Page 14 of The Billionaire's Caress

“Too short, per usual,” she snickered. She rerouted us back to her original destination: Gossip. “So, I’m actually a huge fan of About Us and-”

“I snuck out of the office long enough to grab a quick bite, it was great to see you though!” I turned into the cafe, inhaling the smell of freshly baked bread, trying to put everything else out of my mind. I’d thought about doing a croissant and a fruit bowl. Now I was craving something more decadent, like a croissant covered in chocolate. Or a burger covered in chocolate. I had no problem eating my feelings.

I scanned the cafe tables and paused when I hit the back of Missy’s head, then sighed with relief when I realized she was engrossed in conversation with some guy in a ballcap. I made my way to the register and decided on a chocolate croissant and a white mocha with extra whipped cream.

I hustled over to the pick up line and tried to make myself seem busy on my phone. Too busy for chit chat, especially if it was related to the concert, About Us, or Corbin Wolfe.

“Hey, Leila!”

Missy’s unusually chipper voice lashed out in my direction and I cast a quick glance and wave over my shoulder and tried to send a mental message to the barista. Please hurry up.

“Come over when you get your grub!” Missy followed up, missing the message I’d sent to her with my half assed hello.

My drink was up and I grabbed it and made a beeline for the exit. “Next time! I’m crazy busy-”

“Too busy for an old friend?”

I dropped my coffee, watching it explode as it crashed to the floor.

Not blinking.

Not noticing.

I knew that voice, and it wasn’t the voice of a fellow employee.

I snapped my head to the left, realizing that the guy in the ball cap at Missy’s table was now at my side. And the hat wasn’t fashion as much as a disguise. I gazed into stormy gray eyes and suddenly lost the urge to eat.

Corbin.

CHAPTER FIVE

This wasn’t happening.

I wasn’t covered in white chocolate mocha, with extra whipped cream. Drenched, sticky, and red faced with all eyes in the cafe locked on me—including a set of gray ones I hoped I’d never see again.

When I’d left home this morning, I considered it a stroke of luck that Hope didn’t give me a bit of her breakfast to carry with me on my scarlet blouse. Well, it used to be scarlet. Now it was scarlet with espresso polka dots. Turns out Hope’s addiction to giving you her little signature to carry around all day doesn’t compare to Mommy’s klutziness.

I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep, bone rattling breath. The flow of oxygen to my brain should have been like a shot of adrenaline. Something similar to four shots of turbo charged espresso, hitting me all at once. The world should have trembled and whirred like some demented carousel, dangerously close to spinning off of its axis. Instead, I felt like I was trapped in a slow motion sequence in a movie. Time slowed down; the fluttering of my eyelashes, the thunder of my heart, the gaping of my mouth, the bulging of my eyes, all of it grinding to a crawl that magnified one devastating truth: this wasn’t a movie at all. Not a nightmare that I could wake up from. Reality was a bitter pill I had to swallow, and there was no escaping what was right in front of me.

My ex, who I thought I wouldn’t ever be seeing again if I had anything to say about it, was here. And this wasn’t the concert, where a barrier and juiced up security guards stood between us.

He was close enough to touch.

Close enough to strangle.

The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Every conversation was silenced. Whatever people were chewing had either been abruptly swallowed or choked on. No one was on their phone because whatever was unfolding before their very eyes was infinitely more interesting.

This was more than somebody klutzing out, giving everyone something to pretend they hadn’t noticed. Grateful they weren’t the ones that had spilled a latte all over themselves.

But I wasn’t just anybody.

I was the boss’ wife, who was frozen in shock and horror as she blinked down at the man who was trying to clean up my mess.

A man that was all up in my personal space—and he wasn’t Jacob Whitmore.

I tried to swallow the wrecking ball in my throat. Tried to clear the haze that had turned me into some pillar of salt because I dared to look back. Because I was looking into the past, jerked back to the gamut of feelings that Corbin Wolfe evoked with a single look.

Excitement.

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