The Best Next Thing ((Un)Professionally Yours 1)

“Y’know,” she continued. “During your most intimate moments? Commanding them to come on cue.”

He felt his neck flush, and the tips of his ears heated up.

“I’m not going to lie…” she said. “I always thought it was a little hot.”

“Charity!” Miles knew he sounded like a scandalized old lady, but he couldn’t help it. To say he was shocked was an understatement. For some reason, because he hadn’t thought of her as a sexual being back then, he couldn’t imagine her—no…Mrs. Cole—harboring such raunchy thoughts about him. Despite logically knowing that all along, she had been this same stunning woman standing before.

And Christ, she looked spectacular right now. He didn’t think she could outdo the pretty pink of this afternoon, but tonight she looked empowered and sexy in a figure-hugging fire engine red dress that complemented her coloring marvelously. She wore the same vibrant shade on her lips. Her short hair had been slicked down, and she had done something to her eyes that made them smoky and seductive and mysterious all at the same time.

“I know right?” she laughed, in response to his outburst. “I tell you, I shocked even myself every time the thought crossed my mind. I deluded myself into thinking I’ve only recently started seeing you in a sexual light. But I’ve always found you attractive. I just wasn’t ready to cope with anything remotely erotic before now.”

“Are you still pissed off with me?” he asked hesitantly. She was in a strange mood. He couldn’t figure it out. Not nervous, though he had expected her to be, given the dinner she was about to have with her family. Not angry, despite what he had done. Not sad.

She seemed almost…ebullient.

“I’m not pissed off with you, Miles. Well…I was. I was furious. But I had a lovely day, and it’s hard to hold onto a good mad, when you’re having fun and so freaking happy to be surrounded by your loved ones.”

“That’s—”

“But,” she interrupted him, holding up an index finger to indicate that she was not yet done speaking. “What you did was so incredibly unacceptable and just because it worked out for the best, doesn’t make it okay.”

“I know.”

“Do you, though? Or was this a matter of thinking it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission? Because, if that’s the case, it’s inexcusable. This was my decision to make, in my own time. The reason I decided not to come to the party, was partly because, yes, I was being cowardly and delaying the inevitable…but mostly because I wanted to enjoy our extremely finite time together. It’s all we have.”

She plunged those words into his guts like a sharp knife, reminding him of his place in her life with a succinct twist. While simultaneously offering him hope that their finite time together was not yet over.

“I’m sorry. I’m used to deciding what’s best for everybody, and sometimes I stomp around like a bull in a china shop, without giving enough consideration to the harm I’m causing. I understand now that this situation required more delicate handling, but I just wanted to do something for you. Something useful. Worthwhile…something that you would perhaps value. And instead, I bollocksed it up. I’ll get you flowers next time.”

She smiled and left the doorway to slowly walk over to where he still sat on the bed. The sway of her hips in that figure-hugging dress was mesmerizing. Sonnets have been written about lesser things.

She didn’t stop until she was standing between his parted thighs. He took a moment to appreciate the fact that his eyes were level with her perfectly pert and delicately scented cleavage.

And she grasped his jaw to slant his head until his gaze met hers.

“Eyes up, sir. I’m over here,” she instructed him cheekily, and he grinned. Her soft hands smoothed the hair back from his forehead, and she held his eyes for a long moment, while his breathing ceased completely, and his heart raced out of control in his chest.

“I’m terrified that if I forgive you for this, it means I’m falling into the same patterns again. Forgiving a man for a wrong he has done to me and thereby allowing his behavior to escalate.”

“Not all men are like Blaine Davenport, Charity. Sometimes we think we know best and fuck up. Because we’re idiots. We apologize, learn from our mistakes, and move forward.”

Miles wasn’t a short man, and he had rarely had anyone tower over him in this way before. But he found that he didn’t mind it. And he enjoyed the power and control it gave her. Because he knew that, in this moment, she needed the added security. And he definitely didn’t mind how close she was standing. How he could feel the heat coming off her, hear the escalation in her breathing, and feel the slight tremor in the soft fingers entangled in his hair.

“What you need to do,” he continued, his voice hoarsening with the desire he was trying to keep under rigid control. “Is figure out which men are which.”

“How do I do that?”

“You start by trusting yourself again. Stop punishing yourself for Blaine. What happened in your marriage was not your fault, Charity. It was all him and the parents who enabled him.”

“I don’t want you to stay in tonight,” she said, the shift in topic abrupt yet somehow not jarring at all. “I want you with me when I tell them. I love them but I want, I don’t know, a neutral party at the table, I suppose.”

“Okay. But I have to warn you…I’m not neutral. I’m like 150 percent in your corner.”

She beamed at him, and he sighed in relief. Grateful that, for now, she seemed to have let his dumb mistake slide.

“Well, that?

??s okay too. But not a word. I don’t need you to make things easier for me. I just…need you.”