought as he got out of the car. She needed to remember that things were different now. So did he.