“Liar,” Melody laughed. “I can tell.”
“How?” I demanded, more than a little impressed.
“You have this look on your face when you talk about him,” she said. “It’s like you want to save him and fuck him all at the same time. It’s precious.”
“Shut up.”
She laughed. “You know, have you ever considered the possibility that he might actually share your feelings?”
“Okay, number one, I don’t have feelings for my boss,” I said firmly. “And number two, what the hell are you talking about?”
“The way he’s acting around you,” she said. “You obviously bring out strong emotions in him; maybe all the sexual tension building up inside him is what’s causing him to behave like this.”
“That makes no sense.”
“The male mind is complex,” Melody said. “Sometimes the reasons why they behave a certain way is not immediately obvious. I think Jake might have a little thing for you—otherwise, he would have behaved normally towards you after that.”
“I think you’ve had enough wine for tonight,” I said.
“You just don’t like that I may be right about this.”
“Jake is a pretty straightforward guy,” I said. “I think if he were interested in someone, he would just come right out and say it.”
“But you’re forgetting that you’re his employee,” she pointed out. “Maybe he’s scared to approach him because in the event it goes wrong, you could sue him for sexual harassment.”
“You think too much,” I said, shaking my head at her.
Just then the doorbell rang, and Melody rose to answer it. “Fine, stick to your guns as much as you want,” she said as she headed towards the door. “Go ahead and cling to denial. But I see you, Kristen. There’s more to your relationship with Jake than just superior and subordinate.”
I bit my lip and suppressed a sigh. If Melody only knew, I thought to myself.
Chapter Nine
Jake
The beach was quiet on this side. The sea stretched out for miles in curling waves of blue and green. I had already run three miles when Luis found me.
“Sanchez,” I said as we clasped hands before bumping our shoulders together in what qualified as a hug. “It’s been a while.”
Luis smiled. “You look good, Middleton,” he said, and he looked me over carefully. “It’s like you never left the army.”
“I make sure to run at least three times a week,” I told him.
“How do you even manage to find the time?”
“I drop Noah off at kindergarten, do a seven-mile run, and head into the office a little late.”
“Perks of being the CEO, huh?” he asked.
“Definitely,” I nodded.
I had met Luis Sanchez when I was still rookie in training. He was a marine and had a couple of years and a whole lot of experience on me. But it had taken one conversation to make us friends, and even though we were part of separate divisions, we had worked together in Afghanistan and had made the attempt to keep in touch after I had retired from the army.
It had been more than a year since I’d last seen Luis, but he didn’t look any different. Dark eyes, tan skin, and a shaved head that you could bounce a quarter off of. He was a few inches shorter than I was, stockier, and heavily built, but he was one of the finest and most disciplined fighters I had ever seen.
We started walking along the coast as waves lapped at our feet. “How’s is it?” I asked. “Over there?”
Luis smiled. “The same as it was when you were serving,” he responded.