Beg for It(29)

“Oh, yeah. Ancient. Speaking of what’s-his-name,” Caitlyn said. “Let’s get this turned back to Reese.”

Shit. Her plan at distraction had failed. Corinne sighed and also bent to dig around in the mess of bottles. She found a dark, iridescent blue that Peyton had brought home in a goody bag after a sleepover party. Busying herself with opening it, Corinne didn’t look at her sister.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“You don’t think it’s the universe trying to tell you something?” Caitlyn asked.

Corinne snorted. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. He was your one, and here he is, back again.”

“My one?” Corinne snorted again, this time with laughter. “Please. My f*cking one? You’re crazy.”

Caitlyn looked serious. “Hey. I remember how it was with you two.”

“You were like, twelve. You had no idea how it was with the two of us, I promise you that.” Corinne shifted to get her toes up on the coffee table, but gave her sister a look. “Reese Ebersole was not my one.”

“He’s back in your life after fifteen years, Corinne, because why? He just happened to buy the company you work for? That doesn’t seem a little extreme to you?”

“It’s what he does,” Corinne said flatly, remembering what he’d said in her office. “If he just wanted to get back in touch with me, he’d hardly have to buy a company to do it. It’s coincidence, that’s all.”

“It’s serendipity.”

Corinne spread a light coat of blue polish on her toes. It was too thin. The color barely showed through. She was going to need a lot more coats to get it anywhere close to the color it was in the bottle.

“He used to paint my toes for me,” she whispered around a sudden lump in her throat. “However long it took, no matter how much work it was to get them perfect.”

Damn it, she didn’t want to ruin sister-time with tears over a relationship that had ended years ago. She didn’t want to cry over Reese at all. But there they were, the heated wet sting sliding over her cheeks and into the corner of her mouth, tasting bitter.

Caitlyn put her arm around Corinne’s shoulders. They didn’t say much after that. Corinne cried for another minute or so before grabbing a handful of tissues from the box on the end table and swiping at her face. She blew her nose and gave her sister a watery smile.

“Enough of that. I am so not going to even give him another second of my time. Not like that, anyway. We’re going to have to work together, and that’s it. Whatever happened between us was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter now.”

“Who are you trying to convince? Me? Or yourself?”

“Both,” Corinne admitted. She studied her toes, thinking she would leave them as they were, too pale a shade or not. “But I can tell you without a doubt, Reese Ebersole was not, and never will be, my one.”





Chapter Fifteen



“You don’t have to go back there, you know.” Tony said this from the doorway to Reese’s office, where he’d been leaning. “Cow country, I mean. I can handle everything for you. Or we can set up a regular weekly video meeting. It’s not like you’ve never bought a company and handled it from here before.”

Reese gave Tony a long, steady look. The other man grinned. Reese did not. Tony shrugged and held up his hands.

“It’s a new acquisition. I want to make sure things are going the way I want them to,” Reese told him.

Tony snorted, then quickly settled his expression into something that was meant to be bland but didn’t quite make it. “Sure. Yep. That’s it. It has nothing to do with—”

“Don’t.” Reese glared.

Tony shrugged again. “Hey, listen, far be it for me to judge your motivations. I’m just angling for a trip back there so I can maybe grab a bite at that diner. And that waitress’s number.”

Reese leaned back in his chair and put his feet on the desk. He wasn’t fooling himself, or Tony, with pretending to get any actual work done at the moment, anyway. “What’s up with that?”

“Can’t stop thinking about her.” Tony shook his head. “She’s…something else.”

As long as Reese had known him, Tony had never mentioned liking women sexually, not even once. “I thought…”

Tony laughed. “Yeah. Me too. I mean, I knew better. There’ve been a few ladies in my past. Just not lately. Hell, there hasn’t been anyone lately that I’d consider something special.”

It had been the same for Reese, not that he was going to say that out loud. He and Amber had parted ways more than six months ago, and if it hadn’t been acrimonious, it hadn’t been particularly amicable, either. He hadn’t thought it would matter so much to him that a woman wanted him mostly for his money, not until the fact of it had been staring him in the wallet.

“What about that one guy you were seeing?” Reese asked.

Tony gave Reese a look. “We didn’t click.”

Reese laughed. “Fair enough.”

“You sure you don’t need me to be in the office for you?” Tony fluttered his lashes. “I could use a change of scenery. Get out of the city, you know? Cast my net on fresher waters? I could try out being straight for a bit.”