An Unexpected Love Read online

  Dedication

  To Fred.

  Chapter One

  It was 9:30 pm when I shut down my computer and grabbed my purse from the bottom drawer of my desk. I was so tired I wanted to curl up and die, or at least collapse in the corner and suck my thumb. Thirteen hours of editing reports, and re-editing reports, and getting frantic calls asking why the second set of edits made it to legal before the first set, and I was done. Done.

  I kicked the bottom desk drawer closed for good measure, which startled my boss, Dan, who was buried even deeper in reports and frantic calls than I was. He looked at me like he didn’t know who I was for a second.

  “Dan, I’m leaving. I haven’t eaten since noon. I haven’t peed since before then. I’ve already missed my date—if I end up an old maid, it’s on you, my friend.” He ignored me. He was used to my exhausted, melodramatic rants, but that didn’t mean he knew how to respond to them. “Can your conscience handle it, Bossman? Me, all alone, watching the shopping channel with my forty cats in a shack by the railroad?”

  “Go home, Lexi.”

  “Yeah, home to my empty apartment. I could’ve had dinner at Brioche with Tyler. Now I’ll have Beefaroni in front of the TV. Thanks for caring.”

  Dan glanced up from the papers flooding his desk. He looked stressed, and tired. His dark hair curled over his eyebrows, which meant he hadn’t even taken the time to get a haircut. It was sad, really, because he was only thirty-two, just three years older than me—he should be missing dates and ranting about it too, but he never did. His dark brown eyes, always unreadable, focused on me.

  “Did you really miss a date?”

  I tried to remember if he’d ever asked me such a personal question. The closest I could recall was the time he’d asked if I knew of a good plumber.

  “Nah, it was a tentative offer at best. Plus, Tyler’s got these thin lips…they kind of look like a big scar under his nose. I don’t think I can get past them.”

  “You’re very discerning.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Goodnight, Dan.”

  I made my way to the elevators, nodding at the cleaning lady emptying the trashcan in the 38th-floor corridor. Titus and Goldblum might have made its money off the backs of low-level grunts like myself, but they gave us a beautiful building in which to work ourselves to death. The plants, the modern furniture, the fountains… Not only did they set the proper tone for the headquarters of a multi-billion-dollar investment banking firm, but they also told us little people, “You’re special… We care about your work environment… We’ll spend more on a piece of abstract art than on the yearly salaries of half-a-dozen executive assistants.”

  By the time I got to the first floor, I was feeling woozy from lack of basic sustenance. I crossed the main lobby and stepped into McAllister’s, the restaurant/pub where we usually went to lunch, when lunch was not a luxury. I sat numbly at the bar and gave a little wave to Valerie the bartender.

  “Hey, Miss Lexi.”

  “Hey, Valerie. Can I get a chicken club and a huge glass of water?”

  “Sure thing, hon.”

  I wasn’t until I reached to drape my coat over the back of the barstool that I saw Jack Brogan at the far corner of the bar, by himself.

  Omigod.

  If there was such a thing as a Big Man on Campus at an investment banking firm, Jack Brogan was it. Beautiful, rich, charming, his name rang off the tongues of the firm’s professional gossips with regularity. He looked like a movie star, his dark blond hair cut close, his blue, piercing eyes framed by dark, thick lashes. His manner matched his looks—he made friends and charmed women without any discernible effort. But even with his looks and charm, the level of interest in his life was surprising, not only in its intensity but in its banality. I’d once walked in on a heated debate over the type of oil he used in his Porsche Boxster.

  Of course, all Brogan-related gossip for the last six months had focused on his recent divorce from Julia Mundy-Brogan, who had apparently, and quite gauchely, run off with the male nanny, affectionately referred to in the halls of T&G as “the manny”. The entire firm had a field day, as whispering Brogan groupies went from “Why?” (I bet it was the long hours he works… No, I saw the manny once, he’s gaw-geous…) to “What now?” (I heard he’s already got another woman… I heard that’s why the wife left to begin with!).

  The hero-worship, the gossip, the lives and loves of the beautiful people and their followers… It was all such an incredible turn-off to me. Which made it even harder to accept the embarrassing fact that I was madly in love with Jack Brogan, and had been for over six years. Before Manny-Gate, even before Julia Mundy entered the picture, Jack and I had started at T&G as junior analysts, straight out of college. We’d worked together for about six months before his brilliance was recognized and he was swept away to corporate finance, while I remained back with the dimmer stars in research. We were casual acquaintances, would hold the elevator door for each other, but in the last six years, the torrid love affair between me and Jack took place exclusively in the recesses of my Brogan-obsessed brain.

  Feigning disinterest, I hung on every scrap of stray gossip, followed his rapidly burgeoning career, and imagined the two of us in every unspeakable naked scenario my twisted mind could produce. It was humiliating. Demoralizing. It went against every notion of self-respect and sanity I’d ever embraced. But there it was. I was Mothra, and he was my giant flame.

  Tonight, however, it looked like my giant flame was flaming drunk. Not that he had a lampshade on his head or anything, but his eyes were glazed and unfocused, and he seemed to be tilted to the left on his barstool. I tried not to stare, thankful that Valerie came with the sandwich and drink on which I could focus my attention. But before I could salt my fries, Jack slipped gingerly off his barstool and began to walk—or, more accurately, stumble—towards me. Towards me.

  Now let me stop here and say that I am no simpering wallflower. I’ve had three serious boyfriends since college, and one marriage proposal. Men notice me—I’m no supermodel, but I’ve got good hair, full and dark brown. And my legs are long, and my eyes are wide and hazel. I won’t talk about my nose (too pug) or my breasts (too small), but overall, I’m presentable. So a drunk man approaching me in a bar was not a completely foreign situation for me. But I’d never been approached by a drunk Jack Brogan, and it made goosebumps pop up on my arms.

  “Hey, Lexi.” He spoke softly, intending to hit my ear, but he overshot, and I felt his hot breath on my scalp. He slurred his words, so it sounded more like Hail, Eck-see. He placed one hand on the bar and the other on the back of my chair. Clearly he needed the help.

  “Hey, Jack. Are you okay?” His face was flushed, and he didn’t answer me. “Jack?”

  “I just came over to say hi,” he said. “Hi.” He shot me a half smile, the same half smile he gave every woman in his presence. It was as if he knew his gorgeousness was too much, that he couldn’t risk the mayhem a full smile might produce within the general female population.

  “Hi,” I replied. Just then his palm slipped across the slick top of the bar, and he stumbled back a step. Okay, crazy obsession aside, I needed to deal with this. “C’mon, I think I’d better get you a cab.”

  For some reason I expected a fight, an indignant denial of his inebriated state. But he just nodded, and after I paid both our tabs and got Valerie to box up my dinner, he followed me out to the street like a beautiful puppy, sweet and cooperative. Boston in January is no place to take a leisurely stroll, so I dragged him as quickly as I could to the next block, where cabs hung out regularly for the after-dinner crowd.

  I shoved him in the back of an old green cab and slid in after him. I had no idea where he lived, so I reached into his b
ack pocket, feeling the strong muscles of his ass against my fingertips, and retrieved his wallet. After I gave the cabbie the address and we started moving, I debated whether or not to return his wallet to where I found it but settled on slipping it in his jacket pocket. He grabbed my forearm and pulled me towards him, surprisingly fast for a drunk.

  “Lex,” he said softly. I couldn’t tell if the abbreviation of my name was meant to be some sort of endearment, or if he was just so loaded he’d become monosyllabic. His mouth crashed down on mine with no preamble, and I realized Jack wasn’t the kind of guy who had to deal with subtle persuasion. Women wanted to kiss him so badly, he could probably lean his head out the window of the cab and lock lips with any girl on Atlantic Avenue.

  I’d like to say I had the strength to resist—that I backed up, pushed him away, told him to stop. But, in my defense, it had been six years. Six years. So I kissed him back. And kissed him some more. The kiss went on and on, until we were both making tiny noises into each other’s mouths. He tasted like liquor and smelled like sweat, and it was so sexy I almost wept with longing. He pressed himself so hard against me I could feel everything. And my knees fell apart, because I wanted everything and more.

  By the time we made it to the steps of Jack’s Beacon Hill row house, his eyes were more focused, and he navigated the stairs without help. I stood behind him, watched as he found the right key to unlock the door.

  “I’d better be getting home,” I said. My lips were raw from his kisses. The cab waited for me on the street.

  Jack turned and came back down the steps, his feet careful, as if his expensive wingtips were full of water. He passed me without a word, went to the cab and reached for his wallet. His hand cupped his own ass for a second, feeling around his empty back pocket, until he turned to me, looking confused.

  I cleared my throat. “Jacket.” I pointed in the general vicinity of his waist. He reached in and slumped with relief. After he paid the cab driver, he came back to me. I was kind of surprised I let him send the cab off without even pretending to protest. But not really.

  “Come in for a minute,” he said, taking my cold hand in his large, warm one.

  “For a minute,” I echoed. The Vestal Virgin.

  Once in his house, we hurried down the front hall, straight to his bedroom. No offer of coffee, no tour of the grounds. He flipped on a lamp, then pulled off his suit jacket, letting it fall in a heap at his feet. Before I’d even taken in the cool gray walls, the ultra-modern bed, the glass-top nightstands, he’d torn off his tie and popped half the buttons down his shirt. Finally, he looked at me, and his arms fell abruptly to his sides. Obviously he was used to women disrobing on cue. My stillness baffled him.

  “Jack…” I said. My voice sounded thin. He moved towards me.

  “May I?” he asked, reaching out to grab the hem of my sweater with his fingertips. I swallowed, which I guess in drunk Jack-speak means “be my guest”, because he pulled the sweater over my head, and of course I raised my arms to help.

  “You should wear this…” he paused to hook his finger under the strap of my black cotton camisole, “…without a bra. So sexy.” He ran his hands up my stomach, cupped my breasts through the thin fabric. “So sexy.”

  And now I was shaking, because Jack Brogan just called me sexy. My hands reached out, splaying across the hard expanse of his chest. I felt his nipples against my palms, felt the curly hair tickle my fingertips. His skin was hot, and I needed his heat against me. I ripped off my camisole and bra while he ripped off his pants, and we came crashing back together, both bare from the waist up. He kissed my lips, my chin, my neck, before bending to take my nipple in his mouth. I gasped in pleasure, then bit my bottom lip, embarrassed.

  “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?” he whispered.

  No, I don’t…please tell me in painstaking detail, I thought.

  “So beautiful,” he repeated, pulling me towards the bed. There was a terrifying instant when it occurred to me that he might be too drunk to do it, but when I felt his hard length grinding against my stomach, I knew such fears were unfounded. Intoxication would not stop Jack Brogan from doing what he was born to do, which was to make love to me.

  The sex was fast and rough. I remembered my chicken club sandwich, abandoned in the cab, and realized I was dizzy with hunger. But I couldn’t stop to eat, much less to breathe. All that mattered was Jack, inside me, filling me, making me come. He bit me like he was trying to consume me—my breasts, my stomach, the insides of my thighs, leaving tiny blue marks that stayed around for days. Tears streamed down my face, because I was weak with exhaustion and unchecked emotion. When it was over he roared with release, convulsing in my arms, until we collapsed, sated, on the wrinkled sheets.

  And a moment later, limbs twisted in a sweaty, salty pretzel, we were asleep.

  I woke up around midnight and realized that Jack had shifted while we slept. He was stretched out flat on his back, his left arm hanging limp over the edge of the mattress. God, he was hammered. I slipped out of bed and tiptoed quietly across the room to retrieve my clothes, but I’m not sure why I bothered—I could have belted out the national anthem on a tuba over his head and Jack wouldn’t have stirred. I got dressed quickly and became the Lexi I hate the most, the sleazy, morning-after detective. I guess technically it wasn’t morning yet, but with the security of Jack’s loud snores egging me on, I snooped like nobody’s business. Nothing was safe. I learned Jack took one Ambien at night, “as needed for sleeplessness”; I learned he probably hadn’t done the dishes in a week, and that he ate bagels with cream cheese for breakfast; I learned his soon-to-be ex-wife had not found it necessary to take her half-empty packet of birth control pills with her when she split with the manny. Hmm, now that was interesting.

  I sat on the couch and tried to turn on the TV in the living room but was immediately stumped by the plethora of remotes and cable boxes. So I wandered across the room and stared out the window instead. I was a model of indecision. I wanted to stay, but I wanted to go home. I wanted to snoop some more, but I hated how it made me feel like a sick voyeur. What finally pushed me to a decision was the thought of Jack’s face when he woke up tomorrow and looked at me, and wondered what the hell I was doing there.

  So I called a cab and went home.

  Chapter Two

  The next morning I dragged myself into the office, my legs so weak and wobbly I felt like one of those marionettes from The Sound of Music. I was two hours late, and the look Dan gave me could have curdled cheese, but I knew he wouldn’t say anything. My sixty-hour work weeks made it possible for him to stay afloat, and he was smart enough to leave me alone when I needed the occasional hour or two.

  “How was Beefaroni?” he muttered from behind his computer screen.

  “What?” I was distracted, my ability to engage in repartee with Dan cut off by the endorphins staging a fiesta in my brain. He sighed, disgusted that I was late and loopy as hell.

  “Nothing. Please call Joseph Trimble over at AFC. He’s emailed me for that damn hedge fund prospectus half a dozen times, and I’m running out of excuses.”

  “’Kay,” I mumbled, stuffing my purse in my desk drawer. While I was leaning down, I noticed a light bruise, the exact shape of Jack’s thumb, on the inside of my arm. I stared at it for a second, mesmerized. He’d held me so tightly, pumped me so savagely…my entire body throbbed with the memory. Not that I had any complaints—

  “Lexi!” I almost jumped out of my skin. “Will you be making that call, or can I expect a full day of slack-jawed drooling from you?” Dan’s voice wasn’t just exasperated—he was pissed. Something was up.

  “Is there a problem?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, is there?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Good. Get to work.”

  “Fine.”

  Screw it—I had too much on my plate to worry about Dan’s mood swings. For the next three hours we worked in tense, hostile silence. At noon, when he
went downstairs to check the fax machine, I took the opportunity to leave for lunch. I called my best friend April, and we met at the Thai place down the street, where I knew we could talk. And boy, did I talk.

  “Did you spend the night?” she asked breathlessly, her Thai noodles forgotten in their huge soup bowl.

  “No. God, no. April, I’m not even sure if his divorce is final. When I went to the bathroom I saw his kid’s bathtub toys in the sink.” I closed my eyes and rubbed my fingertips against my temple. “God, I’m such a whore.”

  “You’re not a whore.”

  “A slut, then.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “A slut doesn’t get paid.”

  “Oh, yeah. But you’re neither,” she added quickly.

  April’s green eyes were clear and earnest. If it weren’t unreasonable and a little creepy, April would start the Lexi Watts fan club. She loved me unconditionally and was either unwilling or unable to see anything I did as negative or wrong. She was the best person I’d ever met, and I couldn’t make it through most days without her.

  “Who goes home with a shit-faced coworker and screws his brains out?” I asked in a semi-hysterical voice.

  April was silent, unable to think of a response that made me look good or noble.

  I took an aggressive bite of my curry chicken and gulped my tea. “In what possible scenario does this end with me not being fired, or at the very least, humiliated?”

  April focused all her concentration on her noodles, and I couldn’t bear her stoic silence any longer.

  “All right, I’m out,” I announced suddenly, like a schizophrenic, throwing down my fork and grabbing my purse.

  “What? Wait, Lexi, where are you going?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t sit still. Here.” I threw a twenty on the table and gave her a quick hug. “I love you. I’ll call you tonight.”

  I left her staring after my backside, and I know it sounds like I’m a horrible bitch of a friend, but I’d spent the entire summer doing the Biggest Loser workout in her living room, listening to why her ex-boyfriend Preston was scared of commitment, so I felt like I had a cushion.