Rush

“Case! Are you here?”

The sound of Maya’s voice approaching the open office door sets Emma back two steps. Her hand jumps to her swollen lips.

Panic sets over her expression.

I step toward her, but that only moves her back another three steps with her hand waving in the air between us. “We can’t.”

Fuck. Just fuck this.

“Oh, hey.” Maya appears at the office door. “We need to talk.”

Emma half-turns until her blushing face is out of Maya’s view. “I should go.”

“I’m sorry.” Maya’s gaze darts from me to the back of Emma’s head. “Did I interrupt something?”

“No.” Emma lets out an exaggerated laugh. “I came to tell Case about a boy I met today. He loves one of Cabbott’s games. I wanted Case to know because they work hard on every single game and app they develop. But I told him, so there’s no reason for me to hang around here anymore. I’ll go now.”

Maya looks to me for guidance, but I stand in silence, staring at Emma as she gathers up the purse she dropped into one of the chairs in front of my desk.

Stress taints her every move. Her hands are shaking. Her smile is pinned on to hide what’s really going on inside of her.

Regret. I sense it. She’s regretting the kiss already.

“Emma,” I call out her name. “I’ll see you at home later.”

When she turns to look at me, my suspicion is confirmed. Regret swims in her eyes behind the tears that are welling there.

Nodding, she hurries past Maya. “It was nice to see you again,” she mumbles before she’s out of the door.

Chapter 33

Emma

I ran out of Case’s office like a fool.

That’s because I am a fool. I’m an infatuated fool.

I kissed Case knowing that I’d feel things. I couldn’t have known that those things would be amplified a million times over.

I wanted him in a way I have never wanted a man before, but there’s more to it.

My heart felt something when his lips touched mine. It broke open.

I can’t fall for him. He lives in California. I have to go back to Seattle soon, and on top of that, he’s my brother’s best friend.

Drake’s words about Case’s dating history bounce around in my head as I trudge through the late afternoon crowds in Lower Manhattan.

Jealousy has always been a part of the dynamic of Drake’s friendship with Case. Drake complained when Case didn’t make him a partner in Cabbott even though it was Case’s money that founded the business.

In college, Drake was head over heels for a woman named Annabeth, yet she ended up in Case’s bed.

She was the first of a long line of women my brother pined for but never got a chance with because Case made the first move.

It wasn’t as though Drake made it known that he was interested in those women. He kept those feelings quiet. When I told him that it wasn’t Case’s fault that he acted on his attraction first, Drake laughed it off, telling me that there were more than enough women for both of them.

I cringed at that.

Case has a lot more experience than me. If he’s still the same guy my brother went to college with, sex is all he’s interested in.

After my disaster of a relationship with Beauregard, I want intimacy, but not at the cost of my heart.

I’ve never had sex without some degree of emotional attachment to the guy.

I don’t know if I can do it.

I jar to a halt when I hear my phone ringing in my purse. I want it to be Case as much as I don’t want it to be. He seemed concerned with my reaction when Maya showed up out of nowhere, but maybe that was because he didn’t want his old friend knowing that he was kissing the sister of another of his old friends.

Am I reading way too much into all of this?

I fish for my phone in my purse and glance at the screen.

I answer it immediately. “Drake?”

“Em.” His voice cuts through the traffic noise around me. “I’m hitched!”

A single tear falls from the corner of my eye. My brother is officially a married man. “I’m so happy for you.”

“I’m so happy for me too,” he says. “I wanted you to be the first to know.”

I edge past a group of four people to rest my hip against the side of a brick building. “I’m the first?”

“On our side.” He chuckles. “Jane’s on the phone to her folks.”

Our parents have no idea that their only son just got married. I’ve honored the promise I made to Drake not to say a word to our family, but I don’t know how long I can hold out. “Will you call mom and dad and tell them?”

His laughter edges up a notch. “No damn way. I want to see the looks on their faces. Jane and I are going to fly back to Seattle with you once we land in New York. We’ll spend a night in Manhattan before the three of us head home to tell the family. The flight is my treat. Does that sound good to you?”