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  Evie, stretched out on this very table, buck naked, whipped cream on both tits and at the juncture of her thighs, her lips parted and her eyes gleaming as she waits for me to come and get it.

  Jesus, was I fucked. I squeezed my eyes closed in defeat.

  Operation: Whack-A-Thon had failed.

  Operation: Keep Myself Busy so I Can Keep My Mind off Her had failed.

  That left only one option . . .

  Operation: Get Evie Naked Again and Fuck Her Brains out so We Can Both Move On was now in full effect.

  My cock bucked in agreement, and as I dug my fork into my shortcake, I began to plot my first move.

  Chapter Nine

  Back at work on Monday, I was feeling positive. I’d set up my dating profile and already had an in-box full of potential new suitors. Not that I was interested in any of them. But just having them there—just knowing that option was on the table—gave me a little boost to my step.

  “Hey, sis.”

  “Hi, guys.” I slid into my seat between them, opened my laptop, and kept my eyes on the screen as it loaded, knowing if I looked at Smith, my positive mood would die a quick death.

  “Morning, Everleigh.” Smith’s rich voice rolled over every syllable in my name and washed over me like a wave.

  Tempted, I sneaked a look at the man next to me. Dressed in a white dress shirt and a navy tie, he looked deliciously preppy, like he could grace the cover of a men’s clothing catalog. The dark stubble dusting his square jaw only added to the appeal. His gaze moved over me, a question in his expression that I couldn’t quite read.

  Are you okay? it seemed to say.

  No, that wasn’t it.

  Are we okay?

  Meeting his eyes with their flecks of gold and green and amber, I gave him a quick nod. Even if things were weird as hell right now, this was still Smith. Of course we’d be okay. We had to be.

  My brother spoke, interrupting the intense eye contact Smith and I were sharing. “I have a call with the manufacturer this morning. Depending on what they say about their capacity, it could change some of the fourth-quarter plans we’ve made. I’ll keep you both posted.”

  “Sounds good, buddy,” Smith said.

  I opened my e-mail and saw a response from the consultant I’d been in touch with about helping increase our social engagement. I was typing out a response when Cullen answered his cell and rose to his feet. He wondered toward the wall of windows, pacing as he spoke.

  Smith turned to face me. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  “Of course.”

  “About . . . things.”

  My gaze wondered over toward my brother. He was absorbed in his conversation, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t overhear what was sure to be a rather personal conversation.

  “Not here,” I whispered.

  “Have lunch with me today.”

  My gaze left his and wandered back to my screen. I wasn’t so sure that was a good idea, and Smith seemed to read my mind.

  “You owe me at least a conversation, don’t you think?”

  “Fine.” I took a deep breath, already anticipating that the hours until lunch would now drag by at a snail’s pace.

  My brother conveniently took off for the gym just before noon, meaning Smith and I wouldn’t have to sneak out to lunch together. For that, I was relieved.

  Fifteen minutes later, Smith pulled out my chair and waited until I sat down in front of the sushi bar before lowering his tall frame into the seat beside me. After we placed an order for iced tea and three types of sushi rolls, Smith turned to face me.

  “Thanks for joining me. I think we need to discuss this like two rational adults.”

  I lifted the bamboo chopsticks from their resting place beside my plate and shook my head. “There’s nothing to discuss.”

  “Let’s agree to disagree.” He leaned in closer, his voice dropping lower. “There was a reason you climbed into my bed that night, and I’d like to know what that reason was.”

  I glanced at the businessmen seated beside us. Could we have picked a less private spot to have this conversation? All the tables had already been taken at the popular Japanese restaurant Smith had chosen, leaving us to wedge ourselves in at the last two open seats at the sushi bar.

  “I’m not discussing this in public,” I all but hissed.

  Smith inhaled through his nostrils, his posture tensing. “Fine. My place, tonight. We’ll have dinner and figure out where to go from here.”

  “I’m busy tonight,” I lied.

  “Tomorrow then.”

  I shook my head. “I’m busy all week.”

  I wasn’t, but I would find something to do. Between Maggie and the gym, I’d invent reasons to stay far, far away from Smith’s apartment.

  “Perfect. Friday night, then.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Why are you doing this? You want to be my white knight, rescue me from the memory of that horrible night?”

  “I never said it was horrible.”

  Hope bloomed in my chest, but before I could respond, the server delivered a platter with rolls of spicy tuna, eel, and cucumber rolls.

  “We’ll figure everything out this Friday,” Smith added. “Now, dig in. I know how crabby you get when you’re hungry.”

  He shot me a smile, and for the first time since all this started, I felt at ease.

  • • •

  “Tell me this is a terrible idea,” I begged Maggie before taking a sip of chardonnay.

  I’d weighed the pros and cons all week, and now it was Thursday night, meaning that I was out of time. Tomorrow I’d be expected to spend the evening with Smith. Unless my best friend could help me figure a way out of this.

  “Meh.” She lifted one shoulder, munching on a pretzel as we sat at the breakfast bar at my apartment.

  While it was true I’d wanted to be intimate with Smith for my real first time, now I wasn’t so sure.

  “What exactly did he say again?” Maggie asked.

  I waved a hand at her. “Let’s talk about something else. Literally anything else,” I begged.

  “Fine.” She grabbed another handful of pretzels, picking the chunks of crystallized salt off each one with her fingernail. “Sam and I are going to try that new nightclub tomorrow. I might need to raid your closet later.”

  I had to share Maggie with Sam, the male counterpart to me. He and I often joked that we had joint custody of her. They’d grown up as best friends, and despite him having a penis, they’d never drifted apart or let things get awkward between them, even when they both started dating other people.

  “You’re welcome to anything in my closet. You know that.” My clothes were tame compared to hers.

  “The place is pretty risqué, so I was actually thinking maybe just a bustier and a miniskirt. Or would that be too skanky?”

  I pursed my lips. I wouldn’t have the balls to pull it off, but hey, if Maggie was brave enough to venture out in little more than her underwear, more power to her.

  “Actually, our new Lovely Lace collection has a really pretty bustier,” I said. “That might be perfect.”

  I wasn’t brave enough to wear something like that, or maybe it was just that I didn’t have a man to wear it for. And the naive hope that Smith would be the man to change all that had all but died inside me.

  Chapter Ten

  Mirepoix.

  I stared down at the cookbook with a scowl and reached for the laptop on the counter a few feet away. It only took a second to look up the term once I got the spelling right.

  Carrots, celery, and onion.

  Right.

  This was exactly why I didn’t cook, aside from burgers and steaks on the grill most of the time. These chefs had to use fancy words for simple things, and I was pretty sure that was by design just to make guys like me feel stupid.

  I’d made the mistake of asking my sister Pam what I could make for a woman I was having over for dinner.

  “Well, that depends,” Pam had said. �
��Do you want to impress her?”

  I’d stupidly answered yes. Then I did some backpedaling, framing all of this in a hypothetical fashion, since there was no way in fuck I was going to admit to my sister that I was courting Evie fucking Reed.

  Pam had laughed and said, “Well, hypothetically speaking, I would make this,” and then she shoved the French cookbook at me, the page for the recipe dog-eared.

  I made my way over to the fridge and pulled out the ingredients for my mirepoix and brought it back to the cutting board. All the while, a voice in my head kept telling me I was being a chump for feeling like a teenager getting ready for the freaking prom.

  This wasn’t even a date. Not really, anyway. This was me trying to be an adult about the searing-hot attraction between Evie and me. And so, yeah, we were going to stuff some food into our faces while we talked about it.

  Not even a date.

  But you did buy that bottle of wine. And you did vacuum the living room for the first time in like five months.

  “Ah, shut up,” I muttered to the voice inside my head.

  It wasn’t a date, and that was that. And under no circumstances was this night going to end with any part of me inside any part of Evie. That much I’d vowed to myself already. She and Cullen were super close. Cullen and I were almost as close as that. No way in hell was I going to become the wedge that tore us all apart. The Reed family business would suffer, and we’d all wind up losing something way more valuable than just sex . . .

  No matter how hot it was.

  My cock swelled at the thought and I ruthlessly shut it down, calling up an image of my ninth-grade gym teacher, Mr. Tubolowski. I’d walked in on him once when he was changing and had caught him buck naked. He was hung like a Clydesdale, his balls nearly scraping the floor, and perpetually smelled of gym shoes and hot garbage. If that mental image didn’t kill this boner, nothing would.

  “Mirepoix,” I muttered under my breath, chopping carrots and trying to avoid my fingers. Apparently, they looked just like carrots, because I wound up nicking one and slicing a flap of skin off another, and had to start all over again after disinfecting and taping up.

  As I finished up the slicing, dicing, and dismemberment portion of my show, I realized with a start that it had been years since I’d cooked for a woman. Sure, I’d bring along some sour cream dip or hot wings to a Sunday football viewing, but mostly, I was the guy who came in with a bucket of something fried.

  In fact, I was pretty sure I hadn’t done it since Karen and I had split over four years ago. I used to cook Sunday morning breakfast for the two of us, but when things went south, that had stopped, right along with just about anything else fun. Once she realized I wasn’t going to marry her, she’d shut down completely.

  Who could blame her, though? She’d put in two years of her life, and no matter how much my mind tried to convince me that it all made sense on paper, my heart wouldn’t listen. I just couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger.

  Now, looking back as I anticipated this evening with Evie, I realized it had never felt . . . easy enough with Karen. I cared for her deeply and she was a good person, and the sex was frequent and solid. It was just that I never felt like I was truly myself around her.

  Probably my own fault, but there it was.

  I set the vegetables into a frying pan with some olive oil to sauté and then took out the roasting chicken, but my mind wasn’t on fowl. It was on Evie. Exactly where it had been since that night in Paris.

  Tonight, we’d spend some time together. Simply because I wanted to, not just because I wanted to figure out what was happening between us. I was exactly where I wanted to be, doing exactly what I wanted to be doing right now.

  Bandages, mirepoix, blue-ball misery, and all. I wouldn’t change a thing.

  The realization gave me pause, but for once, I didn’t fight it. The Reed family had been one of the only real constants in my life. Yeah, my adoptive family was amazing. And my siblings, especially Pam and my brother Dave, had filled a huge hole created by being abandoned and in foster care.

  But my siblings were sort of stuck with me. I wasn’t going anywhere. The Reeds, however, had chosen me.

  Cullen had wanted to be my friend even when I was the new kid at school who had just appeared one day as part of the Hamilton clan. Evie had accepted me just as quickly, treating me like an older brother through my teen years and into my early twenties.

  Somewhere along the line, those feelings had clearly changed on her part. And now I realized they’d been changing on mine as well.

  But at the core of it, as uncomfortable as the past couple of weeks had been, working with them day to day and spending time with Evie felt . . . right.

  So, for the time being, I was going to roll with it. Not question my every move, not wonder how it could all crash and burn. I was going to enjoy Evie’s company, and take things from there.

  And you’re sure we can’t fuck her? my cock asked with a wiggle behind my zipper.

  “I’m sure,” I muttered under my breath.

  • • •

  An hour later, my house smelled like Emeril Lagasse had stopped by, and I was fucking stoked. The scent of roasting meat and caramelized onions and garlic filled the air, making my mouth water. I couldn’t wait for Evie to try it. Hell, I couldn’t wait for her to walk through the door, to see her face, to talk and laugh and drink with her. I didn’t realize how much I missed having someone else around this place until now.

  With a jolt, I wondered if this weird feeling I’d been having might just be sheer loneliness. I’d settled into an easy, no-risk routine of sex for the sake of it, and some casual dates. All the while, I’d avoided addressing this vague sense of dissatisfaction that never really left. Whenever I saw a new movie trailer or had some great news about work, there was no one to tell. And damned if it hadn’t been weighing on me.

  Until now. Because right now, I couldn’t wait to spend my evening talking to Evie about all those things.

  I shot a quick glance at the clock and realized she’d be here soon. I was just about to start on the salad when my cell phone buzzed.

  CULLEN: Wanna go out for a couple beers?

  I stared at the screen for a long moment, my gut tightening a little.

  Shit, Cullen. He’d asked me before I left work what I was doing this weekend, and I’d already said I was keeping it low key. He’d been elbow deep in new ad concepts and told me he planned to stay until he was done, so it never occurred to me that he’d get in touch tonight to hang out.

  I paused with my thumb hovering over the keys as I tried to craft a response. I didn’t want to lie. It was already giving me heartburn having to even lie by omission. Bullshitting him straight up would kill me.

  I tapped out five different replies before I finally hit SEND.

  SMITH: Can’t, man. Put together some last-minute dinner plans.

  Vague. True. It checked all the boxes, and hopefully that would be the end of—

  CULLEN: Nice! Do I know her? And if not, will I get to meet her? Been a while since you brought a girl home.

  Fuck.

  A direct question. No . . . two direct questions, neither of which I could answer without dragging this on and on until I just told him the truth.

  Not an option.

  My mood soured instantly as all the anticipation I’d been feeling about seeing Evie cooled under the guilt of having to lie to my best friend and her brother.

  SMITH: She’s an old friend who recently reconnected. Beers, maybe Sunday?

  I silenced my phone and tossed it on the kitchen table with a clatter, feeling as crummy as the gum stuck on the bottom of a shoe.

  Some friend I was. One second, mentally waxing poetic about the bond Cullen and I had and how great of a guy he was, and the next, lying through my teeth about his sister.

  I turned my attention back to the salad, but I couldn’t bring myself to care about it anymore. Before, I’d been so proud of the meal and psyched to sh
are it with Evie. Now I had this black cloud hanging over my head, and no way to shake it. As rosy as I’d been painting this picture not five minutes before, the fact was, we were sneaking around. Being deceptive and shady, and all the things I despised in a person.

  I snatched up my phone, ignoring the response from Cullen as I tapped out a message to Evie. No matter what I did at this point, I was going to feel like shit, and having Evie over would only be miserable for us both. Better to cancel this now before we went any further with things.

  I held the phone in my hand, dread tightening my chest. When the screen lit up again, I read Evie’s reply and let out a groan.

  EVIE: Who cancels three minutes before a date? I’m literally outside your apartment building, asshole.

  Who, indeed?

  I stiffened my jaw and thumbed out a quick reply.

  SMITH: Sorry. Come on up.

  So I’d fucked up. Again. I’d get through tonight with Evie, make some excuse about thinking I needed stitches from my mirepoix injuries, and she would be fine.

  Then tomorrow, things needed to go back to normal with her, because betraying a friend wasn’t how I wanted to live my life.

  But I couldn’t quiet that annoying little voice inside my head that whispered, Easier said than done.

  Chapter Eleven

  This was not a date.

  I pulled a deep breath into my lungs, refusing to let my lower lip tremble like it wanted to. I shouldn’t be sad. I should be angry. And I was. But I was also confused. And hurt.

  Smith was standing in the open doorway, a scowl painted on his features as he towered over me. His fingertips curled around the top of the doorframe above his head, and his T-shirt crept up an inch, flashing me a sliver of taut, muscled skin at his waistband.

  “Hey,” he said on a heavy exhale after several moments of silence.