Every Part of You: Takes Me (#5) Read online

  He hated her more for the way she lifted her chin, giving him her attention but making it very clear she wasn’t going to soften by so much as a blink. She said nothing. She simply waited for him to speak.

  And Elliott, tongue-tied, unable to find the words and cursing himself for it, simply shook his head. The elevator doors bumped against his hand again. Soon the alarm would start to buzz , but he couldn’t move.

  Simone licked her bottom lip. Slowly. Deliberately. Then she took her gaze from his and made herself very busy with her paper bag.

  Elliott stepped out of the elevator and let the doors shut.

  In his office, he threw himself into the work. E-mails, phone calls, meetings. He drank a pot of coffee all by himself and ate a doughnut instead of a real lunch. None of it helped him to forget about her, but it gave him something to focus on besides going to her office and …

  And what? He wasn’t even sure, exactly, what office she worked in. He’d never asked her, and this, more than any of the rest of it, settled into his gut like he’d swallowed a handful of rocks. He’d fucked her. He’d slept with her. But he’d never bothered to ask her exactly where she worked.

  He’d been called an asshole a lot of times before, and there’d been plenty of times he’d earned it. Some times he hadn’t. But this time, Elliott knew for certain he’d been a Class-A prick. From his drawer he took the leather binder and the pen. Sometimes he hated these lists, but now … now he needed to make one in a way that made him finally understand why Molly had always insisted they were necessary.

  He thought of Simone, waking from sleep with that smile on her face the moment she looked at him, as though no matter how good her dreams had been, they were never as great as seeing him next to her. He thought of the way she sang in the shower, always off-key but knowing all the words. How she’d stolen his clothes from the closet, all of his shirts too big on her, and how she’d padded around his kitchen in her bare feet, making him breakfast without ever once needing to ask him how he liked his coffee.

  Fuck.

  He loved her.

  Oh, fuck, he loved her, and knowing it was like a great, crashing wave of grief and relief and shame all at the same time. He loved her, and he hadn’t been able to tell her, even though she’d given him everything he’d ever wanted in another person, and things he’d never known to ask for but knew he could never again live without.

  “Fuck,” he muttered and pulled his phone from his pocket.

  He hadn’t erased her number. He pulled it up as easily as anything, just a few taps on the keyboard. A couple swipes of his fingertip. He could’ve sent the call through with as little effort. Even less. One second, two, and he could have it pressed to his ear, listening to the sound of the ring and waiting for her voice. He didn’t know what he could say, but Elliott knew he had to say something. Anything.

  But before he could, his phone rang.

  * * *

  Simone didn’t want to be working late, but the truth was that she’d been so distracted with her own mopishness that she’d fallen behind. Mountains of paperwork, dozens of e-mails, phone calls to follow up on. Reports to file. Meetings to schedule.

  She ought to quit, she thought as she rocked back in her chair and looked out the windows to where the sun was going down. She didn’t need this job. She could do the same thing for half a dozen other companies in Philadelphia. More than that if she wanted to take the plunge and move to New York. It would make her mother and Tree happy if she lived closer and could visit more often. Aidan would have a fit, but maybe it was time she broke away from him even more than she already had. Put some distance between them to give him and Corrina a real chance to make things work without any complications from her.

  Get away from everything that reminded her of Elliott.

  “Fuck,” she muttered.

  “Every chance I get,” Jimmy said from her doorway.

  Simone spun in her chair to face him. “Ugh. What are you still doing here?”

  “Same thing you are.” Jimmy held up a pile of folders. “Making copies. Putting out fires.”

  She grinned. “How’s the new position working for you?”

  “Let’s just say that every day’s an adventure.” Jimmy grinned, too, leaning in her doorway. He jerked his chin toward the windows. “How’s your favorite office exhibitionist?”

  “He’s not an exhibitionist,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “He’s just too dumb to pull the blinds.”

  Jimmy came into her office and set his pile of folders on the edge of her desk to look out the window. He glanced at her over his shoulder. “You moved your desk.”

  “Yes.” Simone made a show of clicking her mouse and doing something that looked busy at her computer, but Jimmy wasn’t fooled.

  He laughed softly, then whistled, low, under his breath. “You and him?”

  “It wasn’t a secret.”

  “It wasn’t like you put out a memo about it, either.” Jimmy crossed his arms, looking down into Elliott’s office.

  “I didn’t know I had to!” Annoyed, Simone rattled her keyboard and slammed a drawer, pinching her finger. With a shout, she stuck it in her mouth and gave Jimmy a scowl.

  Jimmy held up his hands. “Sorry. Of course you didn’t.” He paused and looked out the window again. Then back at her. “Didn’t end well, huh?”

  “You,” Simone said with a stab of her finger at him, “are too nosy.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “Nosy,” she repeated and with a sigh, admitted defeat and logged out of her computer files. No more work tonight. She couldn’t concentrate on it, and didn’t want to be here, anyway. She eyed him, looking him over. The shined shoes. The new haircut. The shirt that matched the trousers. Simone’s brows lifted. “Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. Who’s the lucky lady?”

  To her surprise, he blushed. Crimson. No hiding it. His answer to her came out on a stutter of wordless syllables.

  Simone sat straight up in her chair. “No. Fucking. Way. Not the Ice Queen. No!”

  “Don’t tell anyone!” Jimmy said hastily, crossing to her door and shutting it tight. “Shit, Simone. How’d you know? Nobody knows. Nobody can ever know.”

  “No kidding.” Simone propped her feet on the desk and shook her head. “Jimmy, honey, that’s going to lead to trouble.”

  Jimmy frowned and went back to the window to sit on the sill, his arms crossed. “Listen to you.”

  “Technically, we don’t work together. Just in the same building. And,” she added, “it still sucks. But Tasha’s your boss, man. Both of you could be fired. Or she could just make your life a living hell here and at home.”

  Jimmy’s grin told her a lot. A whole lot more than she’d ever suspected, actually, and Simone considered herself pretty astute when it came to sniffing out the kink in other people’s closets. She sat back in her chair with a stunned shake of her head. Jimmy laughed out loud at her expression. Then he shrugged, blushing again.

  “Wow,” Simone said.

  Jimmy ran a hand through his hair, then straightened his shoulders. “It’s not why I got the job. I got the job first. The other thing came after.”

  “Because she saw you could go after something,” Simone said.

  Jimmy looked embarrassed, but also pleased. “She said she’d never seen anyone work so hard to make her happy, ever, and she had to find out just how far I’d go to keep her that way.”

  “You’re playing with fire.”

  “Better to risk getting burned,” Jimmy said, “then to never let yourself get close enough to be warmed by the flame.”

  There was silence, a long one, in which the sudden ping of Simone’s phone from her purse startled them both. She laughed. Jimmy did, too.

  “So deep,” she told him, mocking, but gently. “Such a philosopher.”

  Jimmy buffed his nails elaborately on the front of his shirt and gave her a smarmy grin. “What can I say. Ladies love it when a guy gets deep.”

  “