Page 72 of The Wrong Boss

“It feels…” She paused, her fingers dancing on my chest as if she could find the answers she was searching for etched on my skin. “It feels incredible,” she finally said, meeting my gaze. “But?—”

I waited. Finally, when she wouldn’t finish her sentence, I prompted, “But?”

Carrie gulped. Uncertainty clouded her gaze, and my heart began to thump. I’d come here last night as if some external force had driven me. I’d given in to the temptation that she presented, and it had felt better than any vice.

But.But.

“You’re worried about your job?” I guessed.

Her snort was more bitter than I expected. Pinching her lips as she slid her gaze to the side, Carrie shrugged a shoulder. “Yes. Youaremy boss.”

“And as your boss, I get to make the rules.”

When she blinked those big gray doe eyes back over to meet my gaze, I didn’t like what I saw in them. The hesitation—the doubt.

She swallowed. “You just broke up with your fiancée, what, twelve hours ago?”

“That’s been bound to happen for a while,” I said, and the truth of the statement settled over me. Would Alba and I ever have gone through with the wedding? If Carrie hadn’t shown up, would we have continued to ignore all the signs of our doomed relationship?

No, I thought. She might have sped things along, but if Alba truly was in love with someone else, how could she have agreedto marry me in the end? And I would have come to my senses. Wouldn’t I?

“Still,” Carrie said. “A breakup is a breakup. This…thing…between us grew from that.”

“This thing between us predates my engagement, Carrie.”

She inhaled sharply. “Yeah,” she whispered.

My hands slid over her thighs. Her skin was warm, soft, and perfect. “You looked for me for months, you said. You hadn’t wanted things to end after that evening.”

“Why does it sound like you’re accusing me of something?” The arch of her brow made me want to kiss her.

I shook my head. “Whatever I’m accusing you of, I’m guilty of the same. I looked for you too, Carrie. I didn’t stop thinking about you for—God, I don’t even know how long. So whatever exists between us isn’t a rebound. It didn’t happen because my engagement ended. It happened because you’reyou, Carrie. And there’s something here. Tell me you feel it too.”

I hated to feel desperate, but I had to know that I wasn’t imagining things. I had to know that this magnetic, undeniable pull I felt toward Carrie wasn’t one-sided.

If she felt it, then I could deal with the fallout of my breakup with Alba. I could deal with the controversy of dating my employee. I could deal with whatever my father and Ted would say, because Carrie would be worth it.

If she felt the way I did. If my feelings were reciprocated.

An old,oldwound pulsed in the depths of my heart. It was the pain of a childhood of yearning for love that never quite felt genuine. It was the desperate, sometimes pathetic need to be loved for who I was. It was the discovery that I would neverhave that—that I’d never been part of the family, not truly. I’d always been on the outside looking in.

As I lay on the bed, looking at the only woman who’d ever made me feel like the ground beneath my feet was unstable, it was that wound that spoke. I needed to know that Carrie wanted me as badly as I wanted her. I needed to know that I wasn’t imagining things.

The pause that followed my words was excruciating. It was probably only a second or two, but it felt like an eternity. It felt like that moment in time when I’d found the adoption paperwork, before the reality of what I was seeing sank in.

Carrie’s expression flashed to uncertainty—to something I couldn’t read. Then she closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. “Of course I feel it, Cole. Why else would I faint at the sight of you that first day?”

I flipped her onto her back and propped myself above her. Dark hair spread over the pillows as Carrie spread her knees and let me settle between them.

“You came back to me,” I said, voice fierce. “After all that time, you came back to me and I’m not going to let you go.”

Her fingers were soft as they brushed my temple. Her eyes were sad. “Give it a couple of weeks and then see how you feel, Cole.”

Frowning, I shook my head. “My feelings won’t change in two weeks. Is this because you have a daughter?”

She jerked beneath me, something flashing across her face. Fear? Why would she be afraid?

“That’s it, isn’t it?”

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