traditional Hawaiian elements and one of the desk chairs on wheels. But around the perimeter, binder after binder of Maxon’s files, stuffed into a half dozen mismatched floor-to-ceiling bookcases, line the walls.
This stuff will take all afternoon to pack.
“Hasn’t my brother ever heard of scanning a document and storing the paper off-site?”
Britta actually suppresses a smile. That’s the first time since laying eyes on her again I’ve managed to coax a reaction from the woman that’s not hostile. I wonder if she’s thought about our earlier conversation. Does she believe me at all?
“I mention that to Maxon all the time. But no. Every six months, we’re buying another bookcase and a pile of binders, then pulling an all-nighter to file everything so we can find it again when hell freezes over. I mean, when someone requests documentation,” she says tongue in cheek.
I chuckle. Britta always had a dry, sarcastic sense of humor. It’s one of the things I love about her.
“Well, now it has to go somewhere else,” I point out.
“Do you know anyone who could help us scan and store it quickly? This place has become a cave since we covered the windows with all these shelves. I’d love it if we Craigslisted these units and never saw them again.”
“I do know someone. Consider the document storage done. I’ll talk Maxon into selling the bookcases, too.”
“Thanks.”
There’s a long pause. We share a lingering look. A flush crawls up her cheeks.
Then, as if she remembers I’m the villain in this story, she looks away, all business again, and shuts me out.
Fuck. “Do we need more boxes?”
“No. You can go. I’ll get the paperwork out of here. I don’t need your help.”
I saunter closer. She has no escape since I’m standing between her and the door, and a bookcase looms at her back. I won’t touch her. But I’ll make it clear that she can’t brush me aside professionally. Personally? Well, she should know that, too. I’ve put her on notice.
“You’re going to get it. We work together now. You’re not lugging boxes that, all together, weigh hundreds of pounds. I’ll help you pack. I know you like things done methodically, and that’s not my strong suit. So you direct. I’ll take action.”
She glances at me, then casts her gaze to the shelves and the reams of paperwork closing off the shadowy room. “Since it will go faster that way, fine. But don’t talk to me.”
The last thing Britta and I need between us is silence. “Can we just take a deep breath? I’m sorry if I upset you this morning. Hell, if it helps, I’ll apologize again for everything I did when we split up. I wish I could take it all back. Whether it sounds farfetched or not, what I said earlier is true. Every word.”
She grabs the nearest flat bit of cardboard and assembles it into a file box, taping the bottom until it’s sturdy. “It really doesn’t matter.”
“It does. And you’re fully aware of that. Let’s stop pretending. Whatever you want to know about everything I’ve thought or done before, during, or after us, just ask. I’m an open book. I will lay it all out, no matter what.”
She rears back. “Why would you do that?”
Because I love you seems like the wrong thing to say when she’s wearing a suspicious expression and some other guy’s ring. “If I want to be in Jamie’s life, you have to trust me. You have to know I’ll be truthful, that I’ll be here, and that I’m not leaving. So if spilling whatever details you need to hear will convince you I’m serious and help you believe in me again, I’m ready.”
I know she won’t ask about my sex life today or even tomorrow. But it’s coming. If we’re ever going to reconcile, she’ll demand to know. And I have to be ready for the fact it will be ugly. Then I’ll have to convince her—somehow—that no one before or since has or ever will mean more to me.
Tall order.
Britta doesn’t say anything as she mounts a step stool to reach the top shelf of the first bookcase. The labels on the spines of the binders indicate these are the first of the files Maxon stacked up after I left. She thinks she’s climbing level with the top shelf on those slender stilettos?
While I admit the view of her gently curved ass is really fantastic, hell no.
“Let me get those.”
As I reach around her and grip the first binder in chronological order, I brush against her body. At the contact, she teeters. Automatically, I steady her with my hand to the small of her back. At the touch, fire blazes through me, zipping down from my chest and up from my toes to settle in at my cock and start a vicious throbbing.
Britta whirls around with a scowl, taking me in with one glance. She sees the bulge behind my zipper. I’ve got no way to hide it. I’m not even going to try.
She pins me with an accusing glare. “Don’t touch me.”
Because sexual harassment suit. Right.
When I’m sure she has her balance again, I raise my hands in a placating gesture. “All right.”
“Don’t even think about me.”
That’s never going to happen, and I won’t make any promise I guarantee I’ll break in the first thirty seconds. “Come down from there. I’ll hand you the binders on the top. You can put them in the box in whatever order you want. No touching.”
But fuck, how I want to. The urge to peel off that button-down blouse and see if the bra she’s wearing underneath is really as creamy and lacy as this light suggests is ripping my restraint to shreds. I want to see her body. I ache to feel her skin against mine again.
No one has ever been quite as intoxicating—or as soothing—as Britta. It took me three years and an embarrassing number of hookups to realize that no one ever will.
She looks warily between the top shelf, still a tippy-toe reach away, and the box on the table. Then she huffs. “All right.”
“I just don’t want to see you hurt,” I tell her. “And this is one of the few times being six three comes in handy. Folding myself in your old compact definitely wasn’t.”
She doesn’t smile at my lame attempt at humor. Instead, she looks over her shoulder as she descends the footstool. It goes against my grain not to help her. To be clear, I’d also help a two-year-old or your grandma, as well. I particularly don’t want Britta stumbling in those crazy-sexy heels, so I stand nearby until she’s on solid ground. Then I fold up the stool and hand her binders, one after the other, in a slow procession.
This is my time alone with her. I need to make the most of it.
“I saw the picture of you and Jamie in the hospital when he was born. You looked really happy. And beautiful.”
She pauses, one hand poised over the top of a box. I see her thinking. Maybe she’s finally deciding to share something with me about my son. Or maybe she’s merely willing to tell me what I want to know so I’ll fuck off sooner.
“The first time I held him, I was amazed,” she murmurs. “That little round face, the eyes he couldn’t quite open, and the red cheeks. Your chin. But I… There are just no words to describe the moment he was put into my arms. I felt a love unlike anything I ever imagined.” She goes quiet for a moment. “I appreciate you making him possible.”
I wish she wouldn’t thank me. I had the easy part.
I also wish I’d been there, that I knew what it was like to hold him. “Tell me about his birth. Please.”
Though Britta doesn’t want me closer to Jamie, I’m hoping she’ll cave to my sincerity and share the details.
She lets out a long breath. “He was born July tenth at three twenty-four a.m. It was a Thursday.” She shakes her head. “There are parts of the twenty-four hours before that I remember so clearly and others things I can’t recall at all. I went to work Wednesday morning. I’d been up for days cleaning, washing, organizing. Nesting, my doctor called it. About lunchtime, I told Maxon I thought I was having contractions again. He didn’t pay me much attention. I ruined his fourth of July with false labor. I think he’d found a hot tourist who liked Gr
ey Goose almost as much as he does. But he left her to take me to the hospital for nothing. So the day before Jamie was born, Maxon wasn’t keen on blowing off the deal he was trying to close for another nonevent.”
I’m a little irritated with my brother for not taking Jamie’s birth more seriously—until I remember that he was there, I wasn’t, and I should be fucking grateful he took care of them in my stead.
“You insisted on going to the hospital anyway?”
“Yeah, about four thirty. Labor seemed to be progressing.” She gives me a wry grin. “And for whatever reason, the minute I arrived, my contractions stopped. My doctor said it’s common, but I’d dilated enough that they wanted to keep me for a few hours. Maxon and I played some cards. I called my mom so she could try to move her flight up. Jamie was a week early.” Her grin becomes a full-fledged smile at the memory. “He was so eager to be a part of the world. The doctor broke my water at a little after one a.m., which is when everything got real. And painful. Then, after a lot of pushing and sweating and cursing, Jamie came. He’s been surprising me ever since. You know the rest.”
No, I know facts. Britta added to my library of knowledge about our son. But I want more. I want to know what it was like to be there, holding her hand, watching him take his first breath, let out his first cry. To hold him myself when he first opened his eyes. To greet the child Britta and I made in love together.
I missed everything.
I shove down how much that chokes me up. “What did he weigh?”