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Chapter One
Corinne
It’s my third time today checking the inbox on this godforsaken online dating site. Just like the last two times, there are a handful of messages from men who want to chat with me, men whose profile pictures are just ridiculous attempts at showing off their muscular biceps or trying to look attractive and fun. A quick peek at their heavily-worded profiles confirms what I already know.
They say an awful lot in those description boxes without really saying anything at all.
Not to mention, every one of the four men who’ve messaged me since I checked my inbox four hours ago has their profiles set to depict three little words that make me cringe.
Looking for fun. Not a relationship, not commitment. The words long-term don’t even exist when it comes to these profiles, I swear.
I breathe out a defeated sigh and close the browser on my phone. To hell with it. I’m not even sure what I was thinking by letting my sister, Alice, talk me into putting up a profile on LookingForLove.com. I mean, with a website name like that, you would think the people on it would be looking for just that—love.
But no. All the men I’ve met through this site, and all the profiles I’ve browsed through of men who supposedly match well with me based on the information I submitted when I signed up, are all looking for anything but love.
It should be called LookingForFun.com. Or LookingForSomethingCasual.com. Or even LookingForSex.com. Because that would be a hell of a lot more accurate based on the bullshit conversations and dates I’ve had since joining the site three months ago.
I should just tell Alice where to stick her online dating idea. I’d get a little bit of satisfaction in doing that, at least, seeing as she’s the one who’s happily married to Kent—a man she didn’t meet online, by the way. Happily married people always want their siblings and friends to be just as happy and content as they supposedly are in their white-picket-fence marriages with two-point-five children.
But following my breakup with Jackson two years ago after finding him in bed with my best friend, I would have to say that, at this point, I’m starting to believe that all that puppy-love bullshit is just not in the cards for me.
I’m twenty-six, and I spent seven years with Jackson Marsh, which means basically the entirety of my adult years have included him. I was stupid enough to believe that my high school sweetheart was the one, the man I would marry and be happy and content with, just like Alice and Kent’s sickeningly sweet life.
I was wrong. And now, two years after that shitshow, I’m still here, still standing, and still bitter over the entire fucking thing.
I’m also still single, which brings me back to exactly why I’ve got a profile on LookingForLove.com and I’m spending my lunch break at work sifting through profiles of men I’ve got no desire to see for another second on my phone screen, let alone meet in person.
The phone rings at my desk, startling me. My cell falls onto the desk with a loud bang, earning me a few side glances as I fumble around trying to answer the desk phone while making sure I didn’t just break my damn cellphone screen for the umpteenth time.
“Barrett Law Offices, Corinne speaking.” I roll my eyes at my own stupidity, realizing I’m still on lunch and could have let the call go to voicemail. I didn’t even look at the call display screen.
“Hottie at four o’clock!” A familiar voice hisses into my ear, and immediately the corners of my mouth are turning up at Jenn’s theatrics.
Jenn Delton is only a year older than I am, but she’s been a legal assistant here at Barrett for seven years compared to my meager two. She knows her shit, and she’s a damn good assistant to the lawyers we work for. She’s also the closest thing I have to a friend, and she’s been more than willing to take me under her wing and teach me how to survive in what could potentially be a petty work environment that could break me if I let it.
Putting five women into a closed space and expecting something other than cattiness to erupt is almost laughable, especially when those five women do essentially the same job for the lawyers in the office and are spurred on by the hefty bonuses that are thrown around at Christmas time.
But thankfully, I have Jenn on my side. I try not to pay too much attention to my other coworkers and just do my job, but she’s always keeping me in the loop as to when Shawna’s in a foul mood, when Vickie has had another row with her drug-dealing teenage son, or when Jane has d
ecided to put herself on some new fad diet that leaves her ornery and hungry as a bear.
She’s obviously also keeping me in the loop as to the level of attractiveness of the men who walk through the office door.
As nonchalantly as possible, I spin my chair around, the phone still pressed to my ear as I lean forward and pretend to look for something in one of the file cabinets beside me. I scan the room until my hazel-eyed gaze lands on the man Jenn has got to be referring to.
“Holy shit,” I whisper into the phone, barely moving my lips as I take in the tall, athletic man who’s shaking hands with Arnold Barrett, the lawyer I happen to be the assistant to.
“Right?” Jenn squeaks in my ear. “I swear, Cori, if that luscious piece of man is working with us in here every day, I’m damn well going to have a heart attack from the palpitations he’s causing me.”
I chuckle quietly into the phone, covering my mouth to stifle it before it breaks out into even bigger laughter. I can’t let myself shift my gaze across the room to Jenn’s desk or else that’s exactly what will happen, because I know too damn well that she’s probably got that dreamy look on her flawless face, and if she sees me glancing at her she’ll do something to provoke my laughter, like licking her lips exaggeratingly or pretending to growl like a lioness in heat.
“Shut up, Jenn. You’re going to get us both in trouble.” But I know she can hear the amusement in my voice. I also know she’s watching me like a hawk, just waiting for the moment I turn around and she can do something silly to make me burst out laughing.
She knows, as well as everyone else here, that I only seem to have one volume level when I wholeheartedly laugh, and it’s loud. There is no muted version, no calmer octave I could choose.
I’m a loud laugher, so sue me.
But it’s not exactly a trait that’s easy to live with when you work a nine-to-five job in a serious environment like a law office.
“What I wouldn’t give to get into some trouble with him,” Jenn croons in my ear.
She’s right, though. The man is sexy as hell, there’s no denying it. He’s got to be over six feet tall, and the broad shoulders he boasts are clad in a designer suit, black with faint gray pinstripes, that fits him perfectly. I can’t hear what he’s saying as he talks with Mr. Barrett, but damn, the strong, chiseled jaw and the obvious thick muscles of his neck are the epitome of masculinity. Paired with the darkness of his hair and the pale color of his eyes—blue?—I can’t bring myself to look away.
A moment later, I wish that’s exactly what I had done. The sexy man in the suit that is making every woman in this office swoon with his presence turns his gaze quickly enough that I don’t have time to look away and pretend to be doing something else. The moment his eyes meet mine—pale, icy blue; definitely blue—a faint gasp emits from my throat and all the blood rushes from my face.
“What?” Jenn whispers into the phone. I knew it; she’s watching my every move. “Oh, he’s looking at you, Cori...damn girl!”
Any other time I’d have burst out laughing right then and there at Jenn’s antics. But I don’t find the truth of her words funny anymore. In fact, there is nothing funny or exciting about this at all.
I ignore Jenn’s frantic pleas for information in my ear, my gaze locked with the sexy man’s piercing stare before me.
He recognizes me, too. And judging by the way his expression faltered only a moment ago to reveal the surprise in his eyes, I’d say he’s just as convinced that it’s not going to be a happy reunion, either.
***
“You hung up on me!”
I’ve been listening to Jenn whine almost constantly since I told her I had to go and laid my phone back down on the base without saying goodbye. I didn’t know what to say to her, what to say to anybody. Hell, I just needed some time to process the fact that he was standing there in front of me, looking clean-cut and sexy, making everyone—including myself, as much as I hate to admit it—all hot and bothered, bringing up the past I’d just as soon leave behind.
But there he was. Brody is invading my life, my workplace, the job I love...and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. At least, nothing I’ve come up with yet.
“Sorry,” I say absently, holding out the small bag of pretzels in my hand to offer her some as a way of apology. “I couldn’t concentrate. I still can’t.”
“Who the hell is this guy?” Jenn leans in over the small round table in the break room, digging into the pretzels. “He must really be someone to have you all tied up in knots. You kept your head down for the past two and a half hours without so much as a glance upward. You didn’t even check your phone.”
