CHAPTER 12 JOLENE

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.

Was he touching himself in there?

Did he just jerk off and say my name when he was coming?

I swear I heard him yell my name, and I thought maybe he needed a towel or something.

Instead I saw him with his dick in his hand and I could've sworn I saw semen on his fist.

Maybe it was soap bubbles.

It had to be soap bubbles.

It was definitely soap bubbles.

Right?

He was just washing himself…while calling out my name.

And those abs? What the hell were those?

Ridiculous.

They're carved out of fucking marble and I'm over here with child-bearing hips rather than the narrow ones he drove against back when we were both virgins.

We've both changed.

He got hotter.

I got softer.

But the truth remains…we still can't be together, no matter how much we both want it.

Even if he's in the shower touching himself while thinking about me.

Even if the thought of that sends an aching pulse squarely between my thighs.

He finishes his shower, and even though I took one last night, I've already decided I'll take another one—mostly because I need a cold one at this point.

I'm not dumb enough to touch myself and call out his name, though. Not when we're sharing a hotel room.

He doesn't make eye contact when he exits the bathroom.

He is, however, wearing just a towel wrapped around that narrow waist, and once the image is implanted in my mind, I know it'll never leave. I still don't allow myself more than a glance.

"Are you done in there so I can shower?" I ask.

"Yeah," he grunts.

I race in there before he can address the whole calling my name thing, and I take the fastest—and coldest—shower of my life.

I was smart enough to bring my clothes in, so I toss a simple black dress over my head, run a comb through my hair, and apply a little make-up before I exit the bathroom.

He's wearing a suit and sitting at the desk looking at his tablet.

Let me repeat that.

He's. Wearing. A. Suit.

He's not standing, so I can't take in the full view, but hot damn.

Even from this angle, he looks fine as all fuck in that suit.

There's just something about a powerful man in a suit that speaks directly to my vagina.

I clear my throat as I walk by him to grab my hair dryer out of my suitcase. "You ready for today?" I ask.

"Ready." He's grunting again.

"Do you need to practice your speech or anything?" I'm trying to make conversation as I set my make-up bag in my suitcase and trade it for my dryer and curling iron.

"No. Thanks."

I straighten and stare at him, but he won't look at me. "What about breakfast? Do you have plans, or can we do a working breakfast where I ask you a few questions?"

"They have a continental for me at the stadium." He's still not looking at me.

"Right. Well, okay then. Best wishes on your speech."

"Thanks."

I head to the bathroom to do my hair and assume he'll be out of the room when I return, but I'm wrong. He's still there.

"Let's do the working breakfast," he says suddenly when I exit, and it's like he pulled himself together while I was doing my hair. His eyes lift to mine. "You look lovely, by the way."

"Thanks." My cheeks redden at the compliment. It's just another day at the office for me. "Sure, let me just grab my purse."

"I found a little hole in the wall diner a few blocks away. Are you okay to walk there?"

I nod, and as we head down the hallway toward the elevator, I push away the thought that this sort of feels like a date.

It's not.

It's more of a working breakfast than anything else, and I try to remind myself of that.

Still, walking out of the same hotel room together with this mad sexual tension simmering between us…it doesn't feel like it's just a working breakfast.

He takes me to Buddy's Diner, and when I get a look at the breakfast menu, I'm in heaven. I order the Buddy Special, two eggs my way with bacon, hash browns, and toast, and he orders an egg white omelet with all sorts of vegetables.

No hash browns.

No coffee.

No coffee.

Who even is this man?

And is it any wonder that we're incompatible and our families are enemies?

"I don't trust anybody who doesn't eat hash browns," I say.

He laughs. "Season starts soon. Time to start avoiding carbs."

"And no coffee?"

He lifts a shoulder. "I had a cup in the room. I don't want to overdo it and speed through my speech because I had too much caffeine."

"Okay, I can let that one slide, I guess," I mutter.

"Is the hash brown thing going in your story?" he asks.

I shrug. "Maybe. Depends if you've got anything more interesting to say."

"About what?"

I take out my phone and press the record button, and then I start firing off questions. "How did it feel to be invited to give this commencement address?"

"It's an honor. Being back in Columbus brings back some incredible memories of my own time here."

"That was a long time ago," I say, and he chuckles.

"Not that long."

I think back to his senior year. We both knew he was going to Ohio, but I suppose I thought we'd ride out the storm together for two years before I ended up there, too. I figured it was only two years of long-distance. We could manage that. I thought we'd end up together. It just seemed so natural.

And then it was all shot to hell.

I ended up at UNLV, a great school but not where I'd planned.

I thought about Ohio again for a hot minute my senior year.

I thought maybe I'd track him down and find a way to make it work without the pressures of our fathers nearby, hovering over every decision we made.

But I didn't. I couldn't. Not when our fathers were in the midst of the fight over the bar…not when I knew it was truly over between us because he'd somehow become the enemy.

"Tell me about your time here," I say.

He shrugs. "It was all about football. I earned a degree in business while having the time of my life on the field."

"And the women?" I'm not sure why I ask. It's not like it'll go in any story I write about this weekend. Call it morbid curiosity, I suppose.

"Banging down my door." He grins, but it fades as he shifts his eyes down to the table. "But I was heartbroken, so I didn't answer." His voice is subdued as he says it, and I have a feeling I'll listen to this part of our conversation far more than the parts I'll actually need for the story.

"You were heartbroken?" I press.

His eyes lift to mine, and the pain and uncertainty is clear in them. "Of course I was. I was just a kid doing what I thought I had to do."

I shouldn't press this line of questioning, but I do. "Would you do the same thing now?"

His gaze rests on mine a few beats before his eyes shift toward the window. "Turn off the recorder if you want an honest answer."

I turn it off and slide my phone across the table toward him to show him that this portion of our conversation won't be recorded. "I always want an honest answer from you, Lincoln." I hear the desperation in my own voice, the bitter need to know that he didn't want to end it but for some reason he did anyway.

He leans forward and lowers his voice so this is just for me. "This is off the record, obviously. My father didn't trust anybody. Including you. He made it clear that I'd be risking my entire future staying with you once I turned eighteen."

I'm taken aback by his words. The thought never even crossed my mind. "How?"

He clears his throat, and our waitress comes by to drop my coffee and his water. He waits until she's out of earshot to answer that. "He found the condom, Jo. He was concerned about my future. He didn't want me to give up football to raise a kid, and he was afraid that once I turned eighteen and you were still fifteen, one little fight between us would send you to the cops to have me hauled off."

I gasp. "I never would have!"

"I know that. But he didn't, and his distrust of your entire family was only compounded by your father's actions where Rivalry was concerned. Up until that point, I thought maybe, just maybe there was some shred of hope left. That we'd find our way back. But after that, I knew it was really over." He chugs down half his water, and I watch his throat as it moves around the liquid.

Even his freaking throat is sexy.

"You didn't answer my question," I remind him.

He nods as he sets his water down and fixes his eyes on the glass. "No. I wouldn't do the same thing now."

I wait for him to add more to that—to explain why, or maybe to defend why he did it in the first place, but he remains quiet.

"Why not?" I finally ask.

He shakes his head a little before his eyes lift to mine again. "Because I was wrong to let someone else dictate my actions. If we weren't meant to end up together, I should've been able to discover that on my own terms. But I was a dumb kid who allowed my father to run my life, and now I'm a dumb adult who still does everything to seek the kind of approval he'll never give." He mutters the words, almost as if he's saying it to himself as much as he's saying it to me, and for a beat, I'm not sure what to say.

I don't have to say anything, though, because he continues. "So maybe it's time I stop trying." His eyes lift to mine, and fire burns between us. "Maybe it's time to take the risk and go after what I want instead of what I think he wants for me."

"What do you want?" I whisper.

His gaze is so intense, so full of fire, that he doesn't need to answer.

I know what he wants.

And I know what I want.

We're two consenting adults now sharing a hotel room thanks to a total fluke, and maybe this is the only time we'll have to lay it all out on the table.

The waitress drops our food, breaking up the intensity between us.

"Whoa, that was fast," he says to her with a quick smile, and we dig into our food.

The moment is lost. For now.

It's not forgotten, though.