Escalation Clause (15 page)

“
Te extrano
,” his voice was low, and made her break out in a cold sweat. She put her hand on the cool granite countertop.

“I know, I’m sorry. I’m just really, you know, um….”

“Busy, I understand. I wanted to wish you much luck today. At your new job.”

“Oh, well,” she fiddled with her hair, then forced herself to stop. “
Gracias
.”

“He estado pensando en usted.”

She clenched her eyes shut, then opened them. “Listen, Rafe, we have to stop this.”

“Stop what
mi amor.
Being friends?”

“No, damn it. I’m not your love, I mean. You know. Shit.”

“I don’t know and I don’t understand why you are avoiding me. I am sorry about that time…when I…I wish I hadn’t….”

Mo felt every inch of her skin flush.

“I feel like I ruined something between us, that night.”

She gritted her teeth. “There was nothing between us Rafe. And there never will be okay? Please, I have to go.” She bit back the urge to beg him to keep talking.

“Maureen, I would very much like to take you to dinner. Would you, please, join me? For a meal? Anywhere you like.”

She gasped, not expecting this particular question. “Wow, to the point aren’t you?”

“I am Latino. We are direct. And stubborn. And a lot of other things you will come to learn…I hope.”

“I don’t know, Rafe. I mean, it seems a little… you’re… Jesus, I do know how to string words together into sentences, I swear to God.”

He laughed and the sound shot straight to her libido. She sat in the kitchen chair before she toppled over in her suddenly ridiculous high heels. “I know you can
mi amor
. I mean,” he paused. “Think about it. Please, I so want to talk, like we used to before.”

She nodded, then gulped, feeling like an utter idiot. “I’ll think about it. I’ll call you, okay? Gotta go.” And she touched the end call on her phone screen before she made it worse.

The day was a long slog of frustration highlighted by a distinct undercurrent of disproval from the entire front office staff. Maureen finally sat at the giant desk that used to be her father’s, contemplating failure at four p.m. after suffering through a painful staff meeting in which the various general contract managers talked over each other and ignored her w
hile
the bookkeeper “gal” shot her daggers of hatred the entire time. She was sweaty, cold, exhausted, exhilarated and wanted nothing more than to take back the split second when she had told Jack “yes” she would run their father’s company.

She opened her email and shot her brother a message. “This was a huge mistake. I don’t think I can do it. These people hate my guts. I feel like a poser. I never even finished college. What makes you think I am cut out for this?” She hit send and flopped back into the big leather chair that still smelled like her father—cigars and booze.

The sixty-year-old woman who was to be her secretary peeked around the corner of the office door. Mo sat up straight, embarrassed to be caught lolling around like a kid. “Sorry, dear,” the woman shut the door behind her and handed Mo a cup of coffee. She never usually drank caffeine this late in the day but took it to be polite. “This has been a rough day for you. I know. I remember when you were a little girl, so tough and tomboyish then a teenager, so beautiful and stubborn. And when you moved out, your dad was really sad about that.”

Mo sipped the foul brew that passed for coffee. “I’m in over my head here aren’t I Mrs. Perkins?” The woman tsk-tsked and patted her hand.

“No, you are just what we need. But you have to stiffen your backbone and just be a female version of your father and your brother with this group.” She leaned in to whisper. “You know…rhymes with ‘witch.’” She gave Mo a knowing wink, making her giggle, then laugh so loud her sides hurt. “You can do it. I know it’s in your genes. And I’ve got your back.”

“Okay. Then I need some gossip. I need to know why those two assholes in the meeting were at each other’s throats and then ignored everything I said as if I weren’t even in the room. Whatever you’ve got.”

Mrs. Perkins nodded. “Yes, and I’ll fill you in on all of it. But for now,” she opened the door and admitted the man whose face, voice and body had brought an entirely new meaning to the word “masturbation” for Mo in the last months. She gulped. Rafe held out a bouquet of roses. Mrs. Perkins fluttered around, found a vase. She locked eyes with him, felt sweat gathering under her arms, realized she must look about as appealing as limp spaghetti. And there he stood, fit to eat, in dark jeans and a bright white shirt, his hair pulled back off his dark, exotically handsome face.

“I thought I’d come here and make you go with me to dinner, before you talked yourself out of it.” He stuck his hands in his jeans pockets, his stance loose-limbed and easy going. Every bit of saliva she had flooded her mouth
. Christ, “edible” w
a
s only the half of it
.

“You look beautiful, by the way. Very boss-lady. It’s sexy if you must know.”

Mo’s face flushed. Mrs. Perkins giggled, then put the gorgeous deep red flowers on her desk in a crystal vase. Mo realized she’d been frozen in place since he’d come in. “Flattery isn’t necessary,” she exhaled, wanting him to say it again but knowing how completely wrong he was for her. “I’ve had a shit day, if you must know. I’m not in the mood for a date. I’ll probably just be a bitch.”

He laughed and dropped into one of the large leather chairs across from her desk gracefully. She bit the inside of her cheek at his perfection. “I’m an expert with bitches. I was married once. And I coach teenage girls, remember?”

She tried not to laugh. “Watch it mister. One of those is mine. Oh, yeah, I guess you are.”

She smelled the soap and light cologne on his bronze colored skin. And had to sit fast, clenching her hands in her lap to keep from touching the black tuft of hair she could see on his chest at that angle. “
Vámanos mi amor
. I mean, my boss lady. Allow me to escort you to a triumphant first day of work dinner?” He held out his hand. She stared at it a solid fifteen seconds before realizing he fully expected her to put hers in it. His dark eyes twinkled.

She kept her hands on the desk, determined not to succumb to the temptation. “You are quite the charmer, aren’t you, Inez?”

“Ah, you use my last name like that and I think I’m back on the pitch being yelled at by my manager.” He clutched his shirt in mock dismay then leveled a look so full of meaning at her she had to cross her legs against the heat building between them. “Do it some more, I love to be bossed around.” He cocked his eyebrow at her but the smoldering “fuck me” in his eyes was nearly too much to bear.

“Jesus,” she leaned back, studying him—the young man apparently still taken with her in wilted linen suit and too high heels. “Fine. But spare me the seduction full court press. I just want dinner.”

He leapt to his feet and crooked his elbow. She rolled her eyes but slipped her hand into it. The heat under his shirt made her heart beat even faster. Using mindless chatter as they exited the Keystone Construction building to distract herself, she smiled when he opened his car door and handed her into an immaculate but non-
descript
sedan. Having grown up with, and been married to, men who prized over-the-top, in-your-face expensive cars, the understated elegance was a departure for her. She ran her hand across the burled wood console, the soft leather seats. He dropped behind the wheel, grabbed her hand and put it to his lips. She let him, as if in a trance, reveling in the soft, firm touch on her skin. He winked, let her go and turned the key, leaving her to her overheated fantasies on their way to dinner. An honest-to-god real date
–
her first in years. She shut her eyes a split second, let the bitter agony of loss hit her square in the chest.

“I don’t wish to replace him, you know.” Rafe’s soft cadence startled her. Her eyes flew open and she stared at him. “Sorry. I just needed to say that.”

She sat back, and let the utter surreal moment take her. She sent a text to both Ella and Adam telling them to eat leftovers for dinner. That she’d be home in a couple of hours. Then she observed Rafe’s strong, Romanesque profile wondering how in the hell her daughter would accept that she was dating the soccer coach. The memory of their one, brief but very telling encounter rolled through her, making her scalp prickle with the memory.

Mo stared into the clear liquid in her cup, realizing about ten minutes too late the soccer dad who’d set her up with the drink had merely waved the tonic bottle over the cup of gin and sliced lime. She stared at her phone, the date blurring a little from a combination of way too much booze and the fact of the calendar number that blinked at her like a beacon of evil. Another anniversary of her husband’s violent death—come and gone.

The girls were settled in a couple of rooms watching a movie after having soundly defeated both top-level teams that day. Just one game remained, standing between them and the state cup championship. The parents were in and out of various rooms, laughing, talking about soccer and getting steadily drunker. She shut her eyes, but the room spun, so she reopened them, and contemplated tossing the rest of the gin down the bathroom sink. But, at that moment, Rafe appeared in the doorway, and was accosted by several parents. Dads wanting to talk about the games, moms angling to flirt. She stared at him, watched his smile, let her eyes trail down the amazing terrain of his torso.

His gaze met hers. She gulped the rest of the drink, hoping the juniper infused alcohol would calm the butterfly army in her stomach. He stayed at one end of the room, she the other for another hour or so. But her radar was up and every time he changed position she found herself drawn to him. Berating herself she stood, and nearly fell when the booze hit her brain. A hand grabbed her, eased her back to the edge of the table where she’d been perched.

“I’m okay. I’m gonna call it.” Alarming tears hit her eyes making her blink. Various fellow parents eased in and out of her line of sight, but she made for the door. This date sucked. It always had and always would and no one understood but her. She needed air. She stumbled out into the hall and towards the elevator, trying to look sober as she wobbled into the lift. When she turned and took a breath, she saw Rafe stick an arm in, stopping the doors from sliding together. He stepped right in front of her then faced the doors, ignoring her.

“Floor?” Someone tapped her shoulder.

“Seven,” Rafe spoke before she could. She gaped at him. Her room was on the eighth floor. But when the doors opened at seven she followed him out, mesmerized in a wholly tipsy way by the curve of his ass, how his shoulders filled out the polo shirt, giving her just enough of a sense of the musculature beneath the fabric. She caught her foot on something, but as she started to fall, she realized it was nothing. That she’d simply had way more to drink than she should have. He grabbed her arm, eased her to the floor and leaned her against the wall in the hallway. He crouched down, his dark eyes like hypnotic pools of…. She knocked her head back against the wall as a clear shaft of agony hit her.

“I’m drunk,” she heard her own voice, slurred and lame.

“Stop that,” he put a hand behind her head to keep her from hitting it again. “Stay here.” He slid his key card and opened his door. She stared at the horrifically ugly pattern on the generic hotel rug until it started to blur. He reemerged, sat across from her, his long legs stretched out and handed her a water bottle. They’d been skirting the edges of flirtation for a couple of weeks. But she could not stop mourning. Her life consisted of moving forward, getting Ella and Adam to and from their schools, practice, events and then collapsing into a heap of tears every night, angry at Brandis, furious with herself for being so in love so early and railing at fate for taking him away. The fact that the very hot new coach, some kind of South American former super star import was fixated on her was a nice distraction but just that, nothing more.

She gulped the water, which immediately went down her windpipe making her splutter. He leaned over and patted her back, then sat. The silence rolled around them, awkward and painful. She stretched her legs out alongside his. Her head kept pounding. He grabbed one of her bare feet and dug his knuckles into her instep.