And he wasn’t the only one of them struggling with boundaries. This morning she’d been salivating over a part of his anatomy well outside the “friend zone.” Even now, the memory made parts of him stand taller. At her door, he raised a fist to announce his arrival, stopping just short of knocking. Her door was closed? Crickitt never shut her door.
Since she’d started working for him, he found himself following her lead, propping his door open more often than not. When he asked her why the “open-door policy,” she claimed the barricade would only slow her down. To her point, she did run around this place like her hair was on fire. He blamed the complimentary coffee bar down the hall at first, but seeing how quickly she fled after kissing him, he’d concluded warp was her normal speed.
He lifted his hand again, but this time, Crickitt’s raised voice stopped him cold.
“How can you say that?” she spat in a tone accusatory and hurting at the same time. “I buried nine years of marriage because you wanted out. You stopped loving me first. Don’t forget that.”
Whoa. Shane retreated from the door, even as he felt a surge of protectiveness for her well up within him. But he didn’t dare go in. It was a private conversation and none of his business. He backpedaled to his office, watching her closed door for two more seconds before pulling his door to as quietly as possible.
Forget you heard any of it, some part of him silently warned.
At his desk, Shane leafed through his mesh in-box and found a stack of phone calls to return. He reread the same one four times without comprehension before tossing it aside and slumping in his chair. He couldn’t forget her words or the painful undercurrent in her voice when she said them.
You stopped loving me first.
The words echoed in his head once, twice, and just for kicks, looped a third time and kneed him in the nuts. Something about the phrase sent a graveyard chill over his skin, made him want to ignore the emotions that came with it. Ugly, banished, and best left in the dark.
You stopped loving me first.
It wasn’t as if he’d been close enough to a woman to commit the same crime as Crickitt’s jerk of an ex-husband. Shane made sure not to get to the point where deep feelings came into play. And because he always set expectations, the women he’d been involved with in the past hadn’t left brokenhearted, just pissed off.
So, why were her accusatory words eating at him?
Then he thought of his dad, and a shiver of hair stood on the back of his neck.
Bingo! I think we have a winner.
Shane shrugged, tried to dismiss the thought. But he couldn’t. The truth was he’d felt exactly the kind of betrayal Crickitt was feeling right now. He knew too well the consequences of love unreciprocated. And if his father was here, and Shane blurted out those same words, they’d ring as true and hit as hard.
The fact was his dad couldn’t handle losing his mom, and after had turned into one rough, mean sonofabitch. Since his father’s death, he’d struggled to reconcile his father’s accusations. Surely, the man had known what happened when Shane was a kid was an accident. All Shane wanted back then was to hang with his friends. How was he supposed to know that the one day he left his mother unattended she’d have a seizure?
“Shane?”
He jerked out of his thoughts and focused on Crickitt’s curly head peeking through his door.
“Didn’t you hear me knock?” she asked.
Shane busied his hands stacking the notes back into his wire in-basket. He muttered an apology and put on a fake smile. “Come in.”
“Is something wrong?” She scanned his face, her brow furrowing.
“Oh, uh…headache,” he lied. He never traipsed down briar-filled memory lane. Not at home, and certainly not at work. Thankfully, Crickitt interrupted his full-on nosedive. He could practically smell the ozone burning around him.
“Lucky you.” Crickitt clapped her hands and rubbed them together Mr. Miyagi style. “I can help.”
“With what?” he asked as she crested his desk.
“Your headache, silly.”
“Right.” His imaginary headache, which, ironically, was developing this very instant.
Crickitt placed her hands on each of the arms of his chair and spun him to face her. As she hovered close, he couldn’t escape the sugary scent of her. His mouth watered. She didn’t look like a woman who’d minutes ago gone a few rounds with her scumbag ex. Her eyes were bright and clear, her face relaxed.
She leaned in, feathering his hair away from his temples and placed the first two fingers of each hand on either side of his head. Her touch was expert, tantalizing. He felt her breath on his forehead as she muttered, “You are going to thank me so hard.” His gaze traveled to her lips, where she wore the most adorable cheeky grin. He forced his eyes away from her mouth before he hauled her into his lap and kissed her senseless.