He hadn’t figured it out right away. It took him weeks for that to click into the right place, to slide against his memories of Evie’s wedding and shift into a better context.
She had been so fragile at the wedding. Beautiful in a haunted way, and he’d been drawn to her. Evie had caught him out, too. Noticed him staring and done her usual thing of assuming just a little too much, but still sticking the landing on her meddling.
He’d had a date that night, but it hadn’t mattered. That was the origin of his crush on Jess, and it made everything so much more complicated.
Now, more than a year later, he saw this same woman being strong and fearless. He wanted her even more for that, but deep down inside him, he was still treating her like that haunted beauty so recently damaged.
And then he’d contributed to a re-do on that pain by accidentally sharing too much about Brent.
Except out of that had come this new, fledging re-relationship for the Dorans, leaving him on the outside.
Where he belonged.
It was going to be Brent, not Evan, who she would bring into her bed. That was for the best.
It had been a long time since he’d felt the burn of jealousy, though. He wasn’t used to it. He was always the one who left. He’d told Jess as much. Of course, she wasn’t leaving him. They’d never been together. They’d shared a date, a kiss, and were work colleagues, that was all. She didn’t know he’d been harbouring thoughts of her for more than a year. Hell, he hadn’t really either.
The thing to do here would be to move on himself. Find a guy with a perfect bum and spend a weekend in bed.
The problem with crushing on a married couple who found their way back to each other, though, was being ruined for both men and women simultaneously.
Melodramatic much?
He’d played the game forever. He knew the rules. He still had all the other people in the world who didn’t remind him of Jess or Brent; so he just had to spin that Rolodex long enough to find a new spark of chemistry.
But he didn’t want to.
With a start, he realized he was nursing a bruised heart. He tapped on his chest and shook his head. He’d thought the thing didn’t work like that. Damn.
It actually was just him and the weight rack now. Taking a deep breath, he loaded his max rep for squats onto the bar, and got in position.
* * *
The next day,Jess appeared in the door to his office at ten to noon. “I’m early,” she said brightly. “Don’t let me interrupt what you’re doing.”
He put his pen down and gave her his most casual-but-secretly-careful assessing look. She was carrying a basket, and wearing a buttoned-down dress shirt and jeans, her feet in Converse sneakers and her hair up in a ponytail. She looked adorable and happy.
He was relieved to see her. With a jolt, he realized that he’d thought she might cancel.
“I’m all yours,” he said, meaning it on more than one level.Damn it, West. Get your shit together.“What are we doing?”
“It’s nice and warm out today. We’re going to the beach for the afternoon.” She lifted the basket onto his desk.
He peered inside. There was a blanket and a tube of sunscreen, and… “Notebooks and pens?”
“Market research.”
They were going to the beach to take notes? He’d need some fortification to get him through the close proximity. “You don’t even have a bottle of wine. This is picnic basket sacrilege.”
“It’s aworkingday at the beach.”
“In my business, working days include wine.” He went to the fridge on the wall and pulled out his favourite bottle of white. “Let’s go downstairs, we can grab an insulated bag and some snacks.”
“I didn’t packing anything like that for a reason,” she said as she hurried after him.
She was cute. Smart, but too focused on the task at hand to consider that once they were stretched out on that blanket, maybe he wouldn’t want to get up and go in search of food and drink.
Which was, it turned out, her point.
