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CALEB’S ININDIA, then Peru, pulling together contracts with support-staff temp firms so that he can prove TSG is ready to expand. I start to lose track of the cities he’s in or the reason he’s gone to any of them. We’ve barely spoken since he left, but every time we do, there’s almost always someone in the background, someone urging him to get off the phone, to get in the car, to go somewhere else. I hate how exhausted he sounds all the time. I also hate feeling like an afterthought.
Work is going well—the walking program was so successful that we’re starting another one, and there’s an upcoming TSG Shark Tank event where employees can pitch ideas that everyone’s excited about. I even get a call from a recruiter.
But when I get home at night with the twins and Caleb’s house looms dark and lonely behind us, I have to ask myself what it will be like when he’s gone for good. How often could we possibly see him after the merger happens? I won’t be able to jaunt off to New York, but if Kate finishes rehab and wants him back...she can.
He returns on a Tuesday, a week and a day after he left. I get little done at work but manage to check the progress of his flight approximately a hundred times over the course of the morning.
He texts when he’s on his way to the office.
CALEB
Almost there. Please have that report ready for me when I arrive.
Where should I leave it?
On my desk.
Thereisno report. I’m grinning like such a fool I’m embarrassed for myself. I walk into his office and shut the door behind me.
“Lock it,” he says. The predatory look in his eyes is all the foreplay I need.
I do as he asks, then lean back against the door. “We need to be quick or Kayleigh’s going to know.”
“Not trying to brag, but I don’t thinkquickwill be a problem,” he replies, stalking toward me.
I meet him in the middle of the room, my hands on the lapels of his jacket. His mouth lands on mine. “I want this too much,” he groans, swallowing as I tug on his belt. “I should—”
I slip a hand inside his waistband.
“Fuck,” he growls. “Get on the floor.”
I drop to my hands and knees. A zipper slides open and then he’s behind me, pushing my skirt up and my thong aside, fingers slipping over me and then inside me. He thrusts in abruptly, without warning, and I bite my lip not to make any noise.
“That’s so good,” he says with a quiet groan.
He reaches around, sliding his hand inside my thong from the front.
The orgasm hits me so fast I can barely warn him. “I’m coming,” I whisper. “Cover my mouth.”
He does it not a moment too soon, because there is no stopping the noises I’m making right now.
“God, that’s hot,” he groans, and his body behind me draws tight and tense as he finishes, muffling his final gasps against my shoulder.
It’s over too quickly. I need more than a few minutes in his office after a week apart. I need to lie on his chest and hear about his week and have him convince me that we’re going tobe okay in that way of his...The way in which he never actually says the words.
“When are we seeing you again?” I ask, fixing my skirt while he zips up his pants.
He doesn’t entirely meet my eye. “I fly out in the morning, and I’ve got a lot of shit to deal with here, but I’ll try to get home before the twins go to bed.”
I kiss him goodbye, guilty and dissatisfied at once. I don’t want to add to his plate. But I also don’t like feeling as if I’m begging for scraps.
I take the twins to the beach that evening with my stomach in knots. A part of me is dying to tell Henry that Caleb’s home simply to watch his face light up, but...I don’t actually believe it’s going to work out. Caleb has the very best of intentions, but of a long list of priorities...we are last.
The twins are already in bed by the time he calls, and I guess I suspected it would work out like this.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Everything ran late and we’re still working. I’m probably going to work through the night and head straight to the airport. I hope Henry wasn’t counting on it.”
“No.”Because I didn’t tell him. Because I didn’t quite count on you myself. “Have a good trip. Don’t forget about next Thursday.”
