kid, Ellie had finally plucked up the courage to do something about it after he punched out the asshole who’d set her up to get info on Braden. She went over to his apartment and pretty much threw herself at him. And because Adam was a guy and Ellie was beautiful, he’d taken her up on the offer. That was until she was almost completely naked and on her back underneath him. Adam backed out, explaining he couldn’t do that to Braden or her, and that Braden would never forgive him and he’d never forgive himself. Realizing he thought it was just a one-night stand kind of thing, Ellie had left, quietly nursing a broken heart and a bruised ego. I would never have guessed that stuff was between them. Ellie was super cool around him. She said she didn’t want things to change and she tried her hardest to be okay about everything. I’d seen it in action. She did try hard. But sometimes something soft, something ‘more’ would enter her expression when she looked at him. When I thought about it, there was something ‘more’ in the way Adam looked at her. Thing is, I couldn’t work out if he was just lusting after her, or if his feelings ran a little deeper? I was curious as hell, but I also knew it wasn’t any of my business, so I was keeping my nose out of it.
After opening up to me, Ellie had tried to talk to me again about my family, about my past.
I shut her down.
Dr. Pritchard said it would take time. For now, I couldn’t let go, and no matter what the good doctor said, I still wasn’t sure if it was in me to let go.
“Writer’s block again?”
I spun around in my seat to find Ellie standing in my doorway waving an A4 manila envelope at me.
I grimaced, closing my laptop. “I should just get that printed on a t-shirt.”
“It’ll pass.”
My only reply was a grunt.
“Anyway, I hate to ask but…”
“What’s up?”
She waved the envelope at me again. “Braden stopped by last night when you were working and he left these documents. He just called to ask me to bring them to his office because he needs them for his meeting in two hours, but I have a class-”
My stomach flipped. “And you want me to take them to him.”
Ellie’s eyes got all big and adorable. “Please,” she begged.
Crap, fuckity, crap, fuck. Grumbling, I stood up and took the envelope from her. “Where’s his office?”
She gave me the address and I discovered it was down by the quay, which meant I’d need to get a cab to get there in plenty of time since I had to have a shower before I left.
“I really appreciate this, Joss.” She grinned and started backing up. “I’ve got to run. Catch you later.”
And then she was gone.
And I was Braden bound. Dammit. Trying to ignore the beating wings in my stomach, I huffed around, muttering under my breath as I showered and dressed. I pulled on a pair of jeans, a thin sweater since it was fairly warm outside and wearing a jacket in Scotland when it wasn’t below freezing made you stick out as a tourist. No joke. A little sun came out in Scotland and they had their shirts off.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror. Very little makeup, my hair twisted up in a messy bun. The sweater was cute and showed a little cleavage, but my jeans were old and faded. Sure, I wondered what Braden thought about me physically, however I wasn’t going to let that change me. I never dressed to impress anyone but myself, and I certainly wasn’t going to for some guy who liked his women’s legs longer, their boobs smaller, and their hair blonder.
The cab ride seemed to take forever, and as always, I was feeling a little travel sick by the time we got there after bumping down God knows how many cobbled roads. He dropped me off at Commercial Quay and I wandered down the man-made stream that opened out at the bottom into the water. There was a parking lot to my right, and to my left a number of commercial establishments. I found Braden’s office in the same building as an architect’s office, an accountant and a dentist. After being buzzed up, and floundering embarrassingly around in the elevator that opened on the opposite door from the one that let you in it,