suggested she couldn’t handle pressure, and that was not a message Abby wanted to send.
Ellie visibly squeezed his hand. “That’s not really how you run the office, is it?”
“No,” Derrick said.
Abby shrugged. “Sort of.”
For a few seconds, no one spoke. They all looked at each other, back and forth, as the tension rose. Abby wasn’t clear on what was happening. Maybe some sort of unspoken chat between Ellie and Derrick. But Abby did know that the cool room suddenly felt suffocating. Even the cream-colored duvet cover with the tiny blue roses—an addition she would bet money moved in with Ellie—didn’t ease the mood.
“Everything okay in here?” Spence’s firm voice boomed into the silence.
He hovered right behind her. Abby could almost feel the heat pulse off his body. When he exhaled, his warm breath blew across the back of her neck.
Time to go. That phrase repeated in her head until it took hold.
“Spence.” Ellie smiled. “Look, it’s Spence.”
“I do live here. Temporarily, but still.”
In the bedroom down the hall. Abby knew because she’d walked by it a few days ago and glanced in. Saw a bag and hoped it meant nothing. Then she recognized Spence’s tie from the day before flung over the unmade bed.
“For now.” Abby meant to think and not say it, but she managed to mumble it.
Of course Spence heard and placed a hand on her lower back. “Meaning?”
The touch, perfectly respectable and so small, hit her like a live wire. Energy arced through her. She had to fight the urge to lean into him. To balance her body against his. “I’m sure you’ll be on your way again soon.”
Spence’s exhale was louder, more dramatic this time. “That’s not—”
Derrick stood up. “As fun as it is to see you two work things out by lobbing verbal volleys at each other, Ellie does need her rest.”
“I’m having fun.” Ellie caught Derrick’s hand.
Abby silently thanked Derrick for giving her the easy out. Once she maneuvered her way through the three-story brick mansion, she’d be gone.
She put the box of brownies on the bed and pointed to them. “I just wanted to drop them off. Don’t eat them all at once.”
“You’re very sweet.” Ellie went to work on the tape holding the sides of the box down. “I make no promises about how fast they’ll be gone.” She shot Derrick and Spence a serious look. “So we’re clear, I’m not sharing.”
“No one would dare defy that order.” Abby could not escape fast enough. “I’ll text you later.”
She pivoted around Spence and practically raced down the hall. Moved as fast as her stupid spiky heels would let her without wiping out in an inglorious sprawl. The humming in her head blocked out all sounds. She didn’t realize she’d been followed until she reached the bottom of the intricately carved wooden staircase and heard footsteps behind her.
She turned around just as she left the steps. Spence was there. Of course he was.
With his palm flattened against the wall and his other on the banister, he stopped. She couldn’t help but stare. His body was an amazing mystery to her. A package she ached to unwrap. How long were his arms, anyway?
His expression stayed blank as his gaze searched her face. “What are you doing here?”
“Visiting Ellie.” Not a lie. She’d brought a treat and everything.
Spence finished coming down the stairs. Slipped his body by hers until they stood side by side. “How do you even know her?”
He still towered over her. She stood a good five-eight and with the heels could talk to anyone without feeling as if someone was trying to intimidate her. But Spence still towered, though he did stand a few steps back, giving her space.
“I do work at the company,” she pointed out, not knowing what else to say.
“A lot of people work there. None of them show up at the boss’s house.” Spence folded his arms across his middle and stared her down. “What’s really going on?”
He had to be kidding with this. “Do you think I’m stalking you?”
“Are you?”
She was doing the exact opposite, whatever that was called. Hiding from him? Sort of. Trying to find breathing room to center her control and ease the disappointment that clawed at her every time she thought about him and what could have been. “Lately, when I come over I text first to make sure you’re gone. Happy?”
His arms slid down until they hung at his sides again. “Isn’t that a bit extreme?”
“No.” It was self-preservation.
She refused to get snared in another Jameson trap. She trusted Derrick. He’d delivered on every promise he’d made to her back then, when he begged her to stay with the company after...Spence.
“Sooner or later, we’re going to need to talk to each other,” Spence said.
“I disagree.” Not her most mature answer ever but probably the most honest one.
“Abby, come on.”
The tone of his voice suggested he was done playing games. Well, that made two of them. “It’s fascinating that you ran off without saying a word months ago, but now you want some big chatty moment with me. I guess us talking is fine so long as it’s convenient to you.”
“We’re adults.”
Lecturing. Great. Just what she wanted from him. “One of us is.”
With that, she turned and walked out. She’d reached her maximum load on Jameson testosterone for one day. She needed her shoes off and her feet up. Some wine. No Spence.
A Spence-free zone. The idea made her smile as she walked down the hall then closed the front door behind her.
* * *
“She’s not wrong,” Derrick said as he slowly walked down the stairs.
“You want to clue me in here?” Because Spence felt deflated and empty. The gnawing sensation refused to leave him. He’d blown out of the office all those months ago. Traveled around. Helped out on random building sites across the east. Lived a life so different from the spectacle he’d grown up in. All that competition. How his father pitted the three of them against each other. How Derrick always tried to protect them from Dad’s wrath, especially Carter, the youngest.
They lost their mom to cancer. Their father didn’t even have the decency to let her live out her life in peace. No, he moved her to a facility then marched in there one day and demanded a divorce so he could marry his mistress. He thought she was pregnant but she wasn’t, so he quickly dumped the mistress,
