AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I shrug. “I wouldn’t want to be in contact with me if I were him. Where Andrew has always had some separation from my father, that’s not the case with me. Until I gave up my fortune, I spent so much time around him it would be impossible to hide talking to Mason. That’d just make everything worse for both of us.”
“That’s terrible,” she says softly. “I wish I had more family. Mine isn’t…”
The bus stops suddenly, and I realize where we are. “Time to get off,” I say and stand up.
As soon as we step off the bus, we stop and look at the scene in front of us. The sunset is hitting the Brooklyn Bridge at the perfect angle, setting it alight with golds and oranges and making it shine like it’s on fire.
“God, it’s beautiful,” Addison says from beside me.
“I bet Angela could enjoy some romance here,” I say as we stand and stare at a view that couldn’t be captured by words or a photograph. It’s one of those moments that pulls at you and makes you question whether there is any art that can compare to the world we live in.
And as beautiful as the bridge is in the setting sun, I turn away from it to look at Addison. They call this time of day the golden hour. It’s when the sun hits everything and makes it glow like it’s made of gold. This afternoon, the bridge that Addison is so taken by doesn’t compare to the woman standing beside me.
“Angela would love this,” she says softly, as though words could ruin the view. She finally breaks away from it and sees me staring at her. “I couldn’t do it justice with words, though.”
Taking her hand, I give her a grin. I expect her to stiffen at least a little, but she doesn’t. Her fingers wrap around mine, entwining themselves in a way that lets me know there is no mistaking that this is more than just two friends holding hands.
“There’s a bench,” I say and walk to the little copse of trees shading two benches. Addison walks beside me, and it’s like all the little things have clicked into place. “Instead of trying to describe what the bridge looks like, explain how it makes you… err, Angela feel.”
She frowns as we sit down next to each other leaving no space between us. “I don’t know.”
“Fine. Tell me how it makes you feel. Tell me all the emotions that it pulls at. What does it remind you of? Just tell me like you were trying to describe the experience to a friend.”
She chews her lip and looks back at the bridge. “It makes me feel hopeful. Like the old metal that’s normally so dull could be so alive.” I nod to her, pushing her to continue. “Maybe it doesn’t matter what has happened in the past, and there are times that even a bridge that’s seen a hundred and fifty years of hardship can shine brighter than the day it was made.”
I smile at her and say, “And maybe a person that’s seen twenty-two years of hardship can be just as alive as the day she was made?”
She turns her body toward me, and when her leg presses against mine, she doesn’t pull away. “Or a man that’s seen thirty… Wait, how old are you?”
I chuckle at how easily her mind is sidetracked, but inside, my body is warming to her touch. “Thirty-two. Only a decade older than you.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Thirty-two years old, and you just learned how to make coffee today. I think we need to write that on a calendar and celebrate it like some kind of anniversary.”
“I don’t think I could forget today,” I say, and my body shivers just a little. She’s so close. The calculating, business-minded side of me screams to push away from her, to put distance between us. I’ve lived in that mind for my entire life. Until a week ago, I wouldn’t have had a second thought about that decision.
But then I met a beautiful woman who made me feel things that the calculating side didn’t understand.
She made me want things that didn’t make sense. Why would I risk the perfect situation for my experiment? Why would I make life harder at work than it already is by having a romantic relationship with an employee? Like she’s already said, in three weeks, I’ll be going back to being her boss.
Yet, none of that matters to me right now. Only the way her hair smells like lilacs with a hint of vanilla. The way her lips are parted just slightly, begging me to crane my neck down and kiss them. The need to feel her skin.
“I guess that’s true. You took your first bus today.” I grin at her and move just a little closer. Her words grow quieter and trail off as she recognizes the movement. “You definitely won’t be able to forget that…” she whispers.
“I don’t think that’s what I’ll remember about today,” I whisper back. My body feels like it’s reverberating with every heartbeat. And when I bring my hand up to touch her cheek, she leans into it.
“I’m glad you’re not my boss,” she whispers.
Me too. But instead of saying anything, I lean down and press my lips to hers. My fingers tighten, and the tips dig into the hair at her temple. Her body feels like it melts, but her hand finds my shoulder, and her nails dig in.
It’s like something inside me breaks and is remade in that moment. Like my very perception of the world is shifted just a touch.
Addison’s eyes had been green a moment before, but now I’m seeing them in exquisite detail. Browns and golds and whites in a sea of green. A sea that I could get lost in.
“Phillip,” she gasps as I move to kiss her neck where her jaw ends, leaning her head back. Her hand moves up the back of my neck to run through my hair, grasping it and pulling me tighter.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you since that night at the motel,” I whisper in her ear.
“I wanted more than that.”
