Page 26 of Her Brother's Billionaire Best Friend

“Come and have a seat,” I said. “I’m just finishing up a few emails.”

I focused on my screen and typed a few replies while she settled herself in the chair.

“Not much to do this week,” I began. “Just a few things I need you to take care of before the weekend. Besides,” I said encouragingly, “it’s nothing you can’t handle.”

“Before that,” said Laura, “I need to talk to you. About the weekend.”

“Oh yeah?” I said, standing up out of my chair. “You want a drink or something? Coffee?”

“No,” said Laura, waving her hand lightly in the air. “No thank you.”

I came around the desk and sat on the front. I was looking down at her as she looked into my eyes. For a moment, I thought I saw her sigh, a sigh of attraction maybe, or of something else, and I smiled to encourage her. But then she straightened her posture, and Laura steeled herself.

“You saw my son the other night,” she began.

“Yeah,” I said. “Great kid.”

Laura nodded. “He is. And this has been hard on him. This whole thing.”

“What thing?”

“Moving here from San Francisco. He had his first couple of days of school while I was away—that was why I didn’t want to go on the trip, actually, I wanted to be there for him…”

She trailed off and I felt a little guilty. So that was why she hadn’t wanted to come?

“Anyway, he’s having a tough time and I need to be there for him. And I need to have my life together. And this job is so important to that, Lucien. And I know we haven’t got along, but over the last few days, I felt like you really appreciated me…”

“Sure,” I said, but the smile had long since disappeared from my face. This whole spiel of Laura’s sounded like it was coming to a big ‘but.’

“…and that’s why I’m hoping,” said Laura, “that you can forget what happened on Monday night.”

“Forget it?” I frowned.

“Yeah,” said Laura. “Because it was a mistake. I think we both agree.”

I could feel my shoulders practically freezing up, and a shiver ran down my spine. I tried to look relaxed while I leaned on the desk, but I could feel my knuckles turning white as I gripped its sides.

“What was a mistake?”

“Sleeping together.”

“Was yesterday a mistake too?” I growled. “The mountains? All that stuff you said about feeling different, feeling peaceful.”

“Yeah,” said Laura, and then shook her head. “I mean, no,” she said. “I mean—God, I just—please, Lucien. Try and see it from my point of view.”

“I am trying,” I said. “It seems to me like you said a whole lot of stuff which you’ve now realized was a mistake. But if it was a mistake to say it, Laura, you didn’t mean it.”

“I did mean it,” she said quickly, looking up at me. “I really did. Only—”

“Only now you’ve seen the way your son looks at me,” I growled, “you don’t mean it anymore. You wish you could take it back.”

“Look,” said Laura, “I didn’t come here to argue about whether I meant what I said. I came to ask you if you could forget about it.”

“Forget about it?” I echoed. “What specifically would you like me to forget about, Laura? How you did your job well and I asked you out for dinner? Where we went? What we said?”

I was trying to make a point but it wasn’t landing. The point was that I could tell Laura was attracted to me. And now we’d slept together, there was nothing to forget. This was who we were, the strange tension that filled the room. A tension, a feeling, that I’d been missing for years, since the day I lost her.

And now she wanted to shove it all under the rug, to deny what she’d done, once again.