Page 19 of The One Who Got Away

“I’m not backing out of anything,” I snapped vehemently, turning my back on Phillip. I knew there was no way the man couldn’t hear every word, but I dropped my voice a few notches anyway. “And it’s just dinner. Not a date.”

“Uh huh,” Lincoln purred.

Butterflies flapped like bats out of hell in my stomach. Ugh. I could just picture him at his desk, stretched out in some leather chair with floor to ceiling windows behind him. All charm. All power. With that smile in full effect. I should have wanted to wipe it off his face. Instead, I wanted to trace it with my fingertips.

I closed my eyes in fervent prayer. Agreeing to this was essentially putting me in his crosshairs. And with the desire that was raging inside me, I’d be back in his arms before dessert. “Lincoln, I don’t know what kind of Cinderella thing you’re trying to pull-”

“Get in the car, Catherine.”

I bit down on my bottom lip, holding my breath. That voice, deep and undebatable. He used it long before he became the powerful businessman the rest of the world loved, lusted, and feared. It was the voice that turned my skin to gooseflesh when we were tangled up in covers and I was his and he was mine. It was a voice that should have had no effect on me whatsoever, but I was already aching, deep inside.

I had enough pride to not mumble what I knew he wanted to hear. The two words sizzled on my tongue. Yes Sir.

I hung up the phone instead. My head was spinning with what I’d agreed to. Just dinner? Yeah right. Nothing was ‘just’ anything with us. I could already feel desire howling in my bones, turning me into a quivering mess. I almost passed my phone to Phillip before I shoved it back in its place and faced the man that would take me to him. The one who got away. The one that I’d craved since the day we last saw each other. The face that floated in my dreams and smoldered in my nightmares. The only guy who could make me forget my name with one look.

“After you,” I grumbled. I raised both eyebrows, wondering if Lincoln was in a joking mood. “Unless you’re planning on driving us to some elite hotel in my car?”

It was clear from Phillip’s smirk that he had a sense of humor. “No ma’am.” He gestured at my briefcase. “Shall I?”

I tightened my grip on my bag. Not because I was worried he was about to make off with my folders, a wallet that had a couple of dollars in it, and a pack of gum. I just blanched at the thought of him carrying something I was perfectly capable of carrying. “No thank you.”

“Right this way.”

The sleek Mercedes stuck out like a sore thumb among the Corollas and Civics, the paint job gleaming like a black diamond. I nearly beat him to the door, but he was clearly not allowing me to keep him from being a gentleman.

I slid into the backseat, biting back a sigh as my butt kissed the leather. When we pulled into motion, just the gentle rocking of the car was enough to massage out all the kinks of a long day. A ‘life of luxury.’ How many times had I heard those words, both in conversation and in hushed tones when people thought I was out of earshot? Chauffeurs, private jets, parties, champagne, caviar...that was to be my destiny as a Carraway.

As soon as we mentioned the engagement a month after my graduation, everyone’s attitude toward me changed. Suddenly, the popular girls that wanted nothing to do with me were sending me Facebook friend requests. When I went to the grocery store, the mean cashier, Gladys, was recommending wedding magazines to me and ruefully sighing that she always wished someone would swoop in and take her to a big mansion on the Italian countryside. Even my parents were suddenly having conversations with me about not forgetting where I came from and losing myself amid my new last name. I’d been so in love that the money was just a bit of glitter on an already bomb ass cake. Besides, Lincoln and I agreed that we’d use the money to do good, not land a spot on some reality TV show about the rich and famous. No jet setting and excess for us.

Yet here I was, sitting in a luxury car, headed to a hotel where the ‘poorest’ guest probably made six figures a year.

I looked straight ahead at the man behind the wheel. I knew the Lincoln that I loved, but the Lincoln that lived this life, the one that had a chauffeur and where dinner meant a special car for a very special lady instead of Netflix and a pizza...that Lincoln was a mystery. The fact that this man knew the new Lincoln better than me made my stomach knot as I leaned forward. I wanted to change that.

“How long have you been working for Lincoln?” I asked, feigning a passing interest.

He didn’t miss a beat. “For two and a half years.”

“Wow,” I mused, fiddling with my hair, wondering what crazy stuff he’d witnessed while under Lincoln’s employ. “Lots of partying and leggy models, I bet.”

Phillip’s dark eyes shifted from the windshield to the rearview mirror. “Maybe if Carraway Consulting was headquartered in Manhattan or Los Angeles.” Something flickered in his eyes that told me he knew I was mining him for information and not out of general curiosity. “Maybe if Mr. Carraway was a different kind of man.”

That made my heart perk in my chest. It wasn’t like he would trash talk his boss and detail every debauchery since discretion was at the top of the must-haves to survive in his line of work. Still, I felt that damn flutter, like maybe all wasn’t lost and my Lincoln lay beneath all the shiny trappings of wealth.

“And what kind of man is Lincoln?” I asked tentatively.

We pulled onto the highway and he kept his eyes trained on the road, but his voice was as steady and sure as if he was behind a podium, giving a lecture on Lincoln Carraway 101.

“He’s driven, but that much is obvious. To take the reins of a Fortune 500 company out of school and drastically increase the profits is proof of that. He enjoys the finer things in life.”

I snorted at that and leaned back in my seat. The after work pick up and our destination was proof of that.

“But he is the most generous man I’ve ever met.” Phillip didn’t acknowledge my rude interruption. “No one in his employ wants for a thing. And when he requires my services, he has me stop whenever we pass someone asking for help. It would be easy to hand them a couple of dollars, but he does more than that. He talks to them and listens to their story. He doesn’t treat them like they’re less than. Everyone, from the rich to those standing on the corner with a cardboard sign, has skeletons in their closets. Mistakes they’ve made, broken families, heartbreaks...”

The emotion clutching Phillip’s words when he trailed off turned his dark eyes into slick obsidian. My lips tipped downward because I had a feeling his story was a sad one. I was being flippant about Lincoln when it was clear he had helped this man, and a lot of others, when they needed it most.

I thanked him for sharing and watched the city zip past, the tires slapping, each moment pulling me closer to Lincoln. What was I doing? How could I forgive him? How could I even agree to see him? And for dinner, like we were dating and forgetting the fact that he left me high and dry? I wished that it was just a distant, unpleasant memory that I could wave off.

It wasn’t. It had been over five years and I still carried those moments like an anchor. Dad’s face when he told me that he wouldn’t be walking me down the aisle, because there would be no one waiting for me at the end of it, would haunt me until the day I died.

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