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So why did he feel so … used?
Hadn’t he been guilty of the very same thing? This was New York. A little casual sex was as routine as takeout.
But this hadn’t just been sex.
It had been hot sex. Really hot sex.
So what? In two weeks you’ll be in a foreign country and Grace Brighton will be happily living the single life.
“Okay, so you know what her favorite flower is, but you’re not sleeping with her,” Cole said.
“Correct.”
“Cassidy told me that he’s rolling you off the project at the end of the month.”
“Yup. Did Cassidy also tell you to come in here and bug the shit out of me, or was that your own bright idea? Don’t you have a locker room to be stalking or a jock strap to be investigating?”
Cole set the baseball down in a completely different spot from where he’d found it and commenced playing with the pen Jake’s dad had gotten him for college graduation. Jake gave up trying to return to his work and snatched the pen out of Cole’s hands.
“So after this month, you’re done with Grace?” Cole asked.
No.
Shit. Where had that thought come from? Shit.
“Isn’t that what I just said?” Jake snapped.
“Excellent.”
“You’re telling me,” Jake said, with enthusiasm he didn’t feel.
“So you won’t mind if I ask her out, then?”
The pen in Jake’s hand suddenly felt a lot less like a nostalgic writing utensil and a lot more like a potential weapon. “You want to date Grace?”
Cole lifted a shoulder. “I liked what I saw when she came up here that day. She’s classy, you know?”
He did know. She was also his.
“She’s not your type,” Jake snapped.
“Maybe not,” Cole said affably. “But isn’t that what dating’s for? To figure it out?”
Damn it. Damn it all to hell. There was absolutely no reasonable explanation he could give for why Cole couldn’t ask her out. All he could do was wait for Grace to turn Cole down.
And surely Grace would turn him down. She had that whole sixth-month plan.
But after the six-month plan? Then what? Cole was good-looking. Richer than sin. And he seemed like the type that wanted babies and a Kitchen-Aid mixer and a tennis club membership someday. Cole wasn’t likely to up and go to Beijing or Reykjavik because he had an itch.
Jake liked Grace. And because he liked her, he wanted her to be happy. Once she was over this whole girl-power single-life phase, she’d want someone who knew how to be a good boyfriend.
She deserved someone who knew a routine beyond love-’em-and-leave-’em.
You could stay.
No. Hell. He couldn’t stay. He didn’t want to be a nobody journalist doing the same thing until he was fifty. He wanted to branch out. Go places.
He wanted fulfillment.
