“Or just a friend,” I point out.
“Or just a fuck buddy either,” she says. “So if you can’t even say what your relationship is, how do you know what you have to disclose? Has he asked if you’re married?”
I shake my head. Savannah clinks her glass to mine. “To plausible deniability then.” She finishes the rest of her wine. I sip mine, appreciative of the supportive toast. But not entirely sure I deserve it.
CASSIE
CH. 22
He’s sitting on my front steps when I get home, the outline of his broad shoulders and long legs still visible in the dark, moonless night. Ryder Cole, sexy even in shadows.
I think about cruising right past him, as though he’s not even there, wondering if I have the strength to stroll into the house like he’s not just the last thing on my mind but not anything on my mind at all, lock the door behind me and not so much as glance over my shoulder. To pretend nothing has ever happened between us, just like we both said we wished it hadn’t.
To find out if that was true.
As I walk up the path from the garage, he strides toward me. His button-up shirt is open just enough at the collar to tease a peek at his firm chest, and his jeans hang on his hips, right where my legs were wrapped around him that night in his condo as he held me against his wall.
He meets me halfway on the sidewalk, and for a moment we look at each other in silence under the black sky. I roll my lips so I don’t press them to his, put all my weight on my heels so I don’t let myself fall forward into his arms because I know that nearness can be deceiving. Standing close together doesn’t always show the real distance between you.
Ryder puts his hands on my shoulders, but gently. .
“I’m sorry,” he says.
The heat from his fingertips warms my skin through my t-shirt, stirring waves of energy that course through my pelvis. Any ounce of will I might have had to ignore him melts away, replaced with a desire to let the sensation of his body crushed against mine erase the memory of what happened earlier. To stroll into the house with him the only thing on my mind and lock the bedroom door behind us.
But I fight my immediate instinct to forgive him. I’ve heard I’m sorry enough these last couple of years to know it doesn’t always mean what it sounds like. That sometimes the person saying it sees things one way, and the person hearing it another. Or that the person saying it doesn’t see things at all, that I’m sorry can be his way of saying You’re the one with the problem.
“Shouldn’t you be at the bar?” I say. “How’s Cash going to know what to do if you’re not there to boss him around?”
“Jackson and Parker will handle him,” he says. “Right now, I need to handle this.” He steps toward me. “Us.”
His muscled torso brushes against my belly as we breathe in and out together, and I tuck my hair behind my ears, forcing myself to resist touching him. “So tell me what you’re sorry about.”
His hands glide past my elbows, encircling my wrists.
“That I lied,” he says, “when I agreed that I wish nothing had ever happened between us.” He weaves his fingers through mine. “I don’t know. Maybe you meant it. But I didn’t and I shouldn’t have said it and I’ve spent the last six hours being sorry that I did.” Even under the black sky, I can see the contour of his face, his strong jaw line and his rounded lips as he looks down at our hands. “It’s just…it’s hard for me to trust people because I’ve been screwed in the past, so letting some of those walls down—with you—has made me defensive. And kind of an asshole. But that’s on me. You didn’t deserve the way I treated you, Cassie. You deserve better.”
He takes a breath and looks at me, and all I see in his eyes is sincerity.
This is a real apology. Not just some attempt to get out of jail free or an excuse to tide me over til the next time something goes wrong and someone gets mad. Actual regret and accountability. It’s music to my ears, but a song I haven’t heard from a man in quite a while—at least not in the last two years.
“Okay,” I say. I shake my head. “I didn’t mean it, either. I’ve just been frustrated with Jamie and S—” My tongue starts the first syllable of Sebastian but I cut it off, not ready tonight to complicate things any more than necessary. “Some other stuff,” I say instead. “I’m sorry, too.”
“About Jamie,” he says. “It’s been on my mind tonight, ever since you left my office. I don’t think you should be working off his debt anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not your brother’s keeper,” he says. “And you’re good with the books. You should get paid.”