I’m just reaching out, fisting my hand in Cole’s shirt, and dragging him over the threshold and into my cottage, toward me, where I can press my mouth to his.
Chapter 25
Dane
Iwait until long after the sun sets to go to Lucy’s cottage.
Nico clearly already has his suspicions, but it’s not like I want to give him a chance to goad me. Or to interfere like he has been, every chance he gets, at the office.
Nico has been frustratingly consistent about making sure I don’t get Lucy alone. If she’s in my office, he’s popping in for a chat. If we’re getting into the elevator together, he ducks in right before the doors shut.
And he’d had a lot of fun with that little stunt, taking her off to his boat. Of course, he’d produced the new investment money as proof that he really did need her, but I still didn’t like it. Especially when he went dead silent for hours after, not answering any calls or texts.
Now, I slip out of my room and down a back hallway, ducking out through the kitchen door. I have to walk through the thick of the tropical growth for a few minutes before I break back out onto the path, just beyond the curve that obscures most of her cottage from ours.
To my relief, there’s a light on inside, glowing warmly through the front window.
The glass on all the buildings is German, a special engineering that allows it to appear frosted from the outside but clear from the inside. So you can look out at the view, but people outside can’t look in on you.
Around me, the forest chirps with life—bugs and frogs and nocturnal birds singing together. The sounds calm me.
For nearly two decades now, we’ve been doing this retreat, which means the sights and sounds of the island are ingrained in me. This is the one week of the year when we relax and allow our minds to wander.
Admittedly, for Nico, it’s not quite that important. But for Cole and me, the break is essential. We tend to be single-minded, to focus intently and not come up for air.
So we need the isolation.
Maybe it’s a bad idea to mess with the formula we have going by making a visit to Lucy while on the island. It could be bad for our business, disrupt the natural cycle. But I’m past making logical decisions when it comes to this woman.
I stride to her front door and raise my fist to knock, thinking at the last moment that I should have broughtsomething—flowers? A bottle of wine?
A sound from inside has me pausing just before I rap my knuckles against the wood.
It’s a voice.
Cole’s voice.
My entire body goes rigid, and, wanting to make sure, I lean in, nearly pressing my ear to the wood to listen. Sure enough, it comes again, a voice that is unmistakably Cole. I can’t make out what he’s saying, but I know it’s him from the cadence, the pitch.
Spend thirty years of your life working with a guy, and you get to know him. I can pick out Nico or Cole walking down the hallway by the way their feet sound hitting the ground.
It comes again—a laugh, a low murmur. Lucy says something, her lilting, delicate Midwestern accent unmistakable.
It’s rare that I’m paralyzed. Typically, my first instinct is always to act.
But right now, I stand completely still on her little porch, heart thudding in my ears, emotions warring inside me.
Disbelief. Anger. Surprise.
And something stickier than that, crawling over my skin, like irritation.
I should be the man in this cottage with her.
Not Cole.
I would never expect this out of Cole.
Nico? Sure, of course—in fact, I’m shocked he hasn’t done something like this, trying to get to Lucy after realizing I like her. But Cole hardly notices anything but what’s in front of him.
