Page 76 of Close to the Edge

Somewhere beneath the roaring in my ears, I heard the sound of her suitcase zipper and the echo of her footsteps down the hallway.

Moments later an engine started, revved, then slowly faded away.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Caleb

One month later

“WHYISN’TTHELandon file on my desk? I asked for it twenty minutes ago. What’s going on?” I snarled as Maggie hurriedly slammed her laptop shut.

“Nothing!”

I eyed her, the irritation that had been living beneath my skin for weeks threatening to erupt. “If you want to watch porn, do it in your own time, not on company property. And seriously, I thought you were a much better liar than that?”

“Okay, first of all, ewww. Second of all, double ewww!”

“You have five seconds to fess up before I fire you for inappropriate use of office property.”

With a long-suffering sigh, she opened her laptop, and hit Play.

The sweet, sexy voice that lived in my dreams flowed through the speaker. Heart lodged in my throat, I rounded Maggie’s desk.

And there she was.

Lily. Giving another interview.

I’d taken pains to avoid all forms of tech news since she left me in Lake Tahoe.

I tried to summon the anger I’d carried with me since she walked out. All I managed was the ashen aftertaste of a poorly handled situation.

I don’t want to be your next fix...

I snorted under my breath. Lily Gracen had proven that she was one long fix, one I couldn’t get away from whether I was awake or asleep.

She’d burrowed herself firmly beneath my skin, made it so I couldn’t take three steps before she crossed my mind. I wasn’t sure whether to be pissed with her or feel sorry for myself for allowing her close.

Some things can’t be fixed...

Ironically, in letting her smudge the lines, she’d forced me to redraw my rigid boundaries, forced me to examine the hard chains I’d wrapped around myself since my mother died. A few had been rusty, surprisingly easy to break, letting me breathe easier than I had in a very long time.

Some others not so much.

All in all, she’d forced me to examine far too much. Which was why I was still leaning heavily in the pissed column.

And there she was, without a fucking care in the world.

Stunning in customary black. With...a pair of stylish, boxy glasses perched on her nose.

Holy fuck.

That last day in Silicon Valley, sitting in the passenger seat of her cramped-as-hell little car, watching her laugh while wearing those saucy shorts, I thought she couldn’t get any more sensational.

I just discovered she could.

“Umm...boss?”

I scowled. “What?”

---