Page 53 of All for Love

MERCEDES

The last week at the office had been hell. It was December first, and Kody had been avoiding me like the plague since we’d had that little talk of ours a few days ago. Which worked just fine for me, but it still wasn’t easy being in such close proximity when all I wanted was to forget him.

Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. At least he was sparing me the pain of having to look at him or have an actual conversation, but getting through each day was still a nightmare.

Just walking through a room where he’d recently been and smelling his cologne was enough to make my knees weak, and the guy really got around in this building. It felt like his scent, his presence, clung to every room I walked into, and that made it impossible to simply pretend that he didn’t even exist.

Frankly, I hated how much power he had over me. All we’d done was sleep together a few times. When I’d set that boundary that our sexual relationship was a thing of the past, I’d thought it would be easy to walk away.

From him. From my feelings for him. From wanting him every time I knew he was around. What with him being my stepbrother and all, I’d really thought I might just be able to put everything behind me and to eradicate all memories of having seen him naked.

It turned out to be anything but easy. For me, anyway. Kody seemed to be taking it in his stride. It didn’t look like he was having a hard time with it at all, which made me hate all that power he had over me even more.

At the same time, it’d also proven that Brooke had been at least partially right about him. I hadn’t meant anything to him and he was moving on seamlessly, which meant that the risks we’d been taking definitely had not been worth it.

A few rolls in the hay were not worth my mother’s heart—or my own—getting broken. For just a little while there, especially after he’d comforted me in the bathroom and then saved me from Ben, I’d really thought that maybe, there was more to it than just the thrill of the forbidden.

Looking at him now, though, I realized I couldn’t have been more wrong. He was standing at some temp’s desk with that flirtatious smile on his face, and I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I had no doubt she would be going home with him at some point.

The thought of it made bile push up the back of my throat and a searing pain shoot through my being. I knew I shouldn’t be feeling this way, but I was. I was hurting over the fact that we were over even when I didn’t want to be, and there he was, just zooming on with his life and not giving a damn about what he’d left in his wake.

Thankfully, I was now working on digital organization and that allowed me to stay in my office for the vast majority of my days. Unfortunately, the temp he was talking to sat within my line of sight from my desk.

I let out a heavy sigh, purposely moving my laptop over a few inches so I could eliminate that part of my view. All around me, a professional decorating team were working on turning the office into a magical winter wonderland, and that wasn’t helping my mood at all.

A massive Christmas tree had been set up in the middle of the bull pen, which I could also see from my desk, and the other employees were really getting into the festive spirit. The usual soft, classical music had been replaced with a Christmasy playlist and everyone else was laughing, taking ornaments from the professional team and hanging them while the décor people focused on other things.

Hanging strings of sparkly snowflakes from the ceiling and wrapping tinsel around the banisters. All of which only made me feel more alone and like I was drowning in the sadness rising up from within.

As I sighed, lifting my head to run my hands through my hair and get a damn grip, my heart about stopped when I saw Kody approaching my little corner of his world. He looked so incredibly handsome in a tailored, charcoal three-piece suit with a light blue shirt underneath and a darker blue tie.

All that blue brought out the color of his eyes, making them look radiant and deep while the charcoal of his suit made his blond hair look like gold. It also didn’t help that the suit fit him like a glove, showing off his trim, tall figure and the bulges and stretches in all the right places.

My heart started again with a heavy thud as I looked into those eyes when he came to stand in front of my desk. “Do you want to come join us at the tree?”

“Does this mean you’re talking to me again?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” he half-joked, half-not. “It’s officially the Christmas season. Don’t start it off on the wrong foot. Do you want to join us or not?”

“I do.” I held on to his gaze for another long moment before I rolled my chair back and followed him to the tree.

Once I was there, Kaden gave me a friendlier grin than I’d seen from him in a couple of weeks. “Hey, Mercedes. Glad you’re joining us. Decorating the tree together is a little tradition we’ve got here at Wagner. It helps for morale, you know?”

“I can imagine,” I said, my voice smaller than I’d have liked. I cleared my throat and tried again, but it hadn’t made much of a difference. “It’s great that you guys do stuff like this. A lot of bosses in companies like yours would let the employees do it but they’d never do it with them.”

Kaden laughed while Kody walked away to go join a group of people standing on the other side of the tree. I did my best not to watch him go, turning fully to face his twin and realizing how much harder it was now that there were freaking two of them.

Identical in every way except for demeanor and attitude, it was difficult to remind myself that it was the other brother I was looking at. At least it became easier when he spoke again. “Yeah, we like being here for it. Christmas is a wonderful time of year, and we want people here to feel like one big family. Can’t do that if we’re not here for the holidays.”

I smiled. “That’s fair. Do you and Brooke have any special plans?”

He shook his head. “Nothing specific, but I am thinking of taking her somewhere for a few days. Get away from it all. It might be fun.”

“It definitely will be.”

For a few days after our last encounter, I couldn’t say I hadn’t had any hard feelings about what she’d said. I’d had hard feelings, alright. A lot of them.

It was getting better now, though. I’d realized that her intentions had been pure. She’d wanted to warn me, and she’d had good reason. The more distance I got from the me-and-Kody situation, the more I realized that it’d been a spectacularly bad idea to believe there was anything there.