To my surprise, Evelyn goes to her easily with a smile.
“We’ll just be a little bit,” Caroline tells Andrea. “We’ll come find you when…we’re done.”
That pause makes my eyebrows arch.
“Of course,” Andrea says. “Take your time.” She gives us a smile, then turns and heads toward her desk with Evelyn.
Caroline looks up at me, loops her arms through mine, and turns, tugging me through my office door. “Nice to meet you, Felicity,” she says.
It occurs to me that I did not introduce the two of them.
Caroline shuts the door on Felicity before my junior VP can say a word.
Then Caroline locks my door with an audible click.
She pulls me away from the door toward my desk.
“What was that?” I ask with a grin.
“Just establishing some boundaries,” Caroline says.
“You mean staking your claim?”
She smiles and lifts a shoulder. “Andrea filled me in on the fact that Felicity has a hard time getting the message that you’re not interested. I thought I might as well help you out while I was here. Do you think I made that clear enough that you’re not available?”
“I do.” I fucking love that she did that. Not because I needed the help but because she was willing to be that help.
“I hope that all her fantasies about you and your desk are completely ruined by thoughts of what I’m doing to you on it right now.”
“You’re not doing anything to be on it right now,” I point out, my hands settling on her hips and walking her backward toward the desk. “But we could easily rectify that.”
She gives me a playful smile. “Well, I suppose that depends if I’m here this weekend as your nanny or your friend with benefits.”
She’s definitely not here as my nanny and she’s so much more than my friend with benefits, but we’re not ready for that conversation and the guys and I agreed not to spook her.
Still, I say, “Definitely not the nanny.” I lift my hands and cup her face. “You’re really hot when you’re jealous.”
She scoffs. “I’m not jealous. I know you don’t have feelings for Felicity. She’s totally not your type.”
I laugh. “Actually, she’s very much my type. Until I met you.”
“Then why haven’t you fucked her?”
“She works for me. I don’t fuck my employees. As you know. Personally.”
Caroline studies me. “I think it’s more than that.”
I run my thumbs along her jaw bone on either side. She’s right, but I’m curious if she knows why exactly. How well does Caroline Bell know me? “What do you think it is?”
“I think you liked women like Felicity before because they liked the Grayson Ross you were before. You like that side of yourself. The take-charge CEO, who always makes the right decision and is perfect, put together, organized and on top of things. You liked that they liked that side of you.” She pauses. “But you like me because I like the side of you that you had forgotten. Or maybe you didn’t even really know him. The Honeysuckle Harbor side, the in-over-his-head dad. The one who doesn’t always have the answers. The one who maybe messes up a little bit sometimes. The one who needs help, but who has finally learned how to ask for it. The one who is a little more laid-back, who smiles more easily, who likes to have a beer on the beach, who has friends and family and roots.” She reaches up and plays with the knot on my necktie. “And as absolutely hot as you are in this suit, I know and very much like the Grayson Ross who wears blue jeans and T-shirts with baby spit up on them, and who sometimes forgets to brush his hair, and who spills baby food on his couch, and gets baby poop down the front of him, and will still smile and hold his baby daughter with hearts in his eyes.”
I stare down at her, my heart pounding in my chest.
I would never have articulated all of that in that way, but she’s exactly right.
Caroline is my type because she really knowsme. The Grayson Ross who does business in this office and conducts meetings in that conference room down the hall is certainly part of me, but he’s not the real me.
I didn’t know the real me until Evelyn came into my life and I went back to Honeysuckle Harbor.
