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“It’s one of my many talents.” He shrugged jovially.
“I’m not sure I would be proud of that,” she muttered.
Keaton liked August. Always had. She was plucky and hardworking and she had a big heart. But the two-year age difference between them had felt like a chasm when he was a teenager. Back then he’d seen her as a kid—freckle-faced, with a halo of frizzy red hair, braces and a penchant for boy bands. It wasn’t until he came home for the holidays during college one year and he’d seen her standing by the tree—hair like ruby silk ribbons and her short, curvy body poured into a little black dress—that he’d done a double take so hard he’d almost given himself whiplash.
After that he couldn’t get her out of his head. So he’d decided to do something about it the year he graduated. That night had changed his world. He’d almost kissed August on the doorstep of his family home, only to be rebuffed, and then Leah had brought home another friend from school.
Ellery.
His heart clenched hard in his chest every time he thought about his wife. Their marriage had been so brief, but he’d loved her with a wholeness he hadn’t even known possible. Yet by the following Christmas his whole life had fallen apart, and he’d gone from being a man with the world at his feet to a lost soul with a storm cloud where his heart used to be.
Why did you have to die?
Keaton shoved the question to one side. As much as he liked August as a person, every time he saw her it was like being reminded of all he’d lost. He couldn’t disentangle her from that memory, no matter how hard he tried.
So, he kept his distance. Winding her up was an easy shield. And making her think he was simply a teasing jerk who got his kicks making her blush was the best way to make sure neither one of them ever had the thought to revisit that night. Because she was stubborn like that—the harder he teased, the more she pretended to hate him.
Really, the dance was as much for her benefit as it was for his. August deserved someone who matched her positivity and zest for life. Someone who would give her everything instead of holding her at a distance like he would. Had he thought about them being together? Hell yeah. There was something about her slightly uptight, stubborn-as-a-bull attitude toward him that got him hot under the collar. Not to mention that he was a sucker for a woman with a sharp tongue. Yes, please.
But any time he thought about his attraction to August, his mind became a symphony of warning sirens. Love, he’d discovered, was not for the faint of heart.
And Keaton’s had been permanently put into retirement.
“You’d do well to act like a teenager again, Augie,” he said, using the nickname from when they were kids. He could practically see her back teeth grinding together. “Live a little! You work too hard.”
“Not all of us get to wine and dine clients for a living,” she replied.
If only. Keaton had spent so many hours at his desk the past week, he was starting to wonder if he was giving himself a vitamin D deficiency. But that was his little secret. Let people think he was some high-flying party boy who drank Dom like it was water.
“But you like that because entertaining clients makes it easy to look like you have a life, doesn’t it?” She cocked her head, suddenly serious as if she’d seen past his bright, reflective disguise for a moment. He hated it when she did that. “You’re not fooling me.”
Keaton the Wall Street Whiz Kid. Keaton the Baller. Keaton the I-Don’t-Care-What-It-Costs-Make-It-Happen Wheeler and Dealer.
It was all a persona. A way for him to protect the broken and bruised young man who lived inside him, hiding in a fort made of memories and grief.
Keaton the Widower. That’s who he really was.
“You think I don’t have a life?” he scoffed. “Please. One of the firm’s clients is taking me to his private island in September.”
“A work trip.” She raised an eyebrow.
“A work trip with a private jet, a 24-7 private chef and a villa all to myself.”
Truth be told, Keaton was dreading the trip. The client was a pompous asshole who’d recently tried to screw the firm out of part of their commission, and his wife often got drunk and made a pass at him. But August’s comment about him not having a life had struck a little too close to home.
“Still a work trip,” she said smugly. “When was the last time you had arealvacation, huh? Like time off where you weren’t attached to your laptop.”
“When was the last timeyouhad a vacation, huh?” he fired back. “You’re just as bad.”
“Yeah, but I don’t pretend not to be a workaholic, unlike you.”
The conversation was interrupted when Molly entered the kitchen, her ice-blue eyes narrowed in Keaton’s direction. She walked over to her food bowl and looked at it pointedly. When neither August nor Keaton immediately moved to fill it, she stamped her paws.
“Someone’s hungry,” August said in a sweet voice. Molly came over, tail wagging, and she pressed her head into August’s hand. “Good girl.”
“Good girl?” Keaton made a scoffing sound. “That dog is good so long as you do everything she wants the second she wants it. She’s a spoiled brat.”
“Now, why is Keaton such a meanie face?” August cooed, ruffling Molly’s fur. “Sit.”
