“Is it?” she said, echoing his thought.
He didn’t have an answer for her, because right now, in this moment, he didn’t know if she was right.
“I’m done being the other woman in your life. Goodbye, Cody.” She spun on her heels, walked right out the front door, and slammed it at her back.
He waited for the pain and urge to go after her to come over him and make this right. It never came. Because he had chosen Brooke over her and admittedly every woman he’d dated.
They’d left.
Brooke was always here.
She would always be here for him.
His heart beat fast and hard in his chest. His mind wanted to reveal what that truly meant, but he needed a minute to calm down before he started thinking things he’d never allowed himself to even contemplate.
Restless, wired, and unsettled, he walked into his study, hoping to find some peace and quiet and his misplaced sanity.
In a matter of hours, he’d managed to turn his very orderly world upside down.
But there was one thing in his life that was always consistent.
He turned on his heel and headed up the stairs to Brooke’s room. He couldn’t leave things between them the way they were, so he knocked on her door.
She opened it, still wearing her dress. “Hey.”
He took her hand and tugged her out the door. “Come with me. We need to talk.”
She scrambled to keep up with his longer strides. He slowed on the stairs. He didn’t want her to trip and hurt herself. He led her through the living room and back to the kitchen. He released her long enough to grab two plates and the double-chocolate fudge cake from the fridge. “Your favorite.”
“Everyone’s favorite. It’s chocolate. But let’s share it. I don’t want to eat so much sugar right before bed.”
He liked that idea and cut one slab of cake, dumped it onto the plate, put the cake way, grabbed the forks, and headed back to his study. “Come on.” He took her hand in his again, needing the contact and grounding effect it gave him.
He handed the cake off to her and went to the credenza where he kept a few glasses and decanters of liquor. He poured himself a bourbon and sat at his desk.
A lamp on his desk cast a soft glow, but left the rest of the large room in shadows. Brooke walked out of the dark and into the light like some ghostly dream materializing before his eyes, wearing that damn black dress, her feet bare. He found that endearing and sexy as hell.
“So what do you want to talk about?” Brooke asked.
Cody tried to ignore his tumultuous thoughts, but failed miserably when his gaze dropped to her cleavage bouncing above the edge of the dress as she walked around the desk toward him and his mind conjured one hot, naked image of her after the next. He shut that line of thinking down, but another part of his brain made him face a reality he’d been reluctant to see. She was a grown woman now.
She’d rocked his world earlier with the kiss and telling him their relationship had to change if he continued to date, or married, Kristi.
He didn’t have to worry about that now.
Kristi had walked out.
Like always, Brooke was here for him.
“We never fight. We talk to each other. But things have been…strange lately.” Cody raked his fingers through his hair and sighed. He tugged his tie loose and undid the two top buttons on his shirt, trying to relax and find the right words to fix this.
She watched his every move. He was used to her gaze on him, but tonight, it all seemed different. He felt the heat in her gaze touch every part of him. He flexed his forearms as her gaze swept up his arm, across his shoulder to the patch of skin he’d bared at his neck, then up to meet his gaze.
She had to see how much that sultry glance affected him.
She picked up his bourbon and took a sip, like she needed some liquid encouragement.
He scolded her. “You’re not twenty-one yet.” He needed that drink as much as she did. Or ten. Because this night had taken a turn and he didn’t know how to right his world again. He didn’t know if he wanted to.
