Love the One You're With
Page 19

So what? In two weeks you’ll be in a foreign country and Grace Brighton will be happily living the single life.
“Okay, so you know what her favorite flower is, but you’re not sleeping with her,” Cole said.
“Correct.”
“Cassidy told me that he’s rolling you off the project at the end of the month.”
“Yup. Did Cassidy also tell you to come in here and bug the shit out of me, or was that your own bright idea? Don’t you have a locker room to be stalking or a jock strap to be investigating?”
Cole set the baseball down in a completely different spot from where he’d found it and commenced playing with the pen Jake’s dad had gotten him for college graduation. Jake gave up trying to return to his work and snatched the pen out of Cole’s hands.
“So after this month, you’re done with Grace?” Cole asked.
No.
Shit. Where had that thought come from? Shit.
“Isn’t that what I just said?” Jake snapped.
“Excellent.”
“You’re telling me,” Jake said, with enthusiasm he didn’t feel.
“So you won’t mind if I ask her out, then?”
The pen in Jake’s hand suddenly felt a lot less like a nostalgic writing utensil and a lot more like a potential weapon. “You want to date Grace?”
Cole lifted a shoulder. “I liked what I saw when she came up here that day. She’s classy, you know?”
He did know. She was also his.
“She’s not your type,” Jake snapped.
“Maybe not,” Cole said affably. “But isn’t that what dating’s for? To figure it out?”
Damn it. Damn it all to hell. There was absolutely no reasonable explanation he could give for why Cole couldn’t ask her out. All he could do was wait for Grace to turn Cole down.
And surely Grace would turn him down. She had that whole sixth-month plan.
But after the six-month plan? Then what? Cole was good-looking. Richer than sin. And he seemed like the type that wanted babies and a Kitchen-Aid mixer and a tennis club membership someday. Cole wasn’t likely to up and go to Beijing or Reykjavik because he had an itch.
Jake liked Grace. And because he liked her, he wanted her to be happy. Once she was over this whole girl-power single-life phase, she’d want someone who knew how to be a good boyfriend.
She deserved someone who knew a routine beyond love-’em-and-leave-’em.
You could stay.
No. Hell. He couldn’t stay. He didn’t want to be a nobody journalist doing the same thing until he was fifty. He wanted to branch out. Go places.
He wanted fulfillment.
Grace could be fulfillment.
He leaned back and closed his eyes, trying to fight back the traitorous thoughts that kept spilling forward.
Grace wasn’t for him. Grace was … special. And she deserved someone who didn’t eat Cheerios for three meals a day because he forgot to go shopping, and whose track record with women had maxed out at exactly three months and nineteen days before he’d gotten bored.
He wouldn’t do that to Grace.
“You should go for it,” he told Cole, mildly surprised to find that the words didn’t become physically lodged in his throat. “Ask Grace out. If you need any pointers, just let me know.”
“And you’re sure you don’t mind?”
“Yup.” I just want to kill you. That’s all.
“Good. Then I’m also guessing you won’t mind that there’s a scary blonde in the waiting area who’s been demanding to see you. She says you two are involved?”
Jake froze. “Short hair or long hair? Curvy or thin? Or did she have a beauty mark to the left of her mouth?”
Cole raised his eyebrows. “There are multiple possibilities of scary blondes waiting in your office reception area?”
“Dozens,” Jake muttered darkly before going to deal with his baggage.
In a way he was grateful for it—coming face-to-face with one of his many exes was exactly just one of many reasons why Grace Brighton was better off without him.
And right about now he needed that reminder.
* * *
When Grace was eight, she’d broken one of her parents’ many rules and brought a tennis ball into the house with the bright idea that their new Labradoodle puppy might like to chase it in the foyer.
Instead, she’d accidentally thrown the ball into a vase, sending it shattering to the floor. Seconds after which the still-in-pursuit Labradoodle had collided with some abstract blown-glass sculpture, sending that shattering to the floor.
She’d been grounded for six weeks and had never, ever forgotten the sound of breaking glass.
She just didn’t expect to hear it on the sixth floor of her office building.
Yet somehow she wasn’t the least bit surprised that the origin of the noise was from none other than Jake Malone’s office.
There were a handful of people standing outside the door when she approached with Jake’s breakfast sandwich in hand. She recognized Cole Sharpe immediately, and he gave her a sardonic smile as he tilted his head toward Jake’s office and mouthed, “Train wreck.”
The pixie-cut receptionist, whose name Grace had learned was Melissa, looked torn between horror and laughter, and a handful of other Oxford guys looked fascinated by whoever or whatever was inside.
“You’re a pickle-cocked, womanizing asshat!”
Cole moved away from the door to stand by Grace’s side. “Is he really pickle-cocked?” Definitely not. Grace covered her mouth to smother a horrified laugh. “I couldn’t say. What’s happening?”
“Some scorned woman apparently thought they were headed to the altar, only to hear about your little HeSaidSheSaid adventure.”
“Oh, but that’s just—”
There was a hiss from inside the office. “Don’t you dare tell me that it’s just for work, Jake Malone. You bought her flowers. I read it on the website!”
It took all of Grace’s self-control not to push everyone out of the way to hear Jake’s response. He had bought her flowers. Her favorite kind. And though the gesture had been website fodder, the note had been sweet.
Because I thought of you. Before I thought of the website.
But Jake’s voice was too low for her to overhear.
The woman’s was not. “So when you’re done with this stupid thing for work, then you’ll be done with her and call me?” she said in one of those pouty, cajoling voices.
Okay, that Grace really wanted to hear the answer to. But short of elbowing Melissa out of the way and physically entering the office, there was no way to get Jake’s response.
She felt eyes on her and realized that Cole was watching her with a knowing expression. “Guess that answers that question,” he said with a twist of his lips.
Grace didn’t ask what he was talking about. She was pretty sure she didn’t want to know.
Whatever answer Jake gave apparently wasn’t the one the woman wanted to hear, because there was another screech, and then a dull thud as something hit the wall. A stapler, perhaps?
Suddenly the bystanders began to back away, making way for a willowy blonde in five-inch heels and a white sweater dress that could have been—and probably was—straight off the runway.
Grace’s heart sank. A model—of course she would be a model. Jake Malone stooped to dating pear-shaped brunettes when his paycheck depended on it and when it landed him a cushy office.
“Can I get anyone anything?” Jake asked, his voice suddenly louder. “Popcorn? A handkerchief to soak up the drool, Blake?”
“No, I’m good,” said one of the spectators, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-two and was still gaping after the model.
“Great. Then does anyone know where the hell I’d find a broom? And also a replacement picture frame? I’d prefer not to have to tell my sister that the picture of my nephews collided with a harpy’s purse—”
Jake broke off when he turned and saw Grace. She watched the range of reactions with interest. Happiness to see her. Embarrassment that she’d been witness to the scene. Then … guilt? Regret? He seemed to settle on wary. It was the expression of a man who didn’t know how to handle his many women and wasn’t sure that he wanted to.
Well, hell. Grace wasn’t one of his women.
And she wouldn’t start ranting at him, no matter how much he expected her to. She straightened her shoulders.
She would not be jealous.
She would not be insecure.
She wouldn’t be anything other than politely amused at his expense.
At that, 2.0 gave her a nice golf clap.
“Clear out,” Jake barked roughly.
Everyone scattered except for Cole and Grace.
“Sharpe, you are seriously killing me today,” Jake said banging his head softly against the door jam.
Cole held up his hands innocently. “Hey, you should be thanking me. I was ready to pull the fire alarm if she got any hotter.”
Jake scowled. “I hope you were referring to her temper.”
“Of course. Although, those legs—”
Grace cleared her throat.
“Were bony, and gangly, and way too long to be practical,” Cole finished.
She patted his forearm. “You’ve been well trained.”
“You know, I’ve been well trained in other, more interesting areas—”
“And that’s about enough of Cole,” Jake interrupted, grabbing Grace’s arm and pulling her into his office. “See ya, Sharpe.”
“Thought you didn’t care,” Cole said in a loud whisper before wandering back down the hall.
“Didn’t care about what?” Grace asked.
“Nothing,” Jake grumbled. “Just …” He ran both his hands through his hair, looking more agitated than she’d ever seen him. “I didn’t handle that well.”
“Cole’s a big boy.”
“Not Cole,” Jake said, exasperated. “This.” He gestured around the office where a picture frame of two smiling little boys lay amid broken glass. Grace had also been right about the stapler. It now lay sadly on the floor.
Grace went to the picture and carefully retrieved the photo. “They’re cute.”
“Jackson and Matt. My oldest sister’s kids. They’re even cuter in person. Also a lot noisier.”
“Kids usually are.” Grace set the picture carefully on his desk so it wouldn’t be trampled, and began dropping the biggest pieces of glass into the garbage can.
“Grace, you don’t have to—”
“Here,” she said, retrieving the bag she’d left on the chair. “Eat.”
He stared down at the bag. “You brought me food?”
“Well, don’t get too excited. It’s cold now. But you can pick the bacon off. Bacon’s good at any temperature. And why are you staring at me?”
“You just watched me have a rather horrific run-in with an ex-girlfriend, and all you do is clean up, say my nephews are cute, and tell me to eat bacon?”
“It’s not like I’m offering to floss your teeth,” Grace said, not looking up. “I just wanted to help.”
“Help?” he repeated.
“Yeah. Fuss over you, or whatever. At least I did before you started acting like a weirdo. Hasn’t anyone ever done that? Taken care of you?”
Uh-oh. Now 1.0 had gotten a word in, and 2.0 was pissed.
“Sure,” he said hesitantly. “When I go back to Wisconsin, I’m spoiled rotten. But New York’s sort of a dog-eat-dog kind of city, you know?”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
The words hung between them, awkward and meaningful, although for the life of her, Grace wasn’t sure what she’d meant.
And seeing as Jake wasn’t meeting her eyes, she didn’t think he did either. Or maybe he did know and was just choosing to ignore it.
“So,” Grace said, standing and avoiding the rest of the shattered glass, “that girl sure seemed nice. Very gentle and sweet. Tell me about her.”
He gave a crooked smile. “This is going up on the website, isn’t it?”
Grace pulled out a pen and notebook from her purse. “Oh, absolutely.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Ladies, I’ve done it. Well, Cassidy and I have done it. We’ve figured out the grand finale for Grace and Jake’s little endeavor.”
Camille paused dramatically in the doorway, but none of the Love and Relationships women bit. Or even looked up.
“ ‘Home Run for Love.’ Imagine that in big letters, because we’re taking this show to the stadium.”
“Somebody tell her we’re not doing that,” Riley said, not looking away from her computer.
“That’s a terrible idea,” Julie said, never once pausing in her typing.
Camille huffed. “Emma?”
Emma waggled her head as though contemplating. “Yankees or Mets?”
“Yankees.”
“Better,” Emma said. “Still an awful idea.” She too went back to her computer.
“Grace?”
Grace turned toward her boss. She hadn’t really been working anyway. Saks was having an online sale of Jimmy Choos, and retail therapy was better on her h*ps than chocolate therapy. But since Camille’s rambling concerned her rather directly, she might as well state her baseball ambivalence now. Not to mention Jake’s rather bizarre, unfounded hatred for the New York Yankees.
“Why baseball?” Grace asked.
“Because Stiletto readers love guys in baseball pants?”