Page 74 of Enemies, Lovers & A Valentine's Baby

A curt knock sounds at the door and my heart instantly skips a beat, fingers hovering over the keyboard. It’s her. I’d recognize her knock anywhere.

“Come in,” I mutter, leaning back in my seat to give off an aura of calmness that I do not feel. Lila steps into the room, looking stunning as always in a floral pattered dress that goes just below her knees. Her eyes scan the room, trained anywhere but on me.

I sit there drinking her up like a dying man getting his first sip of water.

She clears her throat, still doing her best to not look me in the eye. “Um, you said there was a problem with the event that you wanted us to go over?” she asks.

“I lied. I just wanted see you and find out why you snuck out of my bed this morning like—”

“I didn’t ‘sneak out.’ You were sleeping, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Or you specifically chose to leave at a time when you knew that I wouldn’t be able to ask you to stay or—”

“Cole—” she tries, but I cut her off.

“Please let me finish,” I say. “Or tell you that last night was the best night of my life, and it wasn’t just because we had sex. Absolutely incredible sex.” My voice turns husky with remembered passion.

Her gaze widens, eyes instantly seeming to melt into a puddle of her own desire as she stares back at me.

“Cole…” she whispers, trailing off weakly.

“I allowed myself to be completely open with you. You have no idea how difficult that is for me. It’s not something that happens often, Lila, but it happened with you. I bared myself to you, vulnerable and twisted, but I showed it to you. Then when you did the same, I thought that meant it could be the start of something for us.”

The disappointment tugs at my heart again, stronger now than anything I’d felt before.

“Last night was special for me too. I told you things about myself that I haven’t told another soul apart from Sue. Not even my mom. But I told you, because you made me feel safer than any other man ever has. I will never forget that,” she whispers, smiling through the tears that threaten to spill from her eyes.

“Why did you leave then? I mean, you just left this morning like it was nothing. Like I was nothing. I don’t—how can you do that if last night had truly been special to you? I don’t understand it. Make me understand it,” I say.

“I don’t—I can’t,” she murmurs.

“Try.”

“I really can’t, Cole.”

“Come on, Lila,” I whisper. I need to know if I’m the only one whose entire life changed last night.

“What do you want me to say, Cole? That last night scared me so much that I had to run, because I’d never felt anything so intense in my entire life? You want me to tell you that I was scared out of my mind because I know that this—you could hurt me more than anything or anyone ever has before? Is that what you want me to tell you?” she says harshly, breathing hard from her outburst.

“I would never—”

“Last night was great, but it can’t happen again,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper now.

“Okay. If it’s what you want,” I concede, raising my hands in surrender.

“If there’s nothing else, then I have to go.”

“Lila, wait,” I call out to her, standing to my feet and taking long strides around my desk till I’m standing right behind her. She turns around slowly, doe eyes peering into mine. She tries, but can’t hide the longing buried deep inside of them.

I raise a hand, caressing her cheek softly. Her breath flutters out of her.

“Cole, we just said we wouldn’t,” she whispers, voice so small I almost wonder if I imagined it.

“I know,” I say simply.

Slowly, I tilt her head up to meet mine, giving her all the time in the world to pull away, but she doesn’t.

I place my lips delicately against hers, holding back a smile when she sighs, leaning into me.

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