Page 54 of Nailed

I hesitated for only a moment before I opened the door to see Brock standing there, looking more disheveled than I’d seen him yet.

21

Lauren

“It’s a little past your work hours, no?” I asked, my hand tightening around the knot keeping the towel around my body.

Brock didn’t let his eyes wander, but I noted that they were snapped on mine in a way that felt intentional, as though he couldn’t afford to break eye contact. A small muscle in his jaw ticked.

“I just wanted to apologize for losing my composure earlier. I felt the need to explain myself.” Ever the foreman. “About what Merrick said…I’m not jealous, exactly. Not that I don’t find you attractive, I do,” he added.

I raised an eyebrow.

“It’s just that I take pride in my work. It’s part of who I am and who I’ve always been. And when he threatened the integrity of my work ethic, I just freaked out. It was unprofessional and that’s the one thing I refuse to be,” he continued.

I put a hand on the doorframe and Brock went so still that he seemed to stop breathing. I didn’t know how I looked in his eyes and what he was seeing right now, but I knew enough of him to get an idea of how the sight of me made him feel.

“Do you ever indulge in your impulses, Mr. Lawson?” I asked, dropping my voice to a seductive lilt. I was only half-teasing him, but that was part of the fun of messing with someone as stoic as Brock.

We both knew that he wasn’t here to defend his professional integrity. He could bullshit himself but he wasn’t going to bullshit me.

“No,” he said firmly. “That’s not the way I was taught.”

“You’re still human, though. Nothing that’s happening right now is normal and you can’t expect yourself to be a brick wall all the time. You’re going to break,” I said.

“No, I won’t.” And yet he still couldn’t let his eyes linger anywhere on my body beyond my neck.

“Is there a reason you’re holding yourself to that impossible standard?” I asked.

His mouth opened automatically, but no sound came out at first. It was almost like it took his brain a while to register that he was actually prepared to be honest with me and it caught him off-guard.

“You came all the way to my house to speak to me in the middle of the night,” I pointed out. “Look, I’m not going to force you to tell me anything you don’t want to, Brock. But I’ve been working with you for months and still feel like I know too little about you.”

“You know what you need to know,” he said.

“It’s not enough.”

His eyes widened slightly, surprise creeping in at the edges—a rare victory for my ego. I took a small step towards him, still clutching my towel. He didn’t back away.

“Your pride bleeds into your work. And as someone who needs to trust you to work on my home, all I’m asking for is a little bit of clarity. A peek into the mind that keeps everything running like clockwork,” I said.

I held my breath, expecting him to dismiss me with my name again. Only, he didn’t this time.

“I hold myself to that standard because I’m the only one left who can carry on my father’s legacy. And my grandfather’s. That means something to me, Lauren. It gives me purpose and without that, I’m nothing,” he said.

Brock had just thrown the ball straight back to my court. He’d answered me and the offer of that part of his truth was disarming.

This was the most vulnerable he’d been with me, even more vulnerable than the kiss we shared in the gallery. This was a piece of his own history that he was voluntarily sharing, not because he had to but because he felt safe enough to do so. Why else tell me any of that?

It also put things into a broader context.

“This whole thing with Rafe threatening your business isn’t just about professionalism, is it?” I asked. “It’s about the personal record you keep to uphold your family name.”

His shoulders, the same ones I’d usually admired for their strength and broadness, now suddenly seemed overloaded. I couldn’t imagine the weight of that, and for how long he’d been bearing it.

“That sounds like a lot for one man to carry,” I said. “Aren’t you getting tired of doing that alone?”

It was now that he allowed himself to really look at me. I could feel the night air cooling my still-wet skin. Under his gaze, I was aware of the feeling of my hair sticking to my back, and the heat pooling between my thighs.