It was after seven, and most every door was locked for the day, the office deserted.
Acting instinctively, he moved quietly toward the source of the noise, his heart seizing in his chest when he saw there was only one open door in the entire hallway.
And that the sound was coming from that office.
From her.
Nick braced himself for the sight of Taylor in Bradley Calloway’s arms, but what he saw in front of him was even more heartbreaking.
Taylor Carr sat in her desk chair, bent at the waist, arms crossed across her middle as though trying to physically hold herself together.
He didn’t stop to think that he was probably the last person on the planet she’d want to see her like this.
It wasn’t about what Taylor Carr wanted right now.
It was about what she needed.
She didn’t notice when he stepped into her office, too wrapped in her own misery. Silently he walked toward her, setting his bag on the floor and going around the desk.
Only when he was right on top of her did she notice him, rearing back on a gasp.
He took advantage of her surprise, hauling her to her feet and pulling her against his chest.
Taylor went stiff for a moment, her hands moving to push him away. But then her fingers curled into his wool coat and her face found the crook of his neck before she let loose with a fresh round of sobs.
Nick held her as she wept, staring straight ahead at the wall as he stroked her back, cradled her head, and offered silent comfort for whatever was breaking her heart.
He held her while the sobs that shook her entire body subsided into quiet heaves that lifted her slim shoulders as she tried to catch her breath.
She sniffled against his collarbone. “Sorry.”
He resisted the urge to shake his head in resignation. It was typical of this prickly woman to see the most honest of emotions as a weakness.
Nick turned his face slightly, letting his lips brush against her dark hair. “You okay?”
“Yes.”
Her answer was automatic and defensive, and he pressed his palm more firmly to her back, letting her know she didn’t have to be.
Nick waited, and finally she relented.
“My aunt died.”
His heart cracked a little at the simplicity of those three words. “I’m sorry.”
Taylor’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. “She’d be annoyed with me for crying.”
Nick continued to rub a hand along her back as he considered this. It explained…plenty.
“She raised you?” he asked, remembering that she’d once mentioned not having any other family.
Taylor nodded. “She was only fifty-two. Refused to ever let me call her ‘Aunt Karen,’ because it made her feel old, even when she was in her twenties. Ran marathons, vegetarian, one glass of red wine with dinner, never more. I thought she’d outlive me, but it was a freaking brain aneurysm. By the time the hospital called me she was already in the morgue.”
Her voice cracked. She took a deep breath.
“What do I do now?” she whispered after a few seconds of silence.
Nick gently eased her back and cupped her face in his hands because it felt like the most natural thing in the world. His eyes found hers, that unique gray gaze of hers red-rimmed but no less beautiful.
“You do what you were born to do,” he said quietly. Firmly. “You fight. You keep living, just as she would want you to.”
Taylor wiped a tear that had made its way to the corner of her mouth. “Karen would want that.”
His thumb drifted over her perfectly sculpted cheekbone. “It’s what everyone wants for the people they love.”
She made a soft scoffing noise that broke his heart. “I forgot you never met Karen. Smartest person I ever knew, but I don’t think love was in her vocabulary.”
Nick frowned. “Of course she loved you.”
Taylor gave a fleeting smile. “You’re sweet to say so.”
Nick thought he knew what he was reading on her face right now, and he hoped to God he was wrong. Taylor Carr thought nobody loved her.
He didn’t fully know why, but he wanted to figure out how to fix the part of her that was broken—not because she was a project, or even because she was flawed, because they were all flawed, but because…
“Someone will love you, Taylor. I promise it,” he said at the exact moment the rude buzz of a cellphone jolted them both.
She pulled away to retrieve her cellphone from the desk.
She picked it up and stared at the screen for a moment before glancing at Nick. “It’s Bradley.”
Nick’s shoulders immediately tensed, and he silently met her gaze.
“I should get it,” she whispered.
Nick swallowed the urge to ask her why her boyfriend was just now calling. Why he hadn’t been here when Taylor had needed him the most.
Why, if she loved her boyfriend, she’d let Nick hold her…
He shook his head. She’d let him hold her because he was the only one around, not because she wanted him. Cared about him.
Whatever chance he’d had to belong to Taylor Carr, to have her belong to him, had vanished months ago in a vortex of bad timing and worse decisions.
On both their parts.
“All right, then,” he said, his voice wooden as he went to retrieve his bag. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“Nick,” she called, her voice desperate and a little pleading as he was about to walk out the door.
He turned, and saw the precise moment when whatever she had wanted to say vanished behind her protective shield.
She merely forced a distant, remote smile and uttered a quiet thank-you.
He lifted his head in acknowledgment. And walked out the door.
Chapter 1
PRESENT DAY
Taylor might not have been born to wear stilettos.
But most days it felt like that.
High heels convey power, and power is everything.
Karen had probably been correct, at least in that little life lesson, because the sharp, sexy click of stilettos was a sound Taylor never grew tired of.
Except today.
Today Taylor didn’t even notice the way her burgundy heels tapped against the marble lobby floor of her new apartment building. She wasn’t thinking of power.
Today Taylor’s mind was full of other sounds.
The sound of her new doorman saying, “Welcome home, Ms. Carr.” The sound of the old and wonderfully retro elevator clambering down to the lobby floor as she waited.
The wonderful silence of her key fob allowing her access to her new apartment.
She pushed open the door to the two-bedroom prewar unit, breathed in the smell of new renovation, and prepared herself for the sweetest sound of all: Welcome home, baby.
The sound of the start of her new life with the man she loved.
Right? Yes. Yes.
Because if Taylor had a niggling feeling that the most important part of her—her heart—was suspiciously quiet on this momentous day, she ignored it.
Moving in with Bradley was smart. It was time.
She nodded, as though to convince herself.
If Taylor had even the tiniest bit of cheesiness inside her five-foot-eight frame, she might have opened the door with the quintessential Honey, I’m home!