Page 19 of The Wrong Boss

On both counts.

SIX

COLE

I considered turning backas I drove out of the parking lot. One glance in my rearview mirror, and I wondered if I was making a mistake.

Carrie had made me feel alive for the first time in years. She’d made me forget about my career, about the decisions that I faced. She made me forget about loyalty to Rome and apprehension about meeting my biological father.

For a few hours, I’d been caught up in her, and it had felt amazing. The feel of her skin. The sound of her voice as she called my name. The way her eyes had betrayed her shock and ecstasy every time I made her come.

I wanted more. Every cell in my body screamed at me to turn the car around, crash that wedding she was supposed to be attending, and drag her back to my place so we could get to know each other properly without a time limit, without anything standing between us.

The force of my wanting staggered me. I didn’t even know the woman, and I was ready to put everything on hold just for another taste of her.

That was bad. I couldn’t afford to get distracted. Not when I was facing a huge step forward in my career. Not when I had to decide whether or not I owed anything to a man who had given me up.

So I drove onward, toward the skyscrapers across the river, toward my Manhattan apartment and the future that awaited me.

If my knuckles were white around the steering wheel and my heart thrummed unsteadily the whole way, it was just an after-effect of the evening we’d had together. It was hormonal, some physiological response. Nothing more.

I crossed the bridge and left Newark behind. My future was in the city, in a glass-walled office, chasing the heights of a career I’d built from the ashes of my childhood.

I didn’t owe Carrie anything. My loyalty was hard-won, and a few hours in the presence of a magnetic woman didn’t make the cut.

It couldn’t.

When I got back to my apartment, I tossed my keys and wallet in the decorative bowl on the console table by the front door, both of which had been chosen and purchased by an interior designer who had taken great pleasure in pushing past the budget I’d originally set. I padded to the kitchen and stared into my refrigerator, all the neatly stacked meals staring back at me from their labeled containers. The private chef I hired knew mypreferences, and he made sure I always had a few options on hand.

There was beef brisket in a rich broth waiting to be warmed up, a lasagna I could toss into the oven, a light chicken salad with homemade dressing on the side.

I didn’t want any of them. I wanted her.

Shaking my head, I twisted the top off a bottle of beer and watched the wisps of cold moisture escape the top of the bottle. My fingertips clasped the cold glass, and I tipped some of the bitter liquid into my mouth.

My phone was in my hand a moment later. I found the phone number I’d saved weeks ago. Charles Hearst, nickname Chuck.

The man who’d contributed half my DNA.

Maybe you should reach out, Carrie’s voice echoed in my mind. It wouldn’t be closure, but it might provide answers. She wasn’t wrong about that.

I’d only had one evening with her. A few hours. That was all.

Maybe we weren’t meant to see each other again, but I could take something else from the encounter. I could accept the push she’d given me, and I could see if the man who’d sired me wanted anything to do with me all these years later.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I tapped the icon on my phone, and for the first time in my life, I called my father.

AFTER

SEVEN YEARS LATER

SEVEN

CARRIE

It never failedto amaze me how a six-year-old girl could sound like an entire herd of elephants stampeding across the second story of our home. Glancing up at the ceiling as I zipped up her lunchbox, I pursed my lips.

“Evie!” I called out. “No running inside!”

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