My annoyance only made her laugh harder, so it took her a while to finally calm down. I’d finished my dinner, in fact.
“Oh.” She wiped tears from her eyes. “Forget the hilariously random analogy that didn’t even make a lot of sense but totally did anyway. What the hell are you talking about?”
I stared at her blankly. “Cole. Bad boy.”
“Right.” Rae snorted and started chuckling again.
“What?” I said, more than annoyed now.
“Nothing.” She stood up and took our plates over to the sink. “I’ll let you figure this one out on your own, you bloody numb nut.”
Bewildered, I stared at her as she cleaned the plates. Finally I got up and left the kitchen but not before murmuring somewhat huffily, “You’re the numb nut.”
Her only response was to keep laughing, which she knew would bug the crap out of me.
* * *
The next day something different happened. Something unusual.
Like every day I let myself into the studio just before nine o’clock knowing that Cole and either Rae or Simon were already there setting up for the day. Sometimes, nearly almost always, if it was Simon’s day to work he came out to greet me and retrieve the cappuccino I brought him. If it was Rae’s day she came out to tease me about something and retrieve the black coffee I’d brought her.
Cole never came out to greet me in the morning. Not since we’d declared war.
So I was more than a little taken aback to see him striding toward me as I shrugged out of my jacket.
“Today we call a truce,” his deep voice boomed into the room.
Ignoring the familiar butterflies that took up residence in my belly whenever Cole entered the room, I crossed my arms over my chest in defiance. I might have looked intimidating and impressive if it wasn’t for the fact that I had to tilt my head back so much to look up at him. “I don’t see the point.”
The muscle in Cole’s jaw flexed. I ignored the warning sign that I was pissing him off.
“Well?” I shrugged, flicking my hair over my shoulder.
His eyes followed the movement before he could stop it.
“Cole?”
Transferring his focus from my hair to my face, Cole sighed. “Can you just pretend to be a grown-up for two seconds? One: I don’t like acting like this. I rarely acted like a teenage brat when I was a teenager, and it bloody galls me that a two-foot-nothing Glaswegian has reduced me to one.”
Irritated at the suggestion I was the reason he couldn’t maintain a level of professionalism (he was the one who started snapping at me when I shot him down), I opened my mouth to argue only for Cole to silence me by cutting the air in front of me with his hand.
“Don’t.” His tone and body language suggested it might be safer for me to listen. Cole waited a beat to see if I was going to obey his command. It hurt to do it, but I couldn’t help remembering the way he lifted me out of my chair as if I were inconsequential. “Two,” he continued once he realized I wasn’t going to back talk him. “Stu is popping in today with an old friend who wants a new tattoo from him. If Stu senses even the tiniest bit of the bad atmosphere you and I have created this past month, he’ll fire your arse so fast your knickers will turn to ash.”
Oh, crap.
That never even occurred to me.
I was immediately consumed by anxiety.
What I was feeling must have shown on my face, because Cole’s expression actually softened. “I can pretend to get on with you if you can.”
The thought of losing my job caused me to nod quickly in agreement. As we stared at each other I wanted to ask why Cole would think to protect me, to protect my position here. I would have thought he’d be glad to see me fired.
Too scared to ask him in case it made him change his mind, I kept my lips sealed and Cole gave me a determined nod before heading into the back.
I stared after him for a while, beyond puzzled that he’d been considerate enough to do this for me. For some reason a surge of uneasiness began to slosh around in my tummy for a while.
* * *
No more than forty minutes later the front door of the studio opened and the mammoth that was Stu Motherwell strode inside. Although I was anxious I was also pleased to see him. He had a natural merriment about him that really did remind me of a biker version of Santa Claus.
As he walked in he was talking to the man behind him. The man was almost the same height, same build, same hair, with the same beard.
“There she is!” Stu bellowed cheerily. “Steely, meet Shannon. Shannon, Steely.”
Steely and I exchanged hellos as Cole strolled into the main studio. He reached Stu and it was hard not to miss the affection in the older man’s eyes. I’d known Cole meant something to Stu during our interview. He spoke about Cole with such respect. But now I could see it was more than that. As he clamped a hand on Cole’s shoulder, giving him a manly shake and asking him how he was, it was in the gesture of a father asking a son.
He said something, but I wasn’t quite paying attention to what; I was so focused on witnessing the dynamic between them. But then Cole laughed at whatever Stu had said and it was a deep, rumbling, full-on laugh that lit up his eyes and completely mesmerized me. I’d never seen Cole laugh like that before.
It occurred to me then that I didn’t really know Cole Walker at all.
I’d made assumptions (which I still believed were true), but I didn’t know a thing about Cole’s past, his present, or what made him tick.
“Shannon?”
I blinked out of my musings. Stu grinned back and forth between Cole and me in a way I found disturbing. “How you getting on?” He looked at Cole. “How’s wee fairy getting on?”
Cole immediately threw me a kind smile that caused this weird flippy feeling in my chest. “She’s doing great. She’s revolutionizing your filing, Stu.”
Doing my very best to hide my shock, I grinned gratefully back at Cole.
He appeared almost dazzled by the smile, blinking rapidly at me.
“Good stuff,” Stu said, apparently not noticing the strange interplay between his two employees. “Which room am I in today, then?”
“Mine,” Cole said. “It’s Rae’s day off, so I’ll take her room.” He nodded past Stu to Steely. “How’s things?”
“Aye, no bad.” He frowned, though. “After fifteen years together, the wife finally noticed I’ve got a woman’s name scribed on my shoulder.” He looked at me in disbelief. “Fifteen years. Talk about a lack of interest, eh?”
“To be fair, it is a tiny script and the name is ‘Cherry,’” Stu said.
“Aye, that was her argument. I asked her what the hell she thought ‘Cherry’ meant if it wasn’t a woman. She said she thought it was a fucking song title.” Steely sighed. “Anyway, she’s annoyed about it, so I promised I’d get one done for her to prove some such nonsense or whatever. I don’t know. So let’s get it done.” Cole chuckled and Steely pinned him to the wall with a serious glower. “Never get a woman’s name inked on your skin. Never.”
Stu grinned at Cole. “He’ll ignore that, Steely. I know him too well.” Cole barely responded with a mysterious smile and a half shrug. “And will it be the fair . . .” Stu frowned. “Fuck, what’s her name? Jessica, is it?”
I immediately wanted to bury my head in my files. I really didn’t want to know anything about the fair Jessica, but Cole stopped me from turning away by flicking an enigmatic look at me before answering.
“Nah.” He glanced back at Stu. “Broke up.”
I stopped breathing.
“Ah, and what happened this time?”
“You’re a nosy bugger,” Steely ribbed his friend.
Stu ignored him. “Well?”
“She started redecorating my flat in her head after only two weeks of dating.”
Stu shuddered. “Cling-on.”
“Oh God, yeah.”
Cole’s pained expression stayed painted across my mind’s eye as I bent my
head and started pulling out the files I’d last been working on. I still hadn’t come anywhere near to finishing the digitization of them. As I began to work, all the warm and fuzzy feelings I’d been afraid to admit to developing since Cole called a truce for the day dissipated upon new evidence that Cole really and truly was the kind of bad boy I needed to avoid.
I felt sorry for Jessica.
She’d probably only suggested Cole get some cushions for his sofa or something, and he’d misinterpreted it as a threat to his bachelorhood.
Arse.
I lifted my head to wave Stu and Steely a temporary good-bye as they disappeared into the back to get to work on Steely’s new tattoo, and then I looked back down at the files.
But I could feel Cole’s gaze on me.
Steadying my nerves, I looked up at him and somehow I managed to unstick the words blocked in my throat. “Thank you.”
Cole’s lips twitched with amusement. “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“I still don’t like you.”
The humor left his eyes. “The feeling is mutual.” He shook his head, his expression unreadable now. “You really are the biggest disappointment, Shannon MacLeod.”
Without another word he followed our boss into the back, leaving me reeling.
His words had almost sounded . . . sad.
* * *
At that point I’d really thought the worst was over for the day. Cole and I had put on a united front and Stu seemed happy enough. However, I was wrong.
I knew I was wrong when Stu showed Steely out after he’d finished the tattoo and then turned to me once the door shut behind his friend. He scrutinized me in a way that made me squirm as I scanned photographs of a guy’s tattoo Stu had done fifteen years ago. It was of a muscled naked chick riding a motorbike toward the gates of hell. It was disturbing, but the artwork was awesome.
“Glad to hear you’re getting on so well here, Shannon.”
Was that a question? It sounded like a question.
I tensed.
“Yeah, it’s going great.” Cole suddenly appeared and walked toward me.
Weirdly, I’d never been happier to see him.
Stu looked at us both and then nodded. “Great. Glad to hear it. So I’ll see you at Cole’s birthday party, then?”
Birthday party?
Say what?
Panic. Yes, that was definitely panic causing my heart to do that horrible fluttery thing in my chest. “Uh—”
Cole reached me and slid his arm along my shoulders, pulling me into his side. I tried my best not to stiffen, in fact allowing myself to relax into him. I flushed, feeling his lean, hard body pressing into my soft one.
My head barely reached his shoulder.
I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, I chanted in my head to remind myself as I quickly grew heated and turned on.
“Of course she’ll be there.” Cole gave me a squeeze and my left boob was crushed against his chest.
Oh boy.
I tried for a grin, but I was pretty sure it came out tremulous because Stu got this suspicious look on his face. However, the suspicion melted into a gleam of delight that quickly made me realize he’d gotten the wrong impression about what was going on between Cole and me.
“Oh.” He nodded and tapped a finger against his nose. “I got you.”
No, he did not get us! He did not get us at all.
“Have fun, kiddies.” He laughed and threw open the entrance door. “See you soon!”
The minute Stu was out of sight of the front windows, I wrenched away from Cole’s embrace, my hands flying to my hips. “Birthday party?”
Looking beleaguered, Cole nodded. “My friend Hannah is on maternity leave. She’s bored. Extremely bored. I am not telling my bored, pregnant best friend that she can’t throw me a birthday party no matter how much I don’t need that shit right now.”
There was a lot in that sentence I did not want to deal with. “I don’t think I should go.”
“That’s entirely up to you, but Stu will be there and he’ll wonder why you’re not there since the two of us get on so well. Everyone I know will be there.”
I growled in frustration.
Cole raised an eyebrow at my reaction. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. It’s not likely that we’ll cross paths at this thing. I’ll barely even know you’re there.”
And once more the irritant walked away with the last word!
CHAPTER 7
T he room was naturally dark since it was a basement room, but warm lighting had been placed in alcoves all around and rugs covered the flagstone floors. To the left of the bar situated in the back of the room were two long tables with enough buffet food to feed a small family for a good couple of weeks. Booths were situated around the edges of the room, and people had already laid claim to most of them.
There were no balloons, no banners, nothing but a birthday cake to suggest this was indeed a birthday party, which told me that Hannah knew her best friend quite well.
“Why am I here again?” I said to Rae.
Somehow despite protesting against it for days, I was standing next to Rae and Mike in the entrance to the basement bar that was part of a split-level nightclub called Fire. The basement had been turned into a private function suite for Cole’s party, organized by his friend Hannah, and hosted by the owner of the club, Braden Carmichael. And yup, Rae told me that Braden was J. B. Carmichael’s husband.
“Because you look hot and it’ll annoy the fuck out of Cole and greatly entertain me,” Rae said, leaning into Mike’s side.
I pulled a face at her, but secretly I was pleased by her compliment. It made no sense, but I wanted to look my best tonight.
As always my hair was down, but I’d taken special care to make sure it was soft and not wild. I was wearing a black figure-hugging short dress, black stockings, and black suede ankle boots with a thin silver heel. No accessories. My makeup was fresh and light—my lipstick, eye shadow, and nail polish peach because it was a color that worked nicely against my skin tone and hair.
Since the dress was short and the heels were high, my legs looked longer. Wearing no jewelry and no color meant that the dress and my hair were doing all the work tonight.
Tony waved from across the room, just this mere action drawing gazes my way. He strolled toward us in another beautifully fit suit, his hand clasped in Simon’s. Simon wore dark jeans and a white T-shirt with a Banksy print on it. As soon as Tony reached me I received a kiss on either cheek. When he stepped back his eyes raked over me with a thoroughness you’d expect from a straight guy. “You look bellissima,” he murmured throatily.
Seriously, the guy oozed sexual charisma.
The strangers beyond him were looking at us again, and as I scanned the group I halted on a familiar face. Cole. I flushed and turned my attention back to Tony, murmuring my thanks.
Tony turned to greet Rae and Mike, and Simon took his place beside me. “You do look sexy as hell, Shannon.”
I smiled gratefully. I felt completely out of place and out of my depth, but looking good and being appreciated, especially by Tony and Simon (whom I’d come to adore) made me feel a little better. “You look sexy too. But you always do.” It was true. He could wear a bin bag and look hot.
“Simon,” a low, pleasant voice said, and I turned to my left to see it belonged to a stunning and very pregnant blond woman. She held her arms out and Simon stepped into her, enfolding her in a gentle embrace.
“Hannah, you look great, sweetheart.”
Oh. So this was Hannah. I studied her while she smiled at Simon. This was Cole’s best friend.
Her gaze moved to me and I could see her brown eyes were brimming with curiosity. “Introduce me, Sy.”
He did so and then promptly left me alone with her.
Hannah held her hand out to me with a friendly smile and I took it with my own. I nodded at her small baby bump. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” She patted her stomach and the
n gave a nod to the left. “It’s our second.”
I followed her gaze to an exceptionally tall, broad-shouldered too-good-looking-to-be-true guy with fantastic caramel skin. He was talking to a dark-haired man I didn’t recognize, holding a little girl with dark curly hair in his right arm, while a little boy, the spitting image of him, gripped his left hand.
“My husband, Marco,” Hannah said. “And our daughter, Sophia, and my stepson, Dylan.”
“You have a beautiful family,” I said with genuine feeling.
Wistfulness caused a light ache in my chest.
She smiled. “They keep me busy.” Just like that, her gaze turned questioning. “So, you’re the new receptionist at INKarnate?”
It occurred to me I had absolutely no idea what Cole had said to her about me. My answering “yes” was cautious.
“Hmm.”
I waited, but that was all I was going to get out of her on the subject apparently, because the next words out of her mouth were “You have the best hair ever.”
I laughed and some of the tension between us broke. “Thank you.”
“How do you get it to do the ringlet thing? With straighteners or a curling iron?”
“The ringlets are natural,” Rae butted in. “The bitch’s hair looks like this naturally, all the fucking time.”
Clearly used to Rae, Hannah didn’t even blink at her calling me a bitch. She just laughed, told us to help ourselves to the free bar and buffet, and wandered off to mingle with other people.
I looked around at the gathering, at the faces I didn’t recognize, at the small children laughing and running in among the adults. I wouldn’t have expected there to be kids, but it suddenly made sense why the party had started so early on a Sunday evening. Stu had even closed the studio early for it. I saw our behemoth of a boss over by the dip, talking to a curly-haired blond girl who was staring up at him in awe.
This was a family party, completely at odds in my mind with the man it was being thrown for.
“Cole knows a lot of people.”
“Yeah,” Rae said, and grabbed my hand. “And I know which one you want to meet.”
Without mercy Rae began to drag me through the room. Struggling against her would only draw more attention to us, so I just went with it, even though I was sure I was about to be mortified.