Page 49 of Craving Cooper

“Yeah… about superficial things, like how beautiful they are, or how sexy they look. Hell, not that long ago, you’d probably have made some kind of remark about how good Everly looks, and what a fool Seth must have been to leave her. I can almost hear you saying it.”

“Yeah… well… that was then.”

“Exactly. That was before you fell in love with Mallory.”

“Okay, okay.” I hold up my hands in surrender and he smiles at me, both of us sitting back and relaxing a little, now we both know where we’re at in this conversation.

“Have you told her how you feel?” he asks, picking up his cup again.

“No.”

“Why not? Love isn’t something you should keep to yourself, you know. It works a lot better when you share it.”

“Says the man who kept his love hidden for years.”

“That was different. Laurel was married to Mitch. I could hardly declare my undying love for her, could I?”

“No, but I’m not sure I can, either.”

“I say again, why not? You went back there yesterday to talk to her, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but not to tell her I’m in love with her. I went to ask her to have dinner with me.”

“Well, that’s a start. How did it go?”

“Badly. She didn’t wanna know about dinner… or me, for that matter.”

“Why on earth not?” He frowns, looking confused.

“Because she’s mad at me. She’s got it into her head that I invited her to the festival to make Meredith jealous.”

“I hope you didn’t.”

“No, of course not.” I shake my head at him as he sips his coffee. “Although I don’t think it helps that I can’t explain why I did invite her. Plus, I knew Meredith and her new boyfriend would be there, so Mallory thinks I did it on purpose. She thinks it was some kind of game. Only it wasn’t. Inviting her was a spur-of-the-moment thing. It was an instinct. But like I said yesterday, I didn’t think of it as a date.”

“Didn’t you?” he says, tilting his head and raising his eyebrows.

“Not that I was aware of.”

“That’s probably because you’ve never been in that situation before, have you? You’ve never asked a woman out in your life. Women either come up to you, or a friend introduces you, or somehow you end up having drinks with someone you’ve never met before, or you bump into someone and hit it off. However it’s started, it’s never been about you making the first move, has it?”

I remember my words to Mallory and shake my head. “I guess not.”

“Until now,” he says. “But, however you look at it, you asked her out.”

“Okay, but why? I mean, why now?”

“Why not? Like you said to Laurel, Mallory is a beautiful woman.”

“I know, but the point is, she’s been sitting in my office, looking beautiful and sexy, and utterly fucking perfect for the last three months. Why have I waited until now to fall for her? It wasn’t like I was serious about Meredith, was it? You know that.” He nods, and I let out a sigh, twisting my cup. “As if falling in love wasn’t confusing enough already, I’ve been going crazy trying to work out why it’s taken me so long to realize she’s the one. And I can’t. At first, I—I thought I might have hung back because I’m… well, I’m me, and she’s so much younger, and probably not gonna be into the same things.” I’m not about to go into details, but he nods his head, although I don’t give him a chance to reply, or to ask for explanations. “Then I wondered if she might have thought I was taking advantage of her, because I’m her boss. But that can’t be right. She seemed to want to be with me…” I stop talking, suddenly recalling that Mallory said as much, almost in those exact words, when she was accusing me of playing games. “I don’t see how you can take advantage of someone who actually wants to be with you. Do you?”

“No. But I think you need to stop analyzing it all so damn hard. It doesn’t matter if she’s been in your office for three months, or three years. Love doesn’t work to a schedule, you know?”

“I’m not sure love works at all. It seems to be frying my brain.”

He chuckles. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Will I? Do I even want to?”

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