Page 3 of Wright Together

“Never mind,” I said to him with a shake of my head. “This will do.”

Jordan laughed. “I thought you might say that.” He extended his hand toward Eve. “Welcome, Eve. It’s good to have you on board.”

She breathed a sigh of relief and put her hand in his. “Thanks, Jordan. I’m glad to be here.”

“Whitton was just saying how excited he was to have a partner for this new project.”

“Was he?” Eve said. She took a step into my office and held her hand out. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

Only Eve would call my bluff like that. The girl was as fearless as she was brash. For people she didn’t like, she could come off as abrasive. For her friends, she was as straightforward and loyal as they came.

“We didn’t know you had car trouble.”

I took her hand in mine, felt the calluses across her palm from weight lifting. A spark flared to life, and she extracted her hand quickly, as if worried she’d get burned.

“I had to take an Uber.” She turned to Jordan. “Thank you for this opportunity.”

“You earned it. You both did,” Jordan said with a smirk in my direction. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Then Jordan strode out of my office, leaving me alone with the girl I’d just envisioned having in this space. I’d been all indignant and prepared to trash whoever showed up late to our first meeting. Jordan had known it, too. He’d known all of it. And now, she was here, and there was nothing to do but gesture for her to take a seat.

“Why don’t we get started?”

Eve’s expression was neutral, but I could still see the defiance in her irises. She wouldn’t be quelled by the fact that she had to work with me.

She took the seat.

Good girl.

Maybe having a partner wouldn’t be so bad after all.

2

Eve

Well, fuck.

Whitt was supposed to be gone all summer. I hadn’t seen him in our mutual friend group since he’d left for Seattle, and I refused to show any signs that I was shaken by his appearance.

I couldn’t be shaken byanything.Because unlike Mr. Wright, Ineededthis job. I needed it more than life itself. This was it. This was my break. After barely treading water, holding my head up as I inhaled the murky water of poverty, I was going to get ahead of this.

So, I couldn’t leave.

Not even with Whitton Wright standing in front of me. My pulse beat a tattoo against my throat just at the sight of him. His voice was the same that it had always been—deep and throaty. Every single word causing my neurons to snap. And it was more than just his voice. It was the scent of him wrapping around me. A mix of citrus and spice that aroused ideas of him stepping straight out of a shower. It was his strong, freshly shaven jawline and too-blue eyes. The lines of his body so sharp that it might as well have been a Renaissance sculpture. His large hands curling around the edge of the desk. His typically short, dark hair had grown out just long enough to fall forward into his eyes as he looked down at me through his dark lashes.

He was exactly as delectable as I’d last seen him. The last time things had gone completely wrong between us.

“So…when did you get back?”

“Yesterday.” He leaned forward on the desk across from me.

The soft leather chair was cold against my ass as I sank into the cushion. I crossed my legs at the knee, my skirt riding up my thigh. His eyes flickered to the bare skin, a trace of the bottom of my dream catcher tattoo visible before I tugged the material over the ink.

He jerked his eyes back to mine. My throat closed at the heat that passed between us. The heat that had never evaporated in all these months.

My palms traced the arms of the chair. “Did you have a good summer?”

“It was…wet,” he said.