Page 11 of Friend Me

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I’d learneda thing or two about our executives from working at Synergy for the past three years.

Harris Weston, our CEO, had a peanut allergy so severe that he couldn’t fly on a commercial airplane.

Jackson, my boss, couldn’t sit still for longer than twenty minutes unless he was coding.

And Cooper Fallon hit the gym at six-thirty every morning.

I pushed open the glass door to Synergy’s first-floor workout room and almost bit my tongue when I saw him on the chest press. His tank top revealed the results of his daily use of the machine: broad, muscle-rounded shoulders, firm pecs, defined upper arms that belonged in a fitness magazine.

My face wasn’t the only thing I had in common with my mother.

“Morning, Cooper,” I called across the room.

“Marlee,” he said on an exhale.

Whoa. It was too early to be this turned on. I ripped my eyes away from his deltoids and unrolled my yoga mat. When I’d first discovered his workout habit, I’d tried to share the weight equipment. Okay, I’d played dumb and asked him to teach me to use it until it’d seemed to irritate him. I wasn’t proud of it. But yoga showed me to better advantage. No sweating or straining, and my yoga pants made my butt look cute. I started with a few stretches that allowed me to watch him as he pushed the handles in and out.

Da-amn.

I closed my eyes to shut out his distracting physique. Too bad it was imprinted on the backs of my eyelids. I took in a deep, cleansing breath and formed the intention for my practice:Be strong for Dad…and graceful for Cooper so he’ll really look at me.

Not exactly what my yoga instructor had in mind.

I started my sun salutations, reaching up for the fluorescent lights and down to the pink surface of my mat. I did strong poses: Warrior, Crescent Lunge, Mountain. I sucked in my belly, expanded my chest, and stood tall.

Meanwhile, Cooper puffed out his cheeks as he pressed up the handles to lift the tall stack of weights. A drop of sweat rolled down his cheekbone and hung from his sculpted jaw. He furrowed his brow, focused on his reps.

His face had shown that same look of concentrated fury the day I’d fallen for him.

In my second week on the job, on the day he had a scheduled meeting with Weston, the CEO, Jackson had gone missing. Not just oversleeping, but gone. I’d never forget the thunderous look on Cooper’s face when he growled, “We’re going to find him.”

I was terrified. Scared something had happened to my boss, worried I’d lose my job, and despairing I’d never be able to ogle Cooper again.

But we found him. Behind the sketchiest warehouse I’d ever seen. A mangy, brown rat had actually scurried along the wall behind Jackson as a lifted, blinged-out Escalade zoomed away.

I’d hovered just out of range of their whispered conversation. When Cooper clamped his hand on his friend’s shoulder and Jackson returned a weak smile, both of their eyes glassy, I’d almost lost it right there behind that disgusting warehouse. I’d never had a friendship like that. I’d never had a friend who’d come searching for me in the seediest part of the city I’d ever seen and, without judgment, taken me back where I belonged.

After we got Jackson back to his office, Cooper turned his attention to me.

“Can I count on your discretion, Marlee?”

“Of—of course.” I’d signed a nondisclosure when they’d hired me, but more than that, I loved working for Jackson. He was funny, kind, and energetic. And caretaking came naturally to me.

“Thank you. For that and for your assistance today.” Cooper stared at his shiny wingtips. “Jackson has some…self-destructive tendencies. Authority—Weston in particular—triggers them sometimes.”

What he said next burned itself into my brain.

“You and I”—he mesmerized me with his icy blue stare—“we’re partners now in keeping him safe.”

Partners.That had done me in. I’d have done anything he said, committed any crime, given him all the money I had—not that he needed any—to be his partner. To have him one day look at me the way he’d looked at Jackson, with love shining out of his eyes.

Because a man so devoted to a friend would offer his lover exactly what I craved: an epic romance. One where he’d ride to my rescue whenever I needed it. Where every day would be chocolate and flowers. A fairy tale become reality.

Partners.I’d dreamed of it since that day. That we’d become more than caretaker-partners. That he’d see me the way I saw him. As a soul mate.

I looked across the gym at him. He’d moved to the leg press, which put me directly in his line of sight. The pulleys whirred.

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