Page 24 of Jake

She spun and looked at him, halfway out of the office.

“Thank you,” he told her sincerely.

“It’s not a problem.”

“After Jake gets here, we can take the day off. I have to make sure everything is ready for tomorrow, anyway. You’re coming, right?”

“Catherine gave me no choice,” she muttered.

“You can tell her no, you know?”

“I know, but maybe it won’t be so bad?”

“I hope not.”

They shared a laugh and Lauren returned to her desk. She shuffled a few files and looked for what she could hand Jake.

“You should really pay better attention at who is walking in these doors. You are the first line of defense for my son.”

“Yes, sir.” Lauren kept her head down, not wanting to meet the disapproving stare that Cade’s father would level her with. “He is waiting on you. The door is open.”

“Not even going to announce me?” he said with ire before opening Cade’s office door and closing it with a definitive click.

She blew out a breath when he did. Since her first day here, she’d done her best to avoid the rude man. Cade was her boss, not him, but he was superb at making you feel like he could fire you.

His visits had been more frequent in the beginning and then tapered off for a while, but in the last few months, they’d gone from biweekly to several times a week, and it was exhausting. He was very concerned that Cade wasn’t going to win this client. It was ridiculous, but he was that type of man.

She grabbed a set of blueprints from beside her desk and shoved a few papers into a manilla folder and waited for Jake. They kept their workload light on Fridays on purpose, so she wasn’t avoiding any work, thankfully.

“Oh, shoot.” She reached in her purse and grabbed her phone. She had forgotten to text J back. Quickly, she typed up a message that she was busy with work and hit send as Jake walked in the door.

Jake sauntered in, as he always did, relaxed and smooth. His phone chimed, the same sound as hers when the dating app went off.

Raising a brow at him, he grinned and pulled his phone out. “Give me one second,” he told her and typed into his phone.

As he put his phone away, hers went off. “You too?” he asked with a knowing grin.

With shaking hands, she reached for where it was lying on the desk, watching Jake the whole time but already knowing. Sure enough, there was a message from J waiting for her.

She didn’t read it. She simply opened the app and typed his name before hitting send and waiting for his phone to go off again. Lauren wanted to be wrong, but when his phone went off, she let her shoulders fall. She knew who J was.

He looked at his phone, then back at her, and at his phone again. He didn’t speak for a moment as he looked at her and held her gaze.

“Lauren?” he asked out loud.

She nodded. What was there to say? This man in front of her had to be disappointed in who she’d turned out to be. As much as she’d enjoyed talking to him, and clearly he had with her, it was clear neither of them suspected each other.

“Did you know, before now?”

Lauren shook her head. Apparently she’d lost the ability to speak.

“You look disappointed.” He called her out.

“Just surprised,” she defended herself.

“Wait for me? Let me do this for Cade and then wait for me?” His tone didn’t change, but the plea was in his eyes.

“Okay,” she whispered.

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