Rock the Boat (31 page)

He tips his head back, a deep laugh escaping him. “Baby, I’ll disrespect you all night long—once you’re off the clock.” He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a card. I hold out my hand, but he lays it on my keyboard instead.

“What’s this?”

“Your new condo.”

I pick up the folder Mr. Cooper laid on my desk and page through it until I come to Easton’s information. Sure enough, the address on the card matches his. “I’m moving in with you?”

“Now I know why Mr. Cooper recommended you so highly. You’re quick, Lark.”

Rolling my eyes, I stand up while Easton walks toward the door. “Not happening, Mr. Beck. I think I’ve been more than accommodating today. I’ve gone as far as I’m willing to go.”

With his hand on the door knob, he turns and says, “I plan on taking you so much farther. I’ll see you in a couple hours, gorgeous.”

Before I even have a chance to ask for my underwear back, Mr. Cooper’s standing in front of me with a glass of champagne in each hand. He’ll have his new client plastered all over the Internet in no time, no doubt hoping other big names follow suit. He hands me a glass and hoists his in the air. “Here’s to new beginnings, Lark. Congratulations.”

I’m moving.

I tried like hell to hang onto my apartment, but financially, it doesn’t make sense to hold onto a place I won’t be living in for at least a year. Since I don’t own, I can’t rent it out and hang onto it. There’s no way the landlord would keep it unoccupied when he could up the rent and have new tenants in here in a week.

Others reps have worked from remote locations all over the world in order to take on the best, most elite clients in the business. Never in a million years did I imagine I’d be one of them. Who wouldn’t want to see the world, to live a life most could only dream of, but I have been content sitting behind my desk for the last couple years, working from nine in the morning until five at night. Sure, there have been late nights from time to time when I have to work around schedules, but for the most part, my job is secure. I can wrap it all up and go home feeling satisfied at the end of each work day.

Noelle spent hours trying to convince me going on the road is the perfect scenario to keep my relationship with Easton while hanging onto a piece of my own identity. She’s right, it is perfect, but I’ve never feared my job before. What if I’m not good enough at what I do? What if I let the band down? What if I disappoint Mr. Cooper?

Like she can read my mind, my phone pings with an incoming text from Noelle. It figures when I need her most, she’s visiting Lane.

Noelle: Stop worrying. Finish packing your shit and go get laid.

No matter what the problem may be, her solution to everything is always sex. In her world, it’s the cure all. Maybe she’s right. I could continue to lie on the couch all day long and still be just as clueless about the future as I am now. I won’t have answers to any of my questions until I get out on the road and experience it for myself. But before I can finish packing, I need coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

Before I even get the pot, there’s a knock on the door. It’s almost noon, but I haven’t brushed my teeth or showered yet. My hair is in a messy bun on top of my head and my pajamas don’t even match. I’m in no condition for company.

Pretending to not be home doesn’t work when the knocking continues. Creeping slowly to the door, I’m careful not to make any of the loose floor boards squeak. Nothing prepares me for what I find when I look through the peep hole in the door. I’m so surprised I lose my balance and fall into the table next to the door. The keys sitting on the edge fall onto the floor, giving me away.

“Lark? Are you in there?”

“Shit,” I whisper, as I bend down to pick up the fallen keys.

“Are you okay?”

Now that he’s heard me, I have no choice but to open the door, but I keep the chain in place, so he can’t come inside. “What are you doing here?”

He smiles, taking me in from head to toe. His casual perusal of my body makes me want a shower that much more. “Did I wake you up?”

“No, but I had a late night. I’m not really up for visitors.”

“I won’t stay long, but there’s something I need to tell you.”

His timing couldn’t be worse, and while I would rather close the door in his face and pretend he never was here, I have a feeling Lincoln’s not going to leave me alone until he says whatever it is he needs to say. “What do you want?”

“To talk.”

“I think I made it pretty clear what I thought of you the last time we spoke on the beach.”

“Lark, please,” he begs when I don’t open the door back up. “I’m not leaving until you hear me out. Give me ten minutes.”

Worried he’s going to piss off my neighbors, I remove the chain from the door latch and pull it the rest of the way open. His shoulders sag with relief once he sees I’m going to hear him out. “You have five minutes. I have a lot to do today.”

He steps inside and spots all the boxes I have stacked up in the corner of the room. The ones that all need to be filled by the end of today and put into storage. “Are you moving?”

“I guess you could say that.”

“Good, you should have a bigger place. This one is too small for you.”

“Let me guess, your dog that vacations in the Hamptons has a bigger house than I do.”

He cocks his head to the side, looking confused. “I don’t have a dog.”

“Whatever, you’re down to four minutes. Start talking.”

He holds out a bag from Saks Fifth Avenue—a place I’ve never been able to afford to shop. Not if I want to have more than one thing in my wardrobe at a time. “Take it,” he says with a smile on his face.

“What’s this for?”

“Consider it an apology.”

“A real apology is made of words, not materials.”

He waves his hand in the air, dismissing my comment. Instead, he’s focused on the pictures sitting on the mantle above the fireplace. “An apology can be anything, Lark. It’s whatever fits the crime.”

I reach inside the bag and pull out a bikini top. “How does a bathing suit fit your crime?”

“That goes along with the other part of the gift. My stylist picked it out.”

Of course his stylist picked it out. He wouldn’t spend a second of his precious time shopping for the common folk. Not when he could be in Cape Cod on his yacht. “Just tell me what you want, Lincoln. I don’t have time for games right now.”

He turns around with a frame in his hand. It’s a picture of me and Noelle at the beach last year. “You both look smokin’.”

I grab the frame out of his hands. “It’s not porn. Why does everything have to be about looks with you?”

“Because when a woman looks as good as you do, she should be worshipped.”

“I’m not a toy. I don’t want to be someone’s play thing.” Like my mother always told me, know your worth.

“I didn’t mean it like that, Lark. I’m attracted to you—that’s something I can’t help. But I really did come here to tell you how sorry I am. I screwed up.”

“Exactly what are you sorry for?” If I was smart, I would hand him the gift and show him the door, but I’m a glutton for punishment, so I wait for him to explain himself.

“I realized the first night I met Noelle that she wasn’t going to work. Her tattoos, the makeup, and the way she dressed—my mother would have had a royal fit about all of it. There was too much to change and I didn’t have that kind of time. I was pissed until I saw you. You were my answer.”

“Answer to what?”

“You would make my mother happy and solve all my problems. So, I came up with a plan to get you, but things went to shit pretty fast after that—especially for you and me.”

“What are you saying? I’m not completely following.”

He sits on the edge of the couch, his knee bouncing nervously. He can’t even look me in the eyes anymore. “There was no mix-up with the letters. I paid one of the girls at the front desk to type the corrected letters and send them to your rooms. All I had to do was sit back and wait, show up at the right time, and then you’d want me instead of Easton. At least that’s what I thought would happen.”

The entire time he’s speaking, I hear him, but it’s like I’m standing in the middle of a busy intersection, cars and trucks all zipping by me blaring their horns. I can’t pinpoint a single way to escape it, only that if I don’t, I’m going to go insane. There wasn’t a mix-up with The Perfect Match survey. They had it right from the beginning. “I can’t believe this.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that my mother has these expectations that I can’t ever seem to live up to. I was desperate because I didn’t want to go home a failure.”

“Don’t you have a conscience? I could have died in the ocean on a date I never should have been on in the first place. I almost lost Easton because of you. You made Noelle feel like shit!”

He follows me as I sit down on the ottoman, choosing to sit directly in front of me on the couch. He reaches for my hand, but I pull it away from his before he can touch me. “Noelle is a sweet girl. I never meant to hurt her, but I couldn’t be the guy she was looking for.”

“She was there for the right reasons. She wanted to fall in love with the guy of her dreams. You are the biggest piece of shit for messing that up for her. And why? Because she doesn’t fit some perfect mold or ideal your mother thinks is acceptable? Grow a pair, Lincoln.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You said that already. It wasn’t good enough two minutes ago, and it’s not good enough now. You can’t use your money to get what you want, make a mess of things, and then buy forgiveness with expensive gifts.”

He stares at his perfectly shined shoes, probably worth more than the couch he’s sitting on. “It’s the only way I know how to do it.”

“I think it’s time you stopped being your mother’s puppet and start making your own choices. Love isn’t a business deal.”

“It’s not that easy. I wish it were.”

“It
is
that easy. Maybe she’ll get mad. Maybe she’ll throw a fit like you said, but it’s not her life to live—it’s yours. Think about it, if your mother wasn’t breathing down your neck, would you have treated Noelle differently knowing she was your perfect match?”

He nods his head before staring at the wall. “Yeah, she’s gorgeous. Maybe her style isn’t what I usually go for, but I liked her. I’ve never dated a girl with a sense of humor. It was refreshing.”

“Noelle is amazing. You really missed out.”

“Will you at least take this?” He hands me a white envelope. Another gift I don’t want.

“If it’s a gift, I don’t need it. You said what you had to say.”

“Just open it. Please.”

My hands shake as I peel the flap open. The last envelope I opened threw my life into a tailspin. “A cruise?” I ask, as I hold tickets in my hand.

“I want you and Noelle to go on another cruise. One without me screwing everything up.”

I tuck the tickets back inside the envelope and hand it back to him. “It’s a nice gesture considering what you did, but it’s a shitty apology. You already gave Noelle the best gift she could get—leaving her alone and driving her toward Lane.”

I don’t give him time to respond or ask questions. I simply open the front door, and wait for him to walk through it. He stares at me, uncomfortably, before shuffling toward the door. He stands in front of me, his eyes telling a much different story than what they told on the ship. This version of Lincoln looks defeated and I’m glad. He needs a serious reality check.