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“I got married late because someone had to look after you and keep you out of trouble,” Rachel said with a grin.
I laughed. “You failed. I still got in trouble.”
Rachel grinned at me.
“Okay, put on a movie,” Rachel ordered when the kids were just about done with their cookies. They jumped up and ran to the living room.
“Our coffee’s gone cold,” Rachel said, returning to the machine where the two cups stood cold and sad.
“I don’t mind,” I said. “I love cold coffee.”
“It’s because it’s all you get.” Rachel laughed. “I always forget about the stupid coffee.”
“It’s fine,” I said, and we took our cups, clinking them together as if they were wineglasses.
“How are you feeling?” I asked my sister now that the kids were gone.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Lately, I just feel… exhausted. And it’s not the kids and making it all happen. It’s more than that.”
“You should go see a doctor,” I said.
“Yeah, you keep saying that.”
“You don’t listen.”
“I’ll be okay,” Rachel said, but I worried about her. Something was wrong, but she wouldn’t go to the doctor to find out what.
What if it’s what Mom had?I wanted to ask Rachel that. My mom died when I was just a kid. She’d refused to go to the doctor, and it had been a pulmonary embolism that had ended up killing her.
I didn’t say it out loud. It felt like saying it out loud would jinx Rachel.
“Just get it checked out, okay?” I said. “I can’t lose another mother.”
“You’re not going to lose me,” Rachel said, determined. “The kids need me, too. I’m all they have.”
I shook my head, trying to get rid of the sense of doom that had risen around us. It would probably be fine—I was just paranoid about it because Mom died. Still, I wanted my sister to look after herself.
“When are you seeing him again?” Rachel asked, forcing the attention back to me.
“This week, I guess. I’ll have to see him a few times.”
“Sounds like fun,” Rachel said and winked.
My mind drifted to Troy despite myself. I’d told Hailey beating Troy was what it was about and it wasn’t a big deal that we saw each other again—what were the odds that it was him and me, pitted against each other—and our night together wouldn’t matter, but that wasn’t true.
When I’d seen him again in the office, my heart had hammered against my chest, and the memories of our night together had flooded back.
God, he was so fucking good in bed, and even afterward, when I’d been satisfied, seeing him had made me weak in the knees all over again.
He was my enemy right now; we weren’t working together on the project, so we could both benefit from it, but that didn’t change the fact that he was hot as hell. I’d wanted to jump his bones again, even though he’d been snappy and grumpy.
Hell, that had only made him hotter.
Don’t even go there. The last thing I needed was to get involved with the one guy that could take it all away from me if I wasn’t careful. I wasn’t going to be cliché and sleep with the enemy.
The fact that Troy and I had ended up on either side of the line was a coincidence, and the fact that I was wildly attracted to him shouldn’t matter.
I wouldn’t let it. I was more professional than that.
