How had I never noticed before that Cole Frost was devastatingly handsome, especially now with hints of a five o’clock shadow? Behind those glasses, he hid long, dark eyelashes that any woman would kill for.
Or maybe you’re feeling soft toward him because he carried you around like a knight carrying a damsel in distress.
Maybe.
Or maybe I liked the fact that he would apologize for yelling, that he would stand back and let me play one-on-one with an NBA legend who was also his client, and that he wasn’t dedicated to a June Cleaver aesthetic as I’d so foolishly assumed.
His eyelids fluttered open, and I learned a new definition for bedroom eyes.
“I think I’d better get you to bed before I fall asleep,” he said in a low rumbling voice.
I swallowed hard. Did I dare ask him to spend the night with me? Everything on my body was working fine—humming even—except for a thin line of stitches on my heel, thank you very much.
He picked me up, and I made a yelping noise.
“Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
“No, no.” Quite the opposite.
He carried me down the hall and somehow managed to get me through the doorway without hitting any part of me on the frame. “Do you have a plan for getting out of that dress?”
A plan came to mind, but it wasn’t a good plan—for several of those reasons I hadn’t been able to think of earlier. “Could you just unzip me and grab a tee shirt from that drawer?”
He sat me down on the bed and did as he was asked, and I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to have him unzip my dress under other circumstances.
That little muscle in his jaw twitched, and I wondered if he might be imagining the same thing.
“Right. Anything else I can get you?” he asked in a businesslike tone.
A kiss, a caress, a refresher on what sex ought to be like?
But I couldn’t form the words. He was still…Cole: a nuisance, my brother’s best friend, and the man with a million plans. He was always thinking ahead. If it hadn’t been for him, I would’ve ended up sleeping in this uncomfortable dress. It was awfully hard to unzip unless I was standing, and that was something I couldn’t do very well at the moment.
I, on the other hand, was still me: a screw up, the annoying little sister who tagged along where she shouldn’t go, and a woman with an uncanny ability to upend plans, even her own.
He leaned toward me. I swayed toward him. For half a second, I thought he was going to kiss me. At the last minute, however, he straightened up and gave me a tired but genuine smile. “Good night, Longfellow.”
“Night, Frost,” I said.
There’s no way Cole Frost would ever make plans that included an unsophisticated woman like me.
The next day was a Friday,so I called in sick. Again.
Isaac was apoplectic, but I didn’t know how I was even going to drive into work the way my foot was bandaged up. Besides, I’d promised Dr. Rosenberg that I’d see my doctor.
I didn’t expect Cole to take the day off, too.
“Don’t you have to go to work?” I asked.
“Technically, I’m working from home,” he said. “I can finish my reports and hopefully figure out this contract. Then I’ll walk over to the office to make sure everything’s okay before the holiday break.”
I had intended to make him Nuts and Bolts, but I didn’t see how I was going to do that when I wasn’t even supposed to be standing up. I would have to think of something else selfless to do. Something that didn’t require…walking.
“Besides,” he said, “you need someone to get you to the doctor so you can get crutches.”
Here he was doing things for me when I needed to be doing stuff for him. Why did I have to be so clumsy as to step on that glass?
Because that’s who you are. If you can find a way to screw something up, you will.
