Beg for It (29 page)

“I’m okay,” she told Caitlyn over glasses of wine and a platter of cheese and crackers. “Really. He gave me a huge raise when he came on, remember? I have money put away. I have three interviews lined up. I’ll get another job. You don’t have to worry.”

Her sister frowned. “I’m hardly worried about you getting a job. Okay, maybe a little, because if we’re both out of work, that could be bad. But that’s not really what I’m worried about, and you know it.”

“I feel very much at peace.” Corinne ate a piece of cheese, then spread another with some spicy mustard and ate that, too. “You can’t make someone love you, or choose you, and I didn’t want to even try to force him.”

“You didn’t even want to think about a long-distance relationship? Philadelphia isn’t that far away.” Caitlyn also ate a piece of cheese.

“It’s far enough. Sure, could we have tried it out? I guess so. Doing every other weekend. Talking on the phone during the week. Seeing each other whenever we could. Anything that’s worthwhile takes work. Being together would’ve taken extra work. Not impossible. But once again, here it is, days later and not a word from him. How long should I wait?”

“You can’t give up,” Caitlyn said.

Corinne shrugged. “Sure I can.”

“You don’t want to give up. You love him.”

“And?” Corinne shook her head. “So what?”

“If you just told him,” her sister began, but cut off at the sight of Corinne’s expression.

“He knows. He’s always known. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter.”

Caitlyn was silent for a moment. “You can’t mean that.”

“He broke my heart once. Should I let him break it again? Let him go break someone else’s heart. I don’t have anything left.” Corinne’s phone buzzed with an alert she wasn’t expecting, and frowning, she swiped the screen to see a message from her credit union app. “What the… Oh. No.”

Caitlyn craned her neck to see. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Someone made a deposit into my account.” She showed her sister the screen. The amount was enough to make Caitlyn choke on the cube of cheese she’d been eating. Corinne gave her sister a grim smile. “Yeah. Right?”

“From him?”

“Who else could it be from?” She shook her head, already thumbing in his number. “I have to tell him I’m not taking it.”

“Are you crazy? With that kind of money you don’t need to work for a long time! If you don’t want it, give it to me!”

Corinne gave her sister a look. “Forget it. He thinks this is all about money? Fuck that.”

“Don’t do anything crazy,” Caitlyn said. “From what you said, five hundred smackers is like something he sneezes into a tissue and throws away.”

“Oh, that’s so gross.” Corinne grimaced. Reese wasn’t picking up. She didn’t leave a voicemail.

She didn’t have to, though, because a minute later, her phone buzzed again, this time with a text.

At the diner.

Meet me?

Then, a few seconds later, before she had time to answer…

Please.

Chapter Forty

Tony had brought along his tablet instead of a pile of folders. Reese preferred the paperwork so he could flip through it, take notes. Papers were physical and tactile. They felt more permanent.

He scrolled through the various pages. There wasn’t much to note. At this point, the businesses in his portfolio, including Stein and Sons, were all running smoothly without needing any input from him—that was the point of it all, really. Hire good people to take over, and he could sit back and reap the benefits without having to be the guy overseeing every little detail.

“Coffee?” That rockabilly pinup waitress was back with eyes only for Tony.

Tony grinned and held out his cup. Reese rolled his eyes at the obvious simpering between the two of them, but waited until she’d gone before he tapped the tablet screen. “So, are you two a thing, or what?”

“We are not a thing. We are now, officially, partners.” Tony gestured at the diner. “I’m buying this place.”

Reese’s jaw dropped. “What the hell? Are you quitting?”

“Do I have to? I mean, especially now?” Tony frowned.

“No. Of course not. I mean, if you can own and run a diner and work for me, more power to you.” Reese blinked, still surprised.

“Gretchen’s going to run it. I’m the money man. She has the practical experience.”

“Sounds like you’re going to make a good team,” Reese said.

Tony shrugged, looking kind of irritated instead of happy. “That’s what I think, but that girl is hard, man. She is hard like…like concrete.”

“To work with?”

“To
be
with,” Tony said with a scowl.

Reese’s brow furrowed, confused. “So…you are or are not a thing? I mean a dating thing.”

“I have no idea what we are. I’m a damned booty call.” Tony crumpled up a paper napkin and writhed a little in the diner booth, letting his head fall back with a groan. “She makes me crazy. This deal is taking forever to go through. I’m in a hell of my own making, man, and the worst part is, I could get out of it, and I don’t.”

Reese laughed. Tony gave him the finger. Reese laughed harder, though he softened his hilarity out of respect for Tony’s clearly despairing situation.

“Can we get back to me?” Reese asked. “You know, business at hand?”

Tony waved a languid hand. “Yeah, yeah. Everything’s under control. I handled all of it, just like you wanted. Some final paperwork needs to come through, but all the i’s are crossed and t’s are dotted.”

“Good. Thank you. Now, get lost.”

Tony groaned, but got up to slide out of the booth. Tony had taken his tablet when he left, but Reese had a single folder on the table in front of him. All he had to do was wait for Corinne to show up.

He had another offer for her.

Chapter Forty-One

“I don’t have long,” Corinne said without preamble as she took a seat in the booth. “The kids both have homework and stuff.”

“Thanks for coming.”

Did he have to look so good? It wasn’t fair. She wanted him to at least look hollow-cheeked, shadow-eyed. Like he hadn’t been sleeping. Something, anything, that would’ve shown her he’d been missing her.

“I’m not taking that money,” she said, again without any hesitation. No point in beating around the bush. “You can’t buy or sell me like I’m a business.”

Reese smiled. “It’s your severance package. If you’d read the contract amendment I had you sign when I took over, you’d have seen that.”

“I did read it, as a matter of fact, because I don’t sign contracts without reading them first,” she answered sharply. “It did not say anywhere in it that you were going to give me half a million dollars for quitting.”

“It said, if I remember correctly, that the severance package would include full benefits for six months as well as a discretionary bonus.” He was still smiling.

Jerk.

Corinne sat up straighter. “I don’t want your payoff. The severance I’m owed will be fine. I don’t need a bonus.”

“I gave it to you, and I’m not taking it back,” Reese said complacently.

“I said I don’t want it!”

At last, that smug smile faded. “It’s not for you. It’s for your kids. So you don’t have to worry about another job, or uprooting or abandoning them.”

“I can take care of my kids just fine, thank you,” she snapped, keeping her voice low so as not to attract attention. “I don’t need you to take care of them. Or me!”

“I want to take care of you, Corinne. For the rest of your life, if you’ll let me.”

Not the words she’d been expecting. Startled, she sat back. “What?”

Reese leaned forward. “You told me to choose. I’m choosing.”

“What, exactly, did you choose?” She swallowed tears, hoping against every shredded scrap of hope she’d been denying she was holding on to.

“You. Us. If you’ll let me, the kids. Your sister,” he added with a grin that faded after a second so he could look serious.

He took her hand, and she let him, because she wanted to believe. She wanted to trust him. She squeezed, gently.

“You said you wouldn’t ask me to do what I absolutely can’t, Corinne. Right now, I can’t live in Lancaster full-time. But,” he cut in hastily before she could speak, “I can live here a lot of the time.”

“You want to move in with me?”

“Yes. Some day. When we’re ready. When it makes sense. Until then, I have a place I’m going to rent while I build something. I’m going to sell the farmhouse. I’ll spend whatever time I need in Philly, but I’ll make a home base here too. And eventually, if everything works out, we can talk about making a place together for all of us.”

“You’ve thought it out,” she said. “Sounds like you’ve really analyzed it.”

“It’s what I do,” Reese told her. “Figure out how to make the pieces work. I want them to work with you.”

“Me too.” She leaned across the table to kiss him, then sat back. “I’m still not keeping that money.”

“I’m going to take care of you the way I always wanted to, whether you like it or not,” he shot back.

Corinne studied him, this man who’d once been her boy. She sat up straighter and gave him a long, cool look. Then a smile.

“My list,” she said in that tone guaranteed to make him shiver and make his cock hard, “just got one item longer.”

About the Author

Megan Hart writes books. Some of them use a lot of bad words, but most of the other words are okay. She can’t live without music, the internet, or the ocean, but she and soda have achieved an amicable uncoupling. She can’t stand the feeling of corduroy or velvet, and modern art leaves her cold. She writes a little bit of everything from horror to romance, though she’s best known for writing erotic fiction that sometimes makes you cry. Find out more about her at
www.meganhart.com
, or if you really want to get crazy, follow her on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/megan_hart
.

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