Page 17 of The Workaholic Down the Hall

While she was outside, I could search the house for a cell phone or a computer, some way out of there. My stomach grumbled with hunger, but I ignored it. I couldn't take time to eat and risk being caught by Aubrey before I'd found a way out of this mess. A niggling voice in the back of my brain reminded me that Aubrey was a kind person and one of the more reasonable people I'd ever met, but I ignored it. I stalked into the kitchen and spotted a land line phone on the counter. That was way too easy.

I'd lunged for the phone and had started dialing Jill's number, when I spotted the note on the counter. I placed the phone back on the receiver and read the note my mother had left for Aubrey. She apologized for tricking Aubrey and promised it was for the best. My heart sank. What the hell was my mother up to? And why the hell had I been such an asshole to Aubrey? She was in the same situation I was in. I was three steps toward the back porch before I stopped myself. I needed to talk to my mother before I faced Aubrey. I needed some answers.

Mom answered on the third ring.

“What the hell, Mom?” I asked. “You kidnapped me?”

“I like to think of it as an enforced vacation, Noah, dear,” she said in a sweet, innocent voice. “You work too hard. It'll be good for you to get away from it all for a while.”

I somehow managed not to growl at my mother. She had no idea of the serious situation we were in with the family business. She didn't understand what she was pulling me away from. And I wasn't about to tell her. She had enough to worry about with the inn. “An enforced vacation with Aubrey? What's really going on here?”

She was silent so long, I thought she'd hung up on me, but there was no dial tone. “You haven't talked to Aubrey, yet, have you?”

“I'm talking to you, Mother, the one who kidnapped me.”

“And I'm telling you to talk to Aubrey.” Her tone firmed up to that familiar steel Mother's voice. “And be nice to her. She doesn't deserve your anger.”

That one caught me unawares and hit me right in the solar plexus. “She left me, Mother. She left with no explanation. Do you know how hard it was to find a new assistant?” I still hadn't found one who came anywhere near Aubrey's level of expertise.

“You're determined to be hard-headed, I see. Just talk to Aubrey, listen to her, and admit the hardest part of her leaving you had nothing to do with her job.”

I did growl that time. Aubrey was at fault here and my mother was taking her side. “I don't owe her anything,” I said, my teeth clenched. “She didn't bother to return a single one of my calls or my texts when she left. I spent three days calling every hospital and police station in town, because I was sure…” I couldn't even say the words, couldn't go back to those days when I'd been possessed by sheer terror that something horrible had happened to Aubrey, that someone had hurt her. “Just get me out of here. Aubrey and I have nothing to talk about.”

Mom sighed. “Did you ever think, Noah, that you might not have been the only one hurting? Did you not consider that you might have hurt Aubrey when you pretended not to remember having sex with her?” Mom whispered the word sex, but she might as well have shouted it at full volume for how hard it hit my ears.

“She told you that?” Why was it suddenly hard to breathe?

“So, you do remember? You admit you were pretending. Didn't you consider how that might have hurt Aubrey?”

No, I hadn't considered that. I'd been too caught up in my own pain and fear. “I wasn't trying to hurt her. I just didn't want anything to change between us.”

“Well, that didn't work out for you, did it? So maybe do things differently this time and talk to her, listen to what she has to say. Maybe, I don't know, maybe apologize for acting like an idiot.”

“What? I —” But she had hung up, the dial tone beeped in my ear like a chastisement. I groaned. Was she right? Had I hurt Aubrey? She hadn't seemed hurt, she'd seemed completely unaffected when I'd acted like nothing had happened. I'd assumed she was unaffected, I'd assumed it had meant nothing to her.

I hadn't forgotten that night. I remembered every moment. I remembered the way Aubrey had tasted, salty and warm and sweet. I remembered the way she'd moaned when I'd touched her, the way she'd come apart in my arms. The memory was so vivid, I could still smell her scent when I closed my eyes and thought of her. When I woke up the next morning and she'd looked at me like…Like she expected something, like she was happy to see me, I'd panicked, because I had nothing to give her. I still had nothing to give her.

I was an idiot who'd gotten drunk and given in to an attraction to my friend, my employee. It was a mistake and I'd done the right thing by moving past it, by pretending it had never happened. I figured Aubrey would understand that. She knew I didn't date. I didn't have time to date, didn't have time for much besides trying to keep the family business afloat.

Aubrey and I were best friends the way guys were best friends. We got meals together, watched sports together, worked together, but we didn't often talk about anything beyond the surface. Didn't delve into our personal lives. I'd preferred it that way, because I knew if I dove beneath Aubrey's surface, I'd never come back up, never find my way free of her.

Mom was right, I needed to talk to Aubrey. I picked up the phone and called Jill.

***

“I'm sorry,” I said. I sat in the chair next to Aubrey's on the back porch. She was in warm clothes and had a blanket over her lap. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were pink from the cold wind. Her auburn hair was loose and wind-blown, tucked behind her ears but flipping across her face as the wind blew it around.

She turned and looked at me, her green eyes bright and crisp like hard emeralds. “For what?”

I should have told her I was sorry for pretending I didn't remember our night together, but I wasn't ready to go there. Jill had said everything was fine in Atlanta, there was nothing there for me to do, but she'd never really appreciated all I did, how necessary I was to the functioning of the company. I needed to be there, so I needed to keep this conversation short and drama-free. “For accusing you of kidnapping me. Mom explained what happened. I'm sorry you're stuck here, too.”

She turned her gaze back to the forest and the mountain rising above us. She didn't say a word.

“She said you had something you needed to tell me.”

She nodded and bit her lip. She pulled that plump, wind-reddened bottom lip into her mouth and bit down and my dick rose like it was an invitation. I'd never been entirely unaffected by Aubrey, but apparently sleeping with her and not seeing her for nearly eight months had made me ache for her like she was the only woman left on earth and I'd been fed aphrodisiacs for a week. “When we were at your Mom's in Atlanta last spring, when Cody brought Carrie to meet us all. You and I—”

“I remember,” I said. She wasn't looking at me, but I could see from the tense set of her shoulders that this was hard for her to say. The least I could do was make it easier for her. “We made love.” I'd meant to say something crass like we'd fucked, to remind us both that it had been a purely physical encounter, but my mouth wasn't connected to my brain, apparently.

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