The Trouble With Love (13 page)

She grunted her assent, and he sat in the chair that Jason had just been in, leaning forward with the wine glass between his big hands.

“The whole not-getting-married thing that Jason mentioned . . . did I do that to you?”

Emma’s eyes met his, but she didn’t sit up. “Do
you
want to get married someday?”

He hesitated. “Haven’t done much thinking about it, but . . . no. Not really part of my game plan.”

Not anymore.

She gave a sad smile and closed her eyes. “Well, then, there you go. I’d say we did this to each other, don’t you think?”

Chapter 13

“Yup,” Alex called out at the knock on his office door.

He glanced up and was both surprised and yet not at all to see Cole Sharpe standing in his doorway. Cole had this way of being everywhere he wasn’t expected, while managing to stay MIA whenever Alex went looking for him. It was a gift.

“Whose meeting am I crashing this time?” Cole asked, entering uninvited.

“Grace Malone,” Alex said, glancing at his watch. “And don’t even tell me she snuck into the stairwell with Jake. Do those two just wait until they’re supposed to meet with me to go get it on?”

Cole’s eyebrows wiggled. “Maybe thinking of you makes them horny.”

“I assure you, that is not the case,” Jake said from the doorway.

He, too, entered uninvited, taking the chair next to Cole, as he tossed a stack of papers across the desk at Alex.

“What’s this?” he glanced at the documents.

“Grace’s notes for her story.”

“Why didn’t she give them to me herself? We’re supposed to have a meeting.”

“I’m hijacking her time.”

Alex opened his mouth to protest, but Jake cut him off. “Trust me. Her story’s fine. She doesn’t need a babysitter. And whatever you think you know about blow jobs, I assure you, Grace knows more.”

That
shut Alex up. He really,
really
did not want to talk to his best friend’s wife about giving head.

He pushed the papers aside to read later. As in
never
.

“Is there some sort of crisis I should be aware of?” Alex asked.

“Actually, yes,” Jake said.

Alex pinched the bridge of his nose. “What now? Is the new copy editor not working out?”

“She’s working out just fine,” Cole broke in. “She’s cute.”

Alex shook his head. “Don’t be that gross guy.”

“I didn’t say I was going to hit on her,” Cole protested. “But she
is
cute.”

Alex shifted his attention to Jake, picking up a pen and clicking it. “So what’s the problem?”

Jake eyed the pen and lifted an eyebrow. “You’ve been . . . oh, what’s the word I’m looking for, Cole?”

“Grumpy?”

“Yes,” Jake said, snapping his fingers. “Grumpy.”

Alex stopped clicking for a half second before he resumed. “Grumpy.”

“Irritable? Grouchy?” Cole said, tilting his head as though to consider the new word choice. “No, I’ve got it.
Cantankerous
.”

“Yes!” Jake said with a nod. “You are cantankerous.”

“This is what I get for working with a bunch of journalists. Fifty synonyms for my irritation about people interrupting my workday.”

Cole and Jake glanced at each other. “Bilious?” Cole said.

“Nice,”
Jake replied, holding out his hand to fist bump Cole.

“And you two clowns thought this was going to help my mood?” Alex asked. “Coming in here and badgering me about it? If I’m short-tempered it’s because there aren’t enough hours in the day to run two magazines.”

“Nah, that’s not it,” Jake said after considering.

Alex didn’t bite at whatever it was they were dancing around. Didn’t want to humor them.

“Don’t fret, boss,” Cole said, shifting up to fish his cellphone out of his back pocket to look at the time. “Help should be here any minute.”

“Help for what?” Alex asked helplessly when it became clear they weren’t going to back off.

“The source of your crankiness.” The new voice came from the doorway, and Cassidy glanced up to see yet another of his
Oxford
reporters.

Lincoln Mathis strolled into Alex’s office like he owned the place, and since there were no more available chairs, he propped a hip on the side of Alex’s desk before flipping his cellphone onto the stack of cover mockups Alex had been looking at.

“What’s this?” Alex asked, glancing at the phone.

“The modern man’s version of the black book,” Lincoln said.

Alex glanced up at his
all things sex and women
columnist. Lincoln Mathis had started at the magazine just a couple months after Alex joined, taking over the Relationships department after Jake moved to Travel. But despite his relatively short tenure, Lincoln had quickly established himself as the heart and soul of the magazine, rivaling only Jake in reputation and charm. And Cole, but Cole didn’t fully count because of his contractor status.

Lincoln’s record with women was legendary. Brown hair, blue eyes, and always ready with a line, Lincoln was exactly the type of guy that other men hid their women from.

Alex placed three fingers on the phone and slid it back across the desk toward Lincoln.

Lincoln pushed it back. “Dude, Jake and Cole are right. You need this.”

“Need what?”

“To get laid,” Lincoln said, emphasis on the last word.

Alex glanced around his office at the other men. “
That’s
what this is about? You think I’m curt—”

“Curmudgeonly,” Cole broke in.

“Because I’m horny?” Alex asked, ignoring Cole’s interruption.

“Definitely,” Jake said with a nod.

“I’m not,” Alex ground out. “I’ve only been single for a couple weeks. Not even. I’m not so licentious that I can go that long without a woman.”

“Generally speaking, that’s probably true,” Jake said. “But for whatever reason, your tolerance for abstinence is way down lately. Ever since that dinner party, actually.”

Alex met Jake’s gaze and saw from the other man’s expression that Jake thought he knew exactly why Alex had been running a little ragged lately.

Alex narrowed his eyes to indicate that Jake didn’t know
shit
.

If Grace had planted some garbage in her husband’s brain about Alex being hung up on Emma, that was Jake’s problem.

Alex wasn’t going to dignify it with a response.

“Anyway,” Lincoln said, “that’s where I come in. I don’t know if you know this, but I’ve got this rather impressive skill of staying on excellent terms with all women, even those I’ve slept with—”

“He really does have that skill,” Cole broke in. “It’s annoying. Every girl
I
sleep with wants to kill me after.”

“That’s because you slip out of bed in the a.m. and leave a “Thanks, babe” Post-it Note on the pillow,” Jake said.

“So does Mathis!” Cole said, pointing. “And, hell, so did
you
for that matter, before you met Grace.”

Jake ignored this, shifting attention back to Alex.

Once again, Alex shoved the phone back at Lincoln. “I am not going to scroll through your contact list and pick a woman at random.”

“Of course not,” Lincoln said in a soothing voice. “We’re going to use my expertise to find a woman for you. Now. Talk to Uncle Lincoln. Since you and I don’t hang out much outside the office, I’ll need to know a little about your type.”

“He likes them tall,” Cole said. “But not model tall.”

“Slim,” Jake added, “But not model skinny.”

“Got it, so no models,” Lincoln said, his thumb scrolling over his screen. “What about actresses?”

“No, too showy,” Jake said. “He likes the smart ones.”

“Geek smart, or street smart?” Lincoln asked. “Because there’s this cute girl I used to date over in IT at—”

“Sophisticated smart,” Cole said. “His girlfriend was an attorney or some shit.”

Alex began to click his pen in earnest. “I can find my own women.”

Lincoln gave him a condescending look. “That must be hard. Seeing as you never leave this damn office.”

“Women come into this office,” Alex shot back.

“Yeah, but they all work for you, and something tells me you frown on that sort of thing.”

He did. He definitely did. Hitting on employees was not an option. Ever.

And as much as he hated to admit it, these three interfering buffoons were right about one thing. Alex
had
been feeling restless lately. And he was spending
way
too much time in this office, staring at his computer screen, alternating between reading about glittery eye shadow (
Stiletto
) and the correct way to do pull-ups (
Oxford
).

A distraction would be welcome. A
female
distraction would be incredibly welcome. But not like this.

“I’m not taking one of your leftovers,” Alex growled at Lincoln.

Lincoln looked up. “What about one that I haven’t slept with yet?”

“Nope.”

“I’m serious. I haven’t even dated this one woman who would be
great
for you. I hit on her friend, but then I got
her
phone number as well since she’s an accountant and I was looking for one.”

“No,” Alex said, voice bored.

Lincoln handed his phone over. It was the woman’s Facebook page. She had small, almost elfish features, wavy brown hair, a friendly smile, and intelligent green eyes.

She looked . . . normal. Like someone he could talk to.

“Her name’s Alisha. I swear to God she’s not a weirdo,” Lincoln said.

Alex hesitated for only a second before handing the phone back. “Nope.”

He reached for his pen. Clicked.

Lincoln shrugged as though it was no matter to him, and pushed off the desk, ambling toward the door. “Suit yourself.”

Cole and Jake stood as well, turning their backs on him.

“Cross,” Jake mused, loud enough for Alex to hear. “The man is
cross
.”

“Peevish,” Cole one-upped him.

“Hey, did you text Emma back about Friday?” Jake asked Cole. “She told Grace that she liked Italian, so Babbo’s a safe bet, but you should probably confirm with her. Women like when you talk to them directly.”

Alex clicked the pen faster.

“I know what you’re doing,” he called after them. “It won’t work.”

Neither man turned around, and Alex swore softly.

Cole wouldn’t
really
go on a date with Emma.

Would he?

Cole was a friend, and it violated every sort of bro code. Except . . . Alex had been going out of his way for years to show that his and Emma’s past was
only
in the past, so could he blame Cole for thinking she was fair game?

Yes. Yes, he could absolutely blame Cole.

And yet . . . there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. Nothing he should
want
to do about it.

Emma wasn’t his. Not anymore.

And if the thought of Cole touching her made him want to jab his pen into his femoral artery, surely that was completely understandable and normal.

Alex tossed the pen aside.
Fuck
.

Then he stood, going in search of Lincoln. Maybe he did want this Alisha’s phone number.

Chapter 14

After a wretched afternoon of moving the rest of her stuff out of her old apartment (Riley was right; it
did
reek of mildew), Emma couldn’t even
think
about being sociable.

But after a week of having a steady stream of ex-boyfriends coming in and out of Camille’s place, neither could she quite stomach the idea of being cooped up in the apartment.

So Emma did what any self-assured, single woman would do with a free Saturday night in Manhattan. She took herself out to dinner.

“Just one,” she said to the smiling hostess at Cafe Luxembourg, the bustling and ever-popular French bistro on Seventieth and Amsterdam.

“Sure thing,” the hostess said, not missing a beat. “It’ll probably be about thirty minutes for a table without a reservation, but there are a couple of spots open at the bar.”

“Bar is perfect,” Emma said, hanging her coat on the rack by the door.

A minute later, Emma was settling down with the menu and the wine list when her perfect evening skidded to a halt.

On the other end of the bar was Alex Cassidy.

Who was with a woman.

Emma glanced down and seriously considered leaving, although she immediately scolded herself for the thought. Since when had she let Alex Cassidy’s presence interfere with her life?

And since when had she cared that he was seeing someone?

Her eyes flicked back to them again. She could see only Cassidy’s profile, and he was mostly turned away from her, but the woman he was with was mostly facing Emma.

She was pretty, in a wide-eyed, earnest kind of way. Her brown hair was shoulder length and wavy, her eyes round and friendly. She wore an oversized boatneck navy sweater that was both stylish and comfortable looking. There was nothing bimbo about her. Nothing that Emma could possibly criticize. Heck, she looked like someone that Emma herself would be friends with.

“Good evening,” the bartender said, capturing Emma’s attention. “Sorry for the wait; it’s always crazy on weekends. I’ll get you some water—did you need some more time with the wine list?”

“Actually, I’m looking for a recommendation,” Emma said, trying to ignore Alex and his new woman altogether. “I’m in the mood for a white, something sort of crisp but not too tart, and I’m not familiar with any of your by-the-glass pours.”

The bartender leaned forward, glancing down at the list as she thought. “Let me get you a sample of the Albariño,” she said. “It’s Spanish, and one of my favorites.”

She poured Emma a small taste, which she sipped and loved. “Perfect.”

“Anything to eat?” the bartender asked as she poured Emma a full glass.

“Eventually, yes. Haven’t gotten to the food menu yet.”

“Take your time,” the bartender said, putting the cork back in the bottle. “I’m Jana if you need anything.”

“Thanks,” Emma said, returning the smile.

As Jana went to help another customer, Emma let her gaze dart back toward Cassidy and his date. They were gone, and Emma told herself she was relieved. Relieved he hadn’t noticed her. Relieved she wouldn’t have to watch him put the moves on another woman.