Love the One You're With (Sex, Love & Stiletto 2)

Grace could be fulfillment.

He leaned back and closed his eyes, trying to fight back the traitorous thoughts that kept spilling forward.

Grace wasn’t for him. Grace was … special. And she deserved someone who didn’t eat Cheerios for three meals a day because he forgot to go shopping, and whose track record with women had maxed out at exactly three months and nineteen days before he’d gotten bored.

He wouldn’t do that to Grace.

“You should go for it,” he told Cole, mildly surprised to find that the words didn’t become physically lodged in his throat. “Ask Grace out. If you need any pointers, just let me know.”

“And you’re sure you don’t mind?”

“Yup.” I just want to kill you. That’s all.

“Good. Then I’m also guessing you won’t mind that there’s a scary blonde in the waiting area who’s been demanding to see you. She says you two are involved?”

Jake froze. “Short hair or long hair? Curvy or thin? Or did she have a beauty mark to the left of her mouth?”

Cole raised his eyebrows. “There are multiple possibilities of scary blondes waiting in your office reception area?”

“Dozens,” Jake muttered darkly before going to deal with his baggage.

In a way he was grateful for it—coming face-to-face with one of his many exes was exactly just one of many reasons why Grace Brighton was better off without him.

And right about now he needed that remin

der.

* * *

When Grace was eight, she’d broken one of her parents’ many rules and brought a tennis ball into the house with the bright idea that their new Labradoodle puppy might like to chase it in the foyer.

Instead, she’d accidentally thrown the ball into a vase, sending it shattering to the floor. Seconds after which the still-in-pursuit Labradoodle had collided with some abstract blown-glass sculpture, sending that shattering to the floor.

She’d been grounded for six weeks and had never, ever forgotten the sound of breaking glass.

She just didn’t expect to hear it on the sixth floor of her office building.

Yet somehow she wasn’t the least bit surprised that the origin of the noise was from none other than Jake Malone’s office.

There were a handful of people standing outside the door when she approached with Jake’s breakfast sandwich in hand. She recognized Cole Sharpe immediately, and he gave her a sardonic smile as he tilted his head toward Jake’s office and mouthed, “Train wreck.”

The pixie-cut receptionist, whose name Grace had learned was Melissa, looked torn between horror and laughter, and a handful of other Oxford guys looked fascinated by whoever or whatever was inside.

“You’re a pickle-cocked, womanizing asshat!”

Cole moved away from the door to stand by Grace’s side. “Is he really pickle-cocked?” Definitely not. Grace covered her mouth to smother a horrified laugh. “I couldn’t say. What’s happening?”

“Some scorned woman apparently thought they were headed to the altar, only to hear about your little HeSaidSheSaid adventure.”

“Oh, but that’s just—”

There was a hiss from inside the office. “Don’t you dare tell me that it’s just for work, Jake Malone. You bought her flowers. I read it on the website!”

It took all of Grace’s self-control not to push everyone out of the way to hear Jake’s response. He had bought her flowers. Her favorite kind. And though the gesture had been website fodder, the note had been sweet.

Because I thought of you. Before I thought of the website.

But Jake’s voice was too low for her to overhear.