My Sweetest Sasha: Cole's Story (Meadows Shore Book 2) (3 page)

Cole stuck his hand in his lab coat pocket and toyed with a lone paper clip. He’d make the best of it—play their little game. It would be easier on his staff and patients if he didn’t fight her every step of the way. It would be easier on him, too. He just hoped when the lovely rose blossomed, her thorns weren’t vicious or poisonous.

“Look, I know this pretty much sucks for you, too, but we need to come to some understanding that won’t compromise my patients. There’s a bathroom through there.” He pointed to a door in the far corner of the room. “You can wait in here until I’m done seeing patients. Leave the door open, and you’ll be able to hear if I do something particularly
undesirable
you can write about.” He shook his head and walked out.

Another hour passed, and the activity in the office slowed considerably. Thank goodness the day was almost over. What a disaster it had been. Her nerves were frayed, her patience worn thin, and she had absolutely nothing to show for her trouble. Nothing. And tomorrow promised to be no better.

The whole thing was ridiculous, completely impractical. Coaching a seasoned professional was a skill, a skill she didn’t have. And coaching someone like Cole Harrington required not only skill, but the patience of Job.

Cole walked in and dumped a pile of folders on his desk. “So, how was your day? Productive?” It was clearly meant to poke fun, a harmless jab, but it nearly pushed her fragile psyche over the edge.

She looked up at him, hoping he wouldn’t notice her moist eyes.

With his thighs propped against an open desk drawer, he examined her more closely. “It was the first day. You’ll figure it out.”
Great. Now he was comforting a woman sent to screw with him.

She nodded. “Are you done for today?”

“You’re kidding, right? It’s only five-thirty.”

She wasn’t kidding.

“I have about forty-five minutes of paperwork. Then we’re going to sit down and figure out how we’re each going to do our jobs for the next month and a half without killing each other. What do you want for dinner?”

She stared blankly, waiting for the words to register. She was that tired.

“Dinner. You know, the meal at the end of the day, where families gather around the kitchen table and parents pepper their kids with questions about school?”

She almost smiled. Almost. “Nothing. I’m not hungry.”

“Well, I am, and you’re not going to sit there and watch me eat. I’m on till midnight.”

Midnight. The buses would’ve stopped running by then. She sighed. “I don’t want anything, thanks.”

“Whatever.”

She listened as he ordered enough food to feed a brood of hungry children sitting around the kitchen table sharing select nuggets about their day. Then he phoned a few patients and the pharmacy before turning his attention to the stack of folders on his desk.

Nothing in his phone interactions was inappropriate. In fact, he’d been particularly kind to of one of the patients, concerned that her daughter had left her alone for the evening.

Before long his phone rang and he disappeared, returning with a bag redolent of garlic, tomato sauce, and fresh basil. He unpacked the food at the small conference table where she sat working on her laptop.

The smell was intoxicating. Alexa was practically salivating.

“We can talk over dinner.”

“I’m not hungry.” A big, fat lie. The food looked better than it smelled, if that was possible, and she was starving.

He put a bit of everything on a plate and placed it in front of her along with a fork and knife. “Eat,” he ordered, handing her a napkin.

She stared hungrily at the food, trying to figure out how to handle the issue of dinner, feigning disinterest until her stomach nearly betrayed her with an unseemly growl. If he noticed, he didn’t let on. What the heck, she might as well eat. She’d pay him for dinner tonight, and from now on, she’d make sure to bring enough food to get her through the day.

She reached for her purse and pulled out a worn leather wallet. “How much do I owe you?”

“Put it away. It’s on me tonight.”

“I can’t let you buy me dinner.”

“You can buy another time.”

“I really can’t, so let’s take care of this now.”

“This is my office, and I insisted you have dinner, so put away your damn money and eat before I force-feed you. It’s been a long day, it’s going to be a long evening, and you’ll need the energy to document all my transgressions.”

Her body tensed and she forced herself to pause and breathe. She could already see that the breathing exercises she’d learned in her yoga practice would come in handy over the next several weeks. Alexa walked over to his desk and placed a couple of bills under a paperweight shaped like a caduceus.

“Think I’m that easy, huh?” he asked.

The man was impossible. But he was right about one thing: it had been a long day. For him, too, she thought, picking up her fork to taste the manicotti.
Yum!
It was otherworldly. The rich ricotta filling played off the tangy tomato sauce, awakening every taste bud as it melted on her tongue. “This is delicious.”

“It’s from Manzo’s in the North End. Ever eaten there?”

She shook her head. Eating out wasn’t in her budget. Though she’d treated herself to Chinese takeout the night of graduation, and a cream-filled lobster claw from Modern Bakery the day she’d gotten her job. The decadent pastry might have been the best thing she’d ever tasted, and she’d eaten every last delectable morsel in one sitting.

“So where did you grow up, Alexa Petersen?”

“Minnesota.”

“You’re a long way from home,” he said between mouthfuls.

She nodded. And more than once today, she’d imagined she was back in Minnesota. Back when she was ten years old, playing in the yard with her best friend Meghan, running carefree through the rows of towering cornstalks. It seemed like four lifetimes ago.

“What brought you to Boston?”

“Law school.”

“Where?”

“Harvard.”

“Harvard,” he repeated, as though surprised. “Did anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?”

He had this way about him that was charming—in an obnoxious sort of way—and she couldn’t help but laugh. “Actually, yes. My parents and my elementary school teachers.”

“But then you became a moody teenager and stopped talking?”

Her jaw stiffened. “Something like that.” His words hit close to home, exposing a raw nerve. She’d been about thirteen when she began to internalize the messages she’d been bombarded with her entire life: nice girls don’t talk about that, or nice girls don’t ask those questions, and her all-time favorite, curiosity killed the cat. “I thought we were going to carve out an understanding about how to proceed over the next six weeks.”

“We are, but let’s eat first.”

He leaned back for a moment, wiping his hands with the paper napkin. “We’ll be spending a lot of time together, and since you’re my judge and jury, not to mention my personal warden, it might be helpful to get to know each other. You know, like human beings.”

“I didn’t ask for this assignment.”

“No, I’m sure you didn’t. But now that you’ve had an opportunity to spend some time with me, I bet you’re thrilled to have been selected for it,” he said, lips twitching.

She smiled again, but this time it was a forced, practiced smile, one where she had to consciously will her lips to stretch across her face. “Funny.”

“No one calls you Alex?”

“Not more than once.”

“Maybe I’ll be the exception.”

“I have a feeling there are always exceptions where you’re concerned.” She cringed, the words sounding harsher than she’d intended. The man bought her dinner. He seemed to be making an effort to work out a civil solution to what could be a disastrous six weeks—for her. She needed to try, too.

“Alex was my grandfather. Alexander. My parents planned to call me Alexandra, after him. But when I was born, they took one look at me and decided Alexandra Petersen was too long a name for a pipsqueak.”

She felt her face heat, and stared down at her plate, suddenly embarrassed for sharing a private family story.

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you were born a pipsqueak.”

She could feel Cole studying her closely, and knew the smile she was offering him wasn’t any more convincing than the last one, so she changed the subject before he could ask any more questions. “How about you, where did your name come from?”

“My parents.”

She rolled her eyes.

“There were generations of Nicholas Harringtons, and I was next in line.” He tore a small piece of bread from the loaf between them. “My parents planned to nickname me Cole. But right before I was born, my father decided that long-standing traditions sometimes breed destructive inflexibility, leading to hate and bigotry. He insisted I have my own name, be my own man. So Nicholas was out the window. But my mother had fallen in love with the name Cole. Though it’s more likely what she loved was her firstborn having her husband’s name. She believed the sun rose and set on my father, and he believed she hung the moon,” he said quietly, so quietly she had to strain to hear him.

“Sounds like love.”

“A short chapter in their love story—a love story for the ages. Someone once described their relationship that way,” he said with a sad, faraway look on his face.

Even with everything that had happened during the day, it was the first time he’d shown any vulnerability. It tugged at her heart. Something about seeing the sadness wash over this big, tough, take-charge guy, got to her. Made her want to reach out to him.

“My family and friends call me Lexie,” she said softly, extending an olive branch.

After a minute or two his expression changed, and his eyes twinkled mischievously. “Sexy Lexie,” he grinned.

“How original.” And she went back to her food, secretly pleased with his lighter mood.

* * *

Cole regarded her from across the table
with a new curiosity. Harvard Law School wasn’t for chumps. There must be some steel behind her mousy demeanor if she survived it intact.

She’d had an unguarded moment earlier, when he teased her about being a chatterbox. But then something happened, he touched a sore spot, and the smile and playfulness were gone as quickly as they came, and the no-nonsense lawyer appeared, ending the fun. A damn shame.

He stole another long look at her while she finished dinner. What little makeup she’d been wearing earlier had faded. Her jacket hung on her as though it had been fitted for a much larger person, simple hoops swung from her ears, and an inexpensive watch hugged her wrist.

She was attractive—until she smiled. But something special happened when she smiled. Her whole face lit up, her skin glowed, and her blue eyes sparkled. When she smiled, she was beautiful, take-your-breath-away, lost-for-words beautiful. The sweet girl next door kind of beauty that fueled teenage boys’ fantasies. She had it in spades. And Cole knew that in the next six weeks, she’d fuel plenty of his fantasies too.

The possibilities played on an endless reel in his mind, and his dick sprang to life when he imagined running his hands over her tight little body. Stroking her, discovering her secrets, the places that made her shudder and moan.

His pants constricted his arousal, making him uncomfortable, but despite the almost painful sensation, he was grateful he’d changed out of scrubs earlier, because the flimsy fabric would’ve been no match for the lengthening and thickening happening in his trousers right now.

What the fuck’s wrong with you? What kind of schmuck thinks about pleasuring a woman who’s trying to make his life hell?

And then as if to torture him some more, her tongue emerged, gliding over velvet lips, catching the last remnants of sauce. Lips pink and moist that he envisioned growing red and swollen from bruising kisses and playful nips. He suppressed a groan, and shifted in his chair, barely able to breathe. He needed to move, give his body a break, but he didn’t dare stand up or he’d be embarrassed. No, make that
they’d
be embarrassed.
Get a goddamned grip! Change the reel. Focus on something else.

He forced himself to remember why she was here, and that helped his body begin to behave. A little. “You do know some people around here actually like me, right?”

“Yes, I’ve heard. Especially the women.”

A spark. When he’d pushed her earlier, he thought he’d seen a spark in her eyes—a small flash of anger. It was in stark contrast to the deer in the headlights look she’d worn most of the day.

“Hospitals are hotbeds of gossip, but where there’s smoke there’s usually fire. Just be careful about your sources.”

He paused, continuing to size her up. “I can handle you shadowing me. People shadow me all the time, but you can’t go into patient areas—exam rooms, patient rooms, the operating room—they’re all out of bounds. Patient safety, comfort, and privacy take precedence over everything else.”

“But … ”

He tipped back his chair and reached behind him, snatching a piece of paper from the fax machine, he slid it across the table in her direction. “I think this supports my position and lets you off the hook.”

“I don’t need to be let off the hook from doing my job.”

“Sure you do. Your job sucks, and you know it. The last thing a nice girl from Minnesota wants is to be in my face confronting me, correcting me, and trying to get me fired. That’s why you're here, right?

“And don’t harass my staff. They’re good, hardworking people, and whatever I did has nothing to do with them. I won’t allow them to be victimized. Good, old-fashioned decency. I bet they taught you about that in small-town Minnesota. It’s what I expect for them. Nothing less.”