Chapter 15

Cadence

What the actual fuck had I done? I started hyperventilating when I got to my car, but I had to drive away from the house. From the scene of the crime.

Unless you were European or something, kissing your boss on the cheek was absolutely a no no.

What had possessed me? No idea, except I’d been staring at her all day and especially at her lips and when we’d laughed together it had taken every single ounce of self-control I’d ever cultivated not to pull her close and kiss the hell out of her.

The crush I’d barely attempted to put a lid on had boiled over and she was going to fire me. I was absolutely and totally getting fired.

Somehow, I made it home in one piece and up to my apartment. My phone was silent, but I was waiting. It was coming. The email terminating my contract. You couldn’t just kiss your boss and get away with it.

“Fuck!” I screamed into the couch pillows. I was spiraling and it was going to be bad. First I ran around the apartment a bunch of times and then ordered a bunch of food that I probably wasn’t going to eat and then sent panicky messages to my friends and then thought about calling my parents even though that would have only made things worse.

Eventually I started crashing from my energy spike and that was when Hunter and Reid arrived.

“You didn’t have to come over,” I said, when they walked in and found me lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling while surrounded by takeout.

“Yeah, we did. We had to come help you with this,” Reid said, folding gracefully to the floor. Hunter joined us a moment later.

“I kissed my boss,” I repeated.

“On the cheek, Cade. On the cheek. It’s not even that bad,” Hunter said. “Have you heard from her?”

I checked my phone. Nothing.

“Nope.”

“Then maybe she doesn’t care. Or it’s not a big deal to her. It was only a little peck, right?” Reid said, digging into one of the bags and pulling out an eggroll.

“It was a peck, I promise,” I said.

“It’s going to be okay, Cade,” Hunter said, stroking my hair.

“I really like this job. I really, really do. And I like…her.” I could barely say it out loud. Hunter and Reid shared a look.

“We know,” Reid said. “We know you like her.”

“Shit,” I breathed out. “I thought I was hiding it so well.”

Hunter snorted. “You’re a lot of things, babe, but subtle is not one of them. Your eyes light up every time you talk about her, and I saw your face in that job interview. You were gone from day one.”

“Fuck,” I said, my voice dull.

“Are you gonna eat this?” Reid asked, pulling out a burrito.

“Go for it,” I said. “I want the pizza. And an eggroll. And some rice. And at least one taco.”

Hunter made me a plate and the three of us camped on the floor and demolished the food I’d ordered and I started feeling better.

“Why is it that I’m always having some kind of disaster? Can’t either of you have a major meltdown to even things out?” I said, once I was so full that I could barely move. Still no message from Eloise.

I’d called her El today. I’d been doing it in my head randomly, but that was the first time that I’d done it out loud. I know she noticed. That, coupled with the cheek kiss, was what was going to end up with me being unemployed again.

Of course, I would blow up the best job I’d ever had over my inability to control my horniness.

Hunter and Reid said that they’d promise to have breakdowns soon to take the heat off me. I appreciated that.

* * *

Eloise didn’t contactme that night. Her silence weighed on me. In the short time we’d been messaging outside of work hours, I’d gotten used to hearing from her. Having her ask me what I was thinking about and being interested in the answers. She’d told me more about what it was like to be famous as a person who grew up as a regular person.

I hated what I’d done. I’d wrecked one of the best things that I’d ever had in the past few years, maybe ever. It wasn’t just the job. It was the way that Eloise trusted me with so much responsibility. And yes, I made mistakes, but she didn’t make me feel bad about them. She didn’t make me feel like I couldn’t be better, do better. She’d never said the words out loud, but I knew she believed in me.

Now that was all done. Finished. In spite of Hunter and Reid saying that things were going to be okay, how could they be? How could I go to her house every day and look at her and want what I wanted and survive? It had only gotten worse and soon enough it was going to destroy me. Falling for a straight woman never ended well. Falling for a straight woman who was also your boss was just about as bad as it could get.

* * *

Eloise

I sat in my chair for a long, long time wondering what the hell I was going to do now. Cadence probably hadn’t meant anything by it, but that didn’t stop my mind from going in all kinds of wild and dangerous directions.

In the past, those slippery, tricky feelings I’d had that lived deep down inside me had been much easier to shove away. Not always. Not at night when I was alone and wondering about that girl in my class who had looked at me a certain way, or the author who had bought me a drink at the convention, or the woman who’d met my eyes across the room. It had happened so many times in my life and every single one of those times, I’d looked away. Recoiled. It had been a reflex, to retract from those feelings. If I didn’t let them happen, then they couldn’t hurt me. Change me. Change what I knew about myself.

I wouldn’t let them.

Not because I had any problem with women loving women or men loving men, or someone of any gender loving someone of any gender. It was all fine for other people. That just wasn’t me.

I purposefully took myself out of situations where those things might arise, and it had worked for the most part. I’d moved on and stopped thinking about those things. I was attracted to men, so I dated men when I wanted to date someone, which wasn’t often. There was that one brief time when I’d been engaged, but when that had ended, I’d been relieved. Being a wife, the way that society told me I should be, wasn’t something I could do after all.

Yes, I knew there were many, many romance authors who were married. And then I knew some whose husbands had left when the women started to see success. And dealing with my demanding work and publicity schedule, along with the scrutiny, wasn’t something I thought a lot of people could handle, no matter their gender.

I had my house, and I had my career, what more did I need? Camille, John, and the kids loved me. If I wanted to have sex, I could literally pay for it. I hadn’t, contenting myself with erotic literature, my hands, and a wide array of toys I’d collected over the years. I was satisfied.

I was.

Everything was going well, and then my pretty assistant with the red hair and freckles and the laugh that made me smile had called me El and kissed me on the check and I was reduced to a complete and utter mess.

She hadn’t even done anything! Not really.

How was I going to face her tomorrow? How could I go on like nothing had changed? That she hadn’t flipped everything upside down.

I’d simply have to act like it hadn’t happened. Like I had imagined it. Otherwise, my only option was to fire her, and that was wrong. It wasn’t her fault that I couldn’t control myself.

The only course of action was to go on as normal. She deserved to keep her job and for me to act like a goddamn professional.

Eventually, I got up and headed to Camille’s and put on a smile and let them sing to me and feed me cake. Camille gifted me with a set of framed watercolor paintings, one from her, John, and each of the kids. They were all beautiful and I ended up crying at how sweet the gesture was before Camille drove me home and I was alone again with my dangerous thoughts.

* * *

I barely sleptthat night and only passed out when weak sunlight started to fill the room. My alarm still went off and I had to get up and do my job. Without having romantic and/or sexual thoughts about my much younger assistant.

Cadence’s car arrived on time and I peered out the window to watch her walking to the front door before I took a deep breath and walked into the kitchen and started getting plates out for us to eat. As if I could function normally today with my stomach all in knots.

I’d have to do my best to act like this was any other day, because it was, to her. I was the one with the problem and it was on me to get my act together.

“Good morning,” I said when she walked in, her steps tentative.

“Good morning,” she said, purposefully not looking at me as she took the plates and set out our sandwiches and coffee.

Both of us were quiet, and Cadence was wound tight. Her fidgeting was at an all-time high and I didn’t realize, until I’d gotten out of my own head, that she might be feeling weird about the cheek kiss. That maybe she thought she’d crossed a line.

“You know—” I started to say at the same time as she said, “So—”

We laughed nervously together.

“You go first,” I said, but she shook her head.

“No, you go.”

“I just wanted to know if you’re okay? You seem a little…” I trailed off, unsure of how to put it.

“Shit,” she said under her breath. “I…” She twisted her fingers together and gave me an anguished look.

“Cadence, what is it?” I leaned over the table toward her, wanting to reach for her hands so she wouldn’t hurt herself. I managed to stop myself just in time.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry about the cheek kiss thing from yesterday. I don’t know what I was thinking, and I know I made things weird, but can we pretend that it didn’t happen and just go back to how things were before? I know that’s trying to put the horse back in the barn or whatever, but I really love this job and I don’t want to lose it.”

Her words were all strung together in one breath and it was clear she was distraught.

I hadn’t considered that she would feel strange about the kiss. I’d assumed that it was completely silly and platonic on her side because why wouldn’t it be? The idea of Cadence harboring any kind of attraction to me was so far out of the realm of possibility that it was as likely as unicorns appearing in my garden.

“Cadence,” I said, and she finally looked up at me. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sniffing. “You’ve been so amazing to give me this job and I messed up. I’m so, so sorry.”

This was awful. I got to my feet immediately and went over to pull her into my arms before I even knew what I was doing.

“Shhh, it’s okay. It’s okay, Cade.”

Tucking her into my arms was so easy. Her body fit into mine as if we’d done this dozens of times. Hundreds. I wrapped her in my arms and leaned down to hold her.

Her body was stiff from shock for a moment, but after trembling for a few seconds, her arms circled me, her fingers lightly brushing my back.

Cadence’s hair still smelled like coconut and vanilla and I couldn’t help pulling it into my lungs.

She breathed deeply and sank just a little bit closer.

“You called me Cade,” she said, her voice muffled in my shirt.

“I did,” I breathed. “I don’t know why. It’s not a good nickname.”

She laughed softly but didn’t let go. Slowly, she fluttered her fingers on my back and I knew that I should let her go, that this hug was going on far longer than was appropriate, but I didn’t want to let her go.

Holding Cadence was incredible. My skin buzzed everywhere that she touched, and the heat from her body seeped through the fabric between us and I had to stop myself from stroking her hair.

That was definitely not allowed.

Cadence froze again and then nearly pushed me back, stumbling into her chair.

“Wait. What was that?” she asked, pointing to me with one hand and bracing herself on the back of the chair with the other. “Eloise, what was that.”

I opened my mouth and closed it, mentally screaming every single profanity I’d ever heard until I allowed myself to speak.

“A hug. It was a hug, Cadence.”

She shook her head. “No. Hugs aren’t like that. I mean, casual hugs aren’t like that.”

No, they weren’t. I’d hugged her in a way I shouldn’t have.

Now it was my turn to apologize. “I’m sorry.”

Cadence blinked several times in succession. “Hold on. Can we… What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I said immediately. “You were upset and I hugged you. That was it.”

Her eyes narrowed and she glared at me. “You and I both know that’s not the truth.”

No, it wasn’t.

“I’m not…you…” I had never had so much trouble with words in my life.

“El,” she said softly. “Is there something going on?”

It was her calling me El that did it.

“It doesn’t matter.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. I can be professional. This doesn’t have to affect anything.”

“I think I need to sit down,” she said, her voice detached. She pulled out the chair and sat heavily on it, staring off into space. “I think I’m going to need you to be a little more specific. What doesn’t matter?”

Now I wanted to sit down. I grabbed another chair and pulled it around so we were facing each other. My palms had started to sweat, so I wiped them on my dress. I’d picked out my favorite to wear today, hoping she would notice. Hoping she would see that I’d worn something nice for her.

“I don’t think we should talk about this. Because if we do, we can’t go back. Once the words are said, they can’t be unsaid. Are you sure you want to go down that road?” I asked.

Cadence was cracking her knuckles and the sounds made me wince.

“I don’t even know what road we’re on because you haven’t said anything. Jesus, Eloise. Can you give me a straight answer?” She was frustrated, but I was scared.

“Why did you kiss me on the cheek?” I asked. “Was it just to wish me happy birthday?”

Cadence sighed. “I think we both know that it wasn’t. I just didn’t know until today that I wasn’t the only one who might feel something.”

Our eyes met and locked and for a moment, I forgot how to breathe.

“You feel something,” I said.

“Yes,” she breathed. “I do. And you?”

I paused before I spoke the word that was going to change everything. “Yes.”

“Holy shit,” Cadence said. “You’re serious right now?”

“Yes,” I repeated. “Yes, I feel something.”

Cadence’s eyes went wide and I watched about seven different expressions pass across her face in quick succession, landing on disbelief as she burst to her feet and pointed at me. Accusatory.

“But you’re straight! What is happening right now? Is this even real?”

She looked around, as if she was waiting for someone else to pop up and declare all of this a joke.

“I’m not, necessarily. Straight, I mean,” I said, nearly choking on the words that I’d held back for most of my life.

Cadence gaped at me. “Are you fucking serious? Since when?”

I shrugged one shoulder. “Since always. I just never… I never did anything about it. I put it aside and got on with my life. That part of me wasn’t important. It didn’t matter.” Until now. Until her.

Cadence opened and closed her mouth a few times before shaking her head.

“I don’t even know what’s happening right now,” she said, walking a few feet away and then starting to pace. Like I did when I needed to work through a difficult chapter.

“You’re telling me that you’re bi, or pan, or not straight, and you hugged me like…” She trailed off.

“Hugged you like what?” I asked, wanting to know what she had to say about it.

“You hugged me like you wanted to hold me,” she said, and that wasn’t entirely accurate. I’d hugged her like I wanted her, because I did. There was no putting that away or ignoring it anymore.

We’d crossed a line and couldn’t go back.

“I did. I do, but I understand if you don’t want to work for me anymore. I understand if you want to leave and never speak to me again.” The very idea that she would walk out of my life and I’d never see her again was unbearable.

Cadence stopped pacing and spun to face me. “No, you can’t say shit like that. You can’t tell me that you feel something for me and then act like my boss.”

Someone had to say it. “I am your boss, Cadence.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, people have fallen for their superiors before. It’s like a whole romance trope for a reason. Just didn’t know I’d be one of them.”

“I didn’t plan for this to happen either,” I said.

Cadence held both hands up to stop me. “Just so I’m absolutely fucking clear, you like me.”

I bit back a laugh. “Yes, Cade. I like you. Too much.”

She grinned at me and she was so cute that I wanted to pull her onto my lap and nuzzle that smile.

“I like you too. Also too much. I think I lost my mind during that interview.” She shook her head. “I don’t even remember half of what I said.”

“I wasn’t exactly in top form either.”

Cadence did a little twirl. “So what the hell does this mean?”

That was the question. “I don’t know.”

“Conundrum,” Cadence said, stepping close to me.

I looked up at her and saw that twinkle in her eyes.

“What do you want?” Cadence asked. “From me? What do you want?”

“I don’t know.”

She moved closer, forcing me to look up. “I don’t believe that.”

For the first time ever, I didn’t hold myself back. I pushed to my feet and now she was the one looking up at me.

“I want…I want to see,” I said, stroking her cheek. She leaned into my touch and I waited before inching closer by fractions until our mouths were a whisper away and I knew she could feel my lips trembling.

I’d never kissed a woman before. Had never gotten this close. Had never allowed it or pursued it.

Cadence didn’t wait for me to cross that last bit of space between us. No, she dug her fingers into the back of my hair and pulled me down. To her mouth.

I’d kissed men before. And been kissed. It had always been nice, sometimes it had even been great. Before now, I would have said that kissing was a pleasant way to spend time.

Kissing Cadence changed everything in the way that a tornado ripping through a landscape changed everything.

This was a kiss.

Hesitant at first, a gentle press of mouths as her fingers dug into my skin and I cradled her face. So gentle, until it wasn’t. Inhaling sharply through my nose, I angled her face to give me better access and gave in. Let her have it.

She let out a little gasp that ended in a moan and kissed me back. Before I knew it, she had jammed me up against the table, her hips pushing into mine as she utterly devoured my mouth. Cadence kissed like she did just about everything. With wild enthusiasm.

She wasn’t sloppy, though. Oh no. She knew exactly what she was doing. Nibbling and sucking and using her tongue in ways that I didn’t know had been invented yet. She kissed as if she’d written the manual on kissing. As if she toured the country giving kissing lectures.

Heat built under my skin and between my eyes and pooled in all sorts of other places and before I knew what was happening, Cadence was pushing her hips against mine and I was rising to meet her as our bodies collided in multiple ways.

The hand that wasn’t on my neck gripped my waist and then tried to pull at my dress to get at my skin. I did the same, forcing my way under her shirt so I could touch her. Fuck, I needed to touch her so much that I ached.

I would have kissed her until the end of time, but I felt her drawing back, pressing little soft kisses against my mouth and laughing when I tried to yank her back.

My eyes opened and met her face, which was so close that she appeared blurry.

“Holy shit,” she breathed out. “I guess you do like me.”