“You never told me why you’re here in the first place,” he said to her back. “Or which one of my guys I have to talk to for giving out my location.”
The wind kicked it up even more, bringing in some fast-moving clouds that matched the impending storm in her gut. She turned to face him. “None of them.”
He gave her a small smile. “Now who’s protecting someone?” He studied her. “My money’s on Spence.”
“How do you figure?”
“Because there’s no way Joe fell victim to your smile again so quickly after last night,” he said. “And Mollie idolizes you but she also loves me. Spence is the only one currently susceptible enough to your charms to cave. So let’s cut to the chase, Elle. Why are you really here?”
No way was she going to admit to being worried about him. It would just go straight to his big, fat head. “I wanted to apologize, but I’m no longer feeling it.”
“For the B&E or for using one of my men?”
She sighed. “Both.”
His gaze never left hers. “There’s more. You were worried about me.”
“Well that would be like worrying about a lion in his own habitat, wouldn’t it? King of his jungle, always in charge, never showing weakness—”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “You were worried about me.”
She blew out a breath. “Maybe. Just this once.” She started to move away again but he caught her.
“I’m done here,” he said. “I’ll give you a ride, but we’re going to eat first.”
He took her to the Marina Green where he made her get out and sit with him on a park bench sheltered from the wind by a thick grove of tall trees. They watched the storm move in on the water, making it shimmer and dance as it ebbed and flowed heavily against the shoreline.
She’d forgotten forks. All they had were chopsticks. Problem was that it was his right arm that had been cut and he was right-handed. Watching him try to use the chopsticks with his left hand was far more entertaining than it should be. Three times he missed his mouth by a mile and when she smiled, he slid her a look.
“I’m starving to death over here and you think it’s funny,” he said.
“What’s funny is seeing you actually suck at something.” She stood, gathered their stuff, and tossed it in a trash can. The wind was rounding the out-of-control mark and the occasional boom of thunder could be heard. Elle’s hair blew around her head as she stalked back to his truck and got in.
He followed, sliding behind the wheel, his hair sexily windblown. “Thanks,” he said, staring straight ahead, out the windshield. “For tonight.”
“For fighting off your client for you or for the food?”
He looked at her. “You know there’s not a lot of people who’d do the things you do for me.”
“You mean yell at you?”
“I mean,” he said patiently, refusing to be drawn into an argument. “Being there for me.”
Stunned, she stared at him while he drove, and then finally she turned to look out into the night as the city went by in slashes of light from the buildings around them.
If she had been there for him, he’d certainly done the same for her. He mocked her. He teased her. He drove her nuts. But she could ask anything of him, anything at all, and she knew he’d find a way to come through, no matter what.
“Where to?” he asked.
“I was supposed to go to the pub and meet up with Willa, Pru, and Haley.”
Her sisters of the heart, and Maya’s words floated around in her head.
Family is family. Family is everything . . .
She thought of her sister standing on her doorstep and the look on Morgan’s face just before Elle had shut the door on it. She’d looked . . . regretful. Sad.
With a sigh, Elle leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes. It’d been haunting her. It wasn’t often she let herself regret a decision she made but she was regretting that one, big-time. Why hadn’t she at least heard Morgan out?
She didn’t realize that Archer had parked until she felt his finger stroke a strand of hair from her temple, tucking it behind her ear.
Opening her eyes, she realized they were at the Pacific Pier Building.
“Hey,” he said quietly.
“Do you think family is everything?”
He let out a long exhale. “If you’re talking about the family we make and not the one we’re born into, then yes.”
Once in a while, he said something so profound she forgot she wanted to kill him the rest of the time.
Not true, a little voice said. Sometimes you still want to kiss him . . .
“You okay?” he asked. “I think I just lost you there for a minute.”
She managed a smile as she slid out of the truck. The temp had dropped at least ten degrees. “Come on, Archer. You should know by now. I’m always okay.”
Chapter 10
#LikeAGoodNeighbor
Elle didn’t sleep well. She tossed and turned, and by the time she showered, she’d reaffirmed her promise to herself that she wasn’t going to let her feelings for Archer, confusing as they were, hold her back.
She took her online class in her office but kept tuning out the professor. She eyed the stack of things that had to be done at work later and sighed. She loved her job, she did, but some days the best thing she could say about it was that her chair spun.
Still, she gamely transitioned from class to the job, only to be stymied when she couldn’t log in on her work computer. Resetting the password only further frustrated her because the password had to include an uppercase letter, a number, a haiku, a gang sign, and the blood of a virgin.
Over it, she stood. She needed a ’tude adjustment before she tossed her computer out the second-story window. Leaving her office, she took the elevator up, staring at her reflection in the metal doors, feeling . . . lonely.
Which was ridiculous. Her life was fine, good even. She didn’t need Archer, or any man actually. But she wanted one, even if only for a night. She wanted to be held, touched. Desired.
She had to use a special keycard to get the elevator to stop on the fifth floor, which everyone thought was paid storage, authorized personnel only.
It wasn’t paid storage.
It was a penthouse apartment, huge and rambling, with gorgeous, heart-stopping, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views of the city.
Spence’s.
He wasn’t home so she let herself in and walked to the tall windows to look out at the city below, determined to get her life back on track. The security and safety track. Happiness would be nice as well but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
She was still standing there when Spence, accompanied by his friend and former business partner Caleb, walked in. They were in running gear and all sweaty, talking about some computer program for one of their drones.
Spence looked up with a smile on his face that faded at whatever he found on hers. She had a great poker face when she wanted but at the moment she was feeling too raw to access it.
Not wanting to reveal the crazy in front of Caleb, she headed into Spence’s kitchen. His fridge was usually well stocked because he was always hungry and everyone knew it. Women loved to make food for him. Trudy was the worst culprit of them all. She constantly cooked for him so he didn’t have to lift a finger for himself.
Elle opened his fridge and found a container of perfect little mouth-size quiches. Setting it on the counter, she dug in.
“Help yourself,” Spence said dryly.
She didn’t answer; she just kept eating.
“You know, I might’ve been up here with a woman,” Spence said. “In a compromising situation.”
“Really?” Caleb asked. “Who?”
Spence shot him a dirty look. “Not the point.”
Caleb sent Elle a friendly smile. She actually liked the guy. She didn’t know what it was about him, but she didn’t seem to scare him off like she did most people. He was good-looking in a rugged cowboy sort of way, smar
t as hell, and always took the time to talk to her. He’d asked her out several times now but she’d always been busy.
Maybe it was time to change that.
“What?” he asked when he realized she was staring at him.
Spence winced. “Caleb, man, what have I told you? Never approach it when it’s angry. You have to wait until the steam stops coming out of her ears. And even then, you need a full-scale strategy. Never, ever, ever ask it a direct question.”
Elle rolled her eyes and kept eating.
Caleb didn’t look intimidated, which she realized she liked. A lot. She knew he had something like four or five older sisters. She supposed that had given him a certain immunity from the Fear of Women. “I’m not angry,” she said. At least not at that moment.
Caleb held her gaze. “You’re something,” he said perceptively. “I mean you look beautiful as always, but . . . off.” His warm chocolate brown eyes were sincere—he wasn’t playing with her. “You okay?”
She stopped chewing and actually felt her heart skip a beat, but hell no, she was not going to reveal that she felt alone. And lonely . . . She’d done enough revealing of herself lately, thank you very much. Been there, bought the T-shirt, and got sunburned anyway. “I’m okay. Really,” she said into his obvious doubt. “In fact . . . ask me again that thing you sometimes ask me.”
Caleb looked at Spence and then back to Elle, his gaze confused.
Men. “Ask me again,” she said meaningfully.
He blinked. “You mean . . .”
“Yes.”
He swallowed hard. “You want to go out with me?”
“Yes.”
He grinned. “Sweet. Now?”
“Well, you’re kind of sweaty right now so—”
“I can be showered and ready in five seconds,” he said without missing a beat, already heading to the door. “We could go out to breakfast.”
There was something to be said for a show of enthusiasm, but she had work. “How about dinner?” she suggested. “Tonight.”
“Oh,” he said and laughed a little. “Right. That’s better.”
Spence opened his mouth, caught Elle’s glare, and wisely shut it again.
Elle took another quiche, smiled at Caleb, and went to work, feeling much better about things.
Half an hour later she got a text.
Spence: I hope you know what you’re doing.
Elle: I do know what I’m doing. I’m working for you.
Spence: Are you always such a smartass?
Elle: No, sometimes I’m sleeping.
Archer and some of his guys went to the pub for lunch. He’d been told by his doctor to stay home but the hell with that. He needed the distraction of work. For years he’d so carefully squelched his desire for Elle. Or at least pretended to squelch it, but suddenly, or not so suddenly at all, he was losing the battle, miserably. He’d actually thought he could keep his hands off her, never mind her mouth, but he’d failed at that too.
When Caleb showed up at their table, Archer nodded and gestured to their platter of hot wings and fries. “There’s plenty.”
“Thanks but I’m not staying.” Caleb was as smart as Spence, meaning that he was smarter than anyone in the entire place, but unlike Spence who could be equally comfortable walking a dog or designing a drone or addressing an entire board of directors, Caleb didn’t seem comfortable at all. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m taking Elle out tonight.”
The chatter at the table came to a complete and abrupt stop.
Caleb never took his gaze off Archer. “Just wanted you to know.”
“Why?” Archer asked.
Something crossed Caleb’s face at that. “I guess because if our situations were reversed, I’d want to know. Anyway, have a good lunch.”
And then he was gone.
“If Caleb gets to go out with her, I can too, right?” Joe asked.
“No,” Archer said.
“But—”
Trev grabbed a chicken wing and stuffed it in Joe’s mouth. “You’re welcome,” he muttered under his breath, and if there was more conversation, Archer didn’t hear it over the heavy thudding of his heartbeat in his ears.
On the one hand, he was proud of Elle for actively seeking out the life she wanted and certainly deserved. On the other hand, watching her go get it sliced right through him in a way that made breathing nearly impossible and hurt more than being stabbed.
Caleb came for Elle after work. They walked the Embarcadero, something she hadn’t done in a long time. It was fun. And okay, maybe some of that sense of adventure and excitement came from the fact that she knew Caleb was active on several different dating sites—which meant that she wouldn’t be able to break his heart.
“Have to admit,” he said as they walked along the water toward Fisherman’s Wharf, winding in and out amongst a good-sized crowd, “I was surprised when you agreed to come out with me tonight.”
“And I was surprised you had room in your busy social schedule.”
He laughed, not insulted. “You can’t believe everything you hear.”
She cocked her head. “So what percentage of what I hear would you say I should believe?”
He flashed an easy grin. “Fifty. Sixty tops.”
When they got to Pier 39, they stood in the west marina under a setting sun and watched the sea lions doze on the docks. “Sure has been nice having you around ever since Archer got Spence to hire you as building manager last year,” Caleb said.
Elle took her eyes off the water and stared at him. “What?”
Caleb smiled. “Yeah, we all like having you around. You soften the boss up—not that he’d ever admit it.”
It was difficult to speak evenly with the blood rushing through her ears. “I got my job through a headhunter,” she said with what she felt was remarkable restraint. “Not Archer.”
“Uh . . .” Caleb finally clued in and read her expression. Whatever he saw in her face clearly tipped him off to the fact that he’d screwed up in a very large way because he swallowed hard and backed up a step. “How about some food, yeah? We could get—”
“Caleb, what did Archer have to do with me getting the job?”
“I don’t know.”
“Caleb.”
“Christ, Elle,” he said, shoving his fingers through his hair, looking pained. “Can we please forget that I said anything? I overheard Spence and Archer talking about it once a long time ago and I was just looking to make conversation with the hot chick instead of staring at you like a dumbass.”
She did her best to let it go but failed utterly. Because here was the thing. Spence owned the Pacific Pier Building. Spence and Archer were very close friends. It didn’t take her nearly complete accounting degree to do the math here. Somehow Archer had known she needed work and he’d had Spence hire her—for the job she’d so carefully sought out, the one she’d assumed she’d gotten on her own.
Caleb was tense now and she did feel bad about that because it wasn’t his fault. Archer was a dead man walking. She laid a hand on his arm and his muscles jerked.
He laughed in soft apology. “You know,” he said, “I thought I