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It was standard Penny. Easy, breezy, revealing nothing of her true feelings.
She hated it and considered deleting the whole thing.
One step forward, twelve back.
She swallowed her pride, drop-kicked the part of her that knew this was wrong, and hit send.
Because she missed him so bad it hurt.
That pain only continued to grow when she saw her message had not only been delivered but read.
No reply came that night, and there still wasn’t one the next morning.
“Okay,” she said to herself. “So…no more of that.” She stared at her reflection in the mirror, looked long and hard. She pointed a very stern finger at herself. “You’re allowed one backslide and that was it.”
Glancing down, she spotted Forrest at his usual spot, his head cocked to the right, staring at the side of the bathtub as if it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. She laughed despite the heaviness that hadn’t left her since Gage left the apartment.
“Well, at least I still have you,” she said to the silly cat.
Then she turned back to the mirror, Gage’s words from their first night together coming back to her.
And she saw it.
No, she didn’t just see it. Shefeltit.
She liked the person who was looking back at her. Yeah, she was a bit quirky, and damned if she couldn’t see yet another fricking zit fighting its way to the surface on her forehead, and it probably wasn’t normal to talk to cats as much as she did.
But who cared? All of that was part of who she was.
She smiled, determined to shrug off the last of her melancholy.
Today was the day she introduced the world to the real Penny Beaumont.
* * *
Gage pushed his keyboard away with a little more force than was necessary. Then he picked up his cellphone and re-read the text Penny had sent. He’d spent the better part of last night tossing and turning in his bed, telling himself to leave it alone, not to respond. What the fuck could he say to her anyway?
He’d consistently made a complete mess of things ever since making that second wager.
No. He’d been screwing up since the night he took her virginity.
Because sleeping with her had never been about lessons. He’d had sex with her because he wanted her so badly. Because he…
“Fuck,” he spat out, slamming his fist on his desk.
“I see your mood is improving.”
Gage glanced up, scowling. “Why don’t you ever fucking knock?”
Matt shrugged as he and Conor walked in. “It’s my company. I don’t have to.”
“It’sourcompany,” Gage said, playing his brother’s stupid game.
Matt had accused him once, many years earlier, of not caring about Russo Enterprises. Of course, at the time, his brother had been right. Gage had been in a spiral for a couple of years after their parents’ deaths, drinking, sleeping with countless women, always late to work, and when he was there, doing little of value.
He and Matt had gotten into the mother of all arguments one afternoon when Matt told him it was time for him to grow up and assume responsibility for their legacy, fortheircompany. Gage, hungover and contrary as hell, had told Matt he could takehisfucking company and shove it uphisass.
Time heals all wounds, and eventually Gage found his way out of the bottle. He’d started to apply himself to his job, tapping into his love for computers and technology, acquiring smaller companies and tech upstarts, adding those profitable ventures to Russo’s already expansive enterprises.
