in divorces and separations.
Curtis L. Curtis? That wasn’t even a real fucking name.
My mother had given me the card of her divorce lawyer.
I saw red for a second. Then I crumpled the card in my hand, threw it to the floor, and took Penny’s hand in mine.
“We’re done,” I said to my mother.
Then I led Penny from the room.
Chapter 16
Penny
I had never seen Wes angry—really, really angry. But he was angry now. He led me out of his office, around the corner, and down the hall, as Rhonda the receptionist gaped at our retreating backs in shock. I took that to mean that Wes didn’t storm out of his office in white-hot fury very often.
“Where are we going?” I asked him, keeping my voice calm as he punched the button for the elevator.
“Out of here,” he replied, his eyes glaring and his jaw set.
“Out of the building? We don’t have our coats on.” I’d learned my lesson about coats in winter in Denver.
“Don’t worry about that. We’ll be fine. We’re going to play hooky for a while.”
We stepped into the elevator in silence, my hand still in Wes’s. I should probably pull away, but I couldn’t quite do it. I should probably also be in tears after Wes’s mother tried to tear me to pieces, but I couldn’t quite do that either.
“Are you all right?” Wes asked me, his voice rough.
“I think so,” I replied honestly. It had been unsettling and even a little bit terrifying, but for some reason I wasn’t devastated. Gloria Kane was just a pompous lady who thought she was better than everyone, not a fire-breathing dragon. And she might think I was mousy, but I’d been strong enough to get through the past year. I might wear a borrowed winter coat and drive to work in a borrowed warehouse van, but I was still the CEO of Kane Co. “I’m sorry, Wes, but your mother is…not very nice.”
“She’s an embarrassment,” he said harshly. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“Once I stanch the bleeding, I’ll likely be okay.”
He glanced at me, then shook his head. “You should be ripping my head off right now. My mother insulted you to your face. More than once.”
“It wasn’t fun,” I agreed. “But it wasn’t fun for you, either.” This had been painfully obvious to me. Wes’s usual good humor and handsome charm were worn thin right now, because of her. He made it look so easy, but he’d been carrying a burden—his difficult mother, his horrible father, the humiliation of his father’s arrest. And then, taking over responsibility for the company by himself. He didn’t have things much easier than I did. He just made it look that way.
Still, his mother had implied I was both ugly and without class, so I deserved a little sympathy. “If you want to make it up to me, I’m open to ideas,” I said.
The elevator doors opened in the underground parking garage. Wes looked at me, a little of his usual humor coming back into his eyes. “Is that so?”
“Sure.” I shrugged. “I like chocolate. Have I told you that?”
“No.” He pulled me into the chilly garage, heading for his SUV. “Don’t all women like chocolate?”
“A lot of us do. As your mother will attest, I’m not all that extraordinary.”
“I disagree.” He pulled out his key and pressed the button to unlock the SUV. “You are extraordinary, Penny. No question.”
That made my heart beat faster and my stomach flutter in the best way. It also made me want to kiss him. I’d wanted to kiss him every day since that night in front of my fireplace, but it seemed so unprofessional at work. I didn’t know what he wanted. I was out of my depth—I’d never had sort-of-sex with a man like Wes, a man I wasn’t dating, who I also worked with and was fake engaged to. I had no idea how to handle the situation, and I had the feeling Wes didn’t either. Hence our complete awkwardness for the past three days.
That awkwardness was gone now. Gloria Kane and her uncalled-for bitchy comments had blown it away. That little scene had been painful, but it had brought one thing into clear focus: I wanted Wes. I wanted a repeat of the other night, and I wanted even more than that. I didn’t really care what that meant for our fake engagement, or our relationship, or whatever you wanted to call it. I just wanted him.
And maybe, for once