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I glanced down at my stained coveralls. “No. I’m good. I appreciate it.”
He nodded at the doorman as we exited onto the sidewalk. A black car was waiting at the curb.
“When it comes to your roommate, you might as well stop fighting it now. You’ll save yourself a lot of trouble down the road.”
“Fighting what?” I played dumb, and judging by his smirk, he saw right through it.
“Have it your way. But I promise, one way or the other, you’ll end up with her.”
“I can’t imagine why you’d think that.”
“Because I’ve been in your shoes. Doesn’t matter how much you deny that you need her. The truth is the truth. And it always comes to light.”
He slid into the back of the car, and I stared after it as the vehicle moved into traffic.
Denial.
I wasn’t denying anything. I knew exactly what Baker did to me. The problem was I didn’t know how to keep her.
She’d leave just like everyone else did.
“We drifted apart, Holt. You were always working.”
I’d asked myself a million times if that were true. If the problems had been my fault. I didn’t think so, but I wasn’t totally sure.
Regardless of who was to blame, I‘d been hurt, and I couldn’t take it if Baker left me too. I’d planned to keep it casual, but that was shot to hell somewhere between the time I’d met her and when we’d agreed to be roommates.
“Fuck.”
This morning . . . what man wouldn’t want a send-off like that every day of his life? She was doing a lot more than spoiling me. Baker gave me hope for things that weren’t possible. Not for me.
“There’ssomebody here to see you.” Ed jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the office as soon as I stepped inside the bay.
“You recognize them?”
“A woman. That’s all I know.”
Baker? Nah. There was no way she beat me here.
Marlow? Maybe my sister wasn’t as stubborn as I thought. I smiled at the thought of her coming to apologize. If she had, I’d let yesterday go. Give her an apology of my own.
The door squeaked when I moved from the garage to the waiting area. I froze in the doorway when she pivoted.
“Hello, son.”
Chapter Fourteen
Baker
“What’s this about a makeup line?”
I sat up straight at the architectural desk, layouts spread before me. Hayden leaned over my shoulder and pointed to one.
“That’s quite good, don’t you think?”
I turned to her and grinned. “It’s my favorite.”
My boss returned the smile. She was an icon in the publishing industry. She’d started the magazine while she was in college and built it from zero subscribers to the millions we had today. Hayden was tough, but she had respect for people I admired.
