Her thin beaded bracelets and matching necklace caught my attention from across the table. They looked new.
Andy felt my eyes on her necklace, and her hand went to it. Itwasnew, and before I got worked up over her spending the weekend shopping for jewelry while I was decomposing like a discarded banana peel on the couch, I remembered the farmers’ market. Andy and Lauren did yoga and organic vegetable shopping every Saturday, and she liked to pick up handmade scarves and bowls and random shit at the farmers’ market.
For a heated second, our eyes met over the edge of my laptop, and I was instantly deaf to Sam’s report. Andy’s gaze dropped to my coffee cup. Her eyebrows inched up, knowing I passed at least nine perfectly good coffee shops before arriving at her favorite. She knew I went there with the hope of running into her.
The meeting trudged on, and I hated every single one of them for existing. They were keeping me from fixing things with Andy and I hated it. I plotted methods to break Andy away from Matt for the morning but my creativity took a hit from the lack of sleep and mild hysteria.
“Hey, so, you guys aren’t bringing dates to the wedding, right?” Matt asked as we started to adjourn. “None of you have actually RSVP’d.”
“Did you doubt that we were coming?” Shannon asked. Matt held up his hands and shrugged. “Are you bringing your dominatrix?”
Riley stretched his arms over his head and yawned. “Yesterday’s news, Shan. That hasn’t been happening for two months.”
“Well now I’m disappointed.” She turned toward Sam. “What about you, Stark? Or is a weekend with the same girl too long for you?”
“Shameless as always,” he muttered. “I will not be bringing a guest, Matt.”
“Okay, so…” I felt Matt staring at me but my eyes locked on Andy again. “Yeah. Just make sure you book your rooms. I don’t care what you do, but I don’t want anyone attempting to crash with me and Lauren.”
Wehad a beachfront cottage reserved at the Cape Cod inn where Matt and Lauren were getting married. Andy’s birthday landed two days after the wedding, andweplanned to make a long weekend out of it.
Frowning, her eyes darted to mine.
It was either a breadcrumb or an indication I was going to be enjoying the Cape alone.
*
The task ofgetting Andy alone could have served as the premise for the nextMission: Impossible.
She spent the majority of the day with Matt, visiting his properties. When they did return, they were busy geeking out over new environmental impact metrics. I loitered near the doorway of their makeshift office, eavesdropping on their discussion of solar panel return on investment thresholds.
They didn’t notice me.
Much to Theresa’s dismay, I pulled up a chair and took over the edge of her desk to keep an eye on Andy. She never looked up from her screen, and I was ready to go to war with Matt for burying her in work.
Late in the day, she sent a set of plans to the printer. The large format printer lived in a small, stuffy room near the garage, and it was my one opportunity, short of kidnapping.
Holding up the first page off the printer, she stood with her back to the door while my eyes traveled over her body. Her hair was everywhere, a thick, curling mass liable to suffocate me in my sleep one of these nights. I loved it. Navy pants hung low on her waist, and I abandoned all of my precisely planned speeches as my body was drawn to hers. I had to touch her.
My arms wrapped around her waist, and I sucked that first hit of lavender deep into my lungs. “Andy…you have to listen to me.”
Her muscles tensed under my hands. She shook her head.
“You have at least thirty more pages. I know you’re not going anywhere. You don’t have to say anything. Just listen. Please.” I swept her hair behind her shoulder, dropping my forehead there to assemble the right words. “I was wrong. So wrong. About everything. I didn’t mean any—”
“That’s not true,” she murmured. “That’snottrue.”
“Baby,” I sighed. “I said stupid, awful things and I’m an asshole. That morning was terrible, the drive back was ridiculous, and I took it all out on you. Come home with me, and I’ll fix it. I’ll explain everything.”
My lips brushed over the skin beneath her ear, and I felt my misery decreasing by the gallon. Loving her and needing her the way I did was crazy, but I wanted the craziness.
Andy twisted out of my arms and glared at me, her eyebrow angling upward. “You let me believe I had a future here. You manipulated me.”
Exhaling loudly, I crossed my arms over my chest and matched her hipshot stance. “Because you do. I wasn’t lying when I said it was just bullshit paper, Andy.”
“I understand it’s bullshit paper to you, but to me? To me, it’s proof that I let this—” she gestured between us, “—make decisions about my career, and they probably weren’t smart decisions. You kept it from me while you knew I needed to be on a partner track. How am I supposed to feel anything other than manipulated and trapped? You had so many opportunities to tell me. So many.”
I swallowed a sigh. “Andy, you should trust me, but you have to understand that I can’t rewrite this today.”
