Irresistibly Yours - Lauren Layne Page 0,69
she squeezed his hand.
“Come on, Pen, it’s just—”
“If there’s something to say, you can say it now,” Penelope interrupted Evan in a quiet, firm voice.
The subtext of Penelope’s statement was clear: You are not worth a second more of my time.
Cole wanted to slow clap.
Evan’s smile faltered. “It’s, um…I was hoping we could talk, just the two of us.”
Penelope shrugged. “You lost that right when you used me to get ahead in your career.”
The other man’s laugh was nervous. “Which is what I wanted to talk to you about. I need to apologize—”
“Accepted,” she said.
Both Cole and Evan looked at her in shock.
She gave a little shrug. “I’ve wasted enough time on you, Evan. You screwed up. You treated me badly. I can continue to hang on to the anger and hurt or…I can move on.”
Evan started to reach across the table toward her, then caught sight of Cole’s glare and thought better of it. “Pen, I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed us—”
She held up her free hand—the one that wasn’t linked with Cole’s—and stopped the other man’s words.
“Hold on, Ev, just because I forgive you doesn’t mean we’re going back to the way things were. Even if I were still in Chicago, we can’t go back. You’re not my colleague anymore and you’re certainly not my friend. I don’t know that you ever were.”
Evan swallowed, looking increasingly panicked now. “I dumped Tara because of you. Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
Cole cleared his throat pointedly, but Evan ignored him.
She shrugged again. “That’s not my problem, Evan.”
Evan gave a small smile, which Cole supposed was intended to look regretful but instead looked smarmy. “Come on, Pen. Give me a second chance. I deserve at least one more. Three strikes you’re out, and all that.”
Cole tensed. Enough with this bullshit. Cole enjoyed a sports reference as much as the next guy, but this was too much. Treating relationships like a game. Treating Penelope’s heart like it was some field to be navigated…
Cole wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Barstow, the job you stole from Penelope pays well, right?”
Evan blinked. “Um, what?”
“Good,” Cole said, as though the other man had responded affirmatively. “Then you won’t mind paying? I think we’re done here.”
Cole held out a hand to Penelope, his heart silently begging her not to reject it.
She placed her hand in his.
Placed her trust in him.
Penelope stood. “Goodbye, Evan.”
Cole listened carefully for any sign of misplaced regret in her voice and was relieved to hear nothing but finality.
They walked hand in hand from the restaurant, not bothering to turn around to see if Evan Barstow was sputtering about being stuck with the check or whether he was sitting there in shock.
Cole didn’t really give a fuck.
He’d done what he’d come here to do. He’d helped free Penelope from the past that was holding her back from knowing how fucking amazing she was.
They didn’t speak as they exited the restaurant. Cole hailed a cab, but after giving the driver Penelope’s address, he felt uncharacteristically at a loss for words, so they said nothing.
He had no idea what the next move was here. They’d all but wiped the floor with Evan, yet there was another hurdle ahead of them tonight. A more important one than the shadowy asshole in Penelope’s past.
How had Cole not realized that tonight wasn’t about Evan? Not really.
Tonight was about them—about him and Penelope.
They hadn’t slept together since before his completely idiotic idea to hold back from her until she reached for him—wanted him.
So far, his plan was backfiring. Penelope had been friendly all week, but she’d hardly been hurling her naked body at him in darkened corners.
What did he even want from her?
Suddenly Cole felt tired. Bone-tired in that way one gets when one desperately wants something that seems to be getting farther and farther away by the minute.
Something he didn’t know how to ask for. Something important.
Wordlessly they emerged from the car, walking side by side, before stopping in the familiar spot. The same place where he’d kissed her, twice now.
Cole tried to think of some clever quip about déjà vu, but he had nothing.
All he wanted was to pull her toward him—to kiss her until she begged him to take her upstairs. But he knew all too well how kissing Penelope on the sidewalk turned out. He ended up walking away with blue balls and, more recently, a pain in his chest.
She seemed to sense his mood, because her happy smile had faded slightly.