Page 27 of When You Are Mine

“That’s a mild response. Most healthy, red-blooded males would jump at the chance to work with a woman who looks like Trisha.”

“I hope that most healthy, red-blooded males would appreciate how highly unprofessional a relationship with an employee would be.” Walsh’s voice was a stone wall he dared his father to scale.

“Who said anything about a relationship?” Martin laughed like a rogue.

“Not interested.” Walsh strode to the door, eager to get out of his father’s presence. His soul needed a shower.

“You and Sofie practicing a little premarital monogamy?”

Walsh turned back toward his father, his hand on the door.

“Dad, I’m not marrying Sofie.”

“Of course you are.” Martin cut his hand through the air, a dismissal. “Everyone knows that.”

“I don’t know it.”

“Sofie believes it.”

“Sofie can believe in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus.” Walsh sifted grit into his words. “I’m still not marrying her.”

“You can’t marry just anyone. One day Bennett will be yours, and you need the right kind of woman on your arm when you walk through certain doors.”

“Maybe I’ll wait for someone I love.” Walsh faced his father fully now, matching his aggressive stance.

“Love,” his father said, somewhere between a laugh and a hiss.

“Yeah, Dad, some people marry for it. You wouldn’t know about that, though, would you?”

Anger made reptilian slits of his father’s eyes.

“You don’t think I loved your mother?”

“I think you broke my mother’s heart.” Walsh snapped the words before firming his mouth and smoothing the scowl from his face. “I think you cheated on her. Guess that was just part of grabbing your dick and figuring it out.”

“Son, I—”

“I have a flight to catch.” Walsh turned on his heel to leave before his father could offer excuses for the inexcusable.

Chapter Eleven

When she’d first started working with Maid 4 U, Kerris had thought there was nothing more cathartic than cleaning bathrooms. Give her an old toothbrush, a can of Comet, some moldy tile grout, and she was happy as a tick on a dog. Unfortunate comparison, but somehow it fit.

She had often lost herself in contemplation over a freshly scrubbed toilet or a sparkling sink and mirror. She had convinced herself in a particularly dirty bathroom to accept Cam’s invitation for a date after six months of asking. By the time that bathroom was sparkling, she had decided she was waiting for something that would never happen. She shared a deep friendship with Cam. He was good to her, understood her issues, and wanted what she wanted more than anything as much as she did—a family of her own making. They’d had their first date the next day.

Kerris flung her sponge into the claw-footed tub, leaning her forehead against the cold rim. She released a breath she felt like she’d been holding for days. She closed her eyes, but the memories that had assailed her ever since that kiss at the hospital played on the backs of her lids with 3-D vividness. Inescapable images. Pleasure she had only imagined, never tasted.

She’d been haunted by a misplaced sense of rightness between her and Walsh as they’d touched. It had frightened and enchanted her. It was the thing she had stopped believing was possible, but with a man who could never belong to her; could never commit to her or give her the children she wanted. They were from completely different worlds. She couldn’t ever breathe the rarified air in the world Walsh inhabited, much less share his life.

And he was Cam’s best friend. There was that.

If only she could delete the memory of him; the sweet brush of his lips and the desperate hunger of his hands. She closed her eyes tighter, tasting him again, hearing the hitch of his breath at that first touch. Smelling the intoxicating scent of him, a glorious male animal in heat.

She banged her head against the tub, willing the memories to shake and dislodge.

In the two weeks he had been gone, she had revised her opinion of herself. She wasn’t a frozen river, iced over and immune to a man’s touch. In those stolen moments in Iyani’s room, redolent with death, the ice had cracked, and she was rushing water threatening to overflow her banks. The passion she had believed was a myth, she now craved.

How would she hide it from Walsh?

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