Chapter Twenty-Eight

“I can’t believe you’re leaving me,” Danny lamented, arm thrown dramatically over his eyes, no doubt highly aware of what a figure he cut with his long, trim business-casual frame slung across her small office sofa.

“I’m not leaving you, I’m leaving HH&R,” Izzy replied from her crouched position beside her desk, steadily packing a box of personal effects from the lower regions of her bookshelves—reference materials from continuing legal education courses she’d attended, small Lucite monuments commemorating some of the larger deals she’d worked on, a collection of thank-you gifts co-workers had brought her from destinations across the globe. Hey, Izzy, thanks so much for honchoing the deal to close while I went on my honeymoon/vacation/family reunion. Twenty-two-hundred billable hours a year for five years of her life meant she’d spent at least one hundred thousand hours in the service of the firm, and yet she’d carry away the memories in about three file boxes.

“You’re leaving me, eventually,” Danny insisted, flinging his arm down. “You can fool yourself, if you choose, but I’m not so easily duped. You’ve got a faraway look in your eyes.”

“I might go home and visit my parents for a bit,” she conceded, crab-walking to the next shelf. Chuck had been decent enough to let her wait until after hours on a Friday evening to clear out her office. “But not to stay. My heart’s not in Nevada.”

“It’s not in Southern California, either.”

“It might be if I give it an actual chance. Could be I’ll discover the charms of SoCal if I’m not so busy with work that I forfeit a personal life and rely on stress-relief exercises to see me through.” She blew out a breath and stood. “Maybe I’ll move to the coast, join a small firm, and practice beach law.”

“What’s beach law?”

“I don’t know.” She smiled. “But I’m willing to find out.”

“It’s not what you really want. You’ve tossed a lot away for…for…”

“For love?” she supplied, relieved that her voice held steady even if her heart didn’t.

“For an idiot who refuses to admit he’s making a mistake. He doesn’t deserve you. Want me to fly up there and knock some sense into his stubborn bear-daddy brain?”

Izzy walked over, knelt by the sofa and wrapped her arms around him. “Honey, he’s six-five and solid as a sequoia. The only thing you’d get for your trouble is bruised knuckles.” She hugged him, hard, and he returned the gesture. “But I love you for offering.”

Her office door opened on those words. She turned in Danny’s arms, and watched Chuck peek his head in. “Oh, good. You’re still here. There’s someone to see you.”

Chuck stepped back, and a tall, handsome, well-groomed man in a gray suit filled her doorway. The floor dropped out of her world. She simply stared, unable to believe her eyes or find her voice. “Oh my God,” she finally whispered, not quite sure she hadn’t lost her mind.

“Oh. My. God,” Danny echoed.

“Danny,” Chuck called from the hall. “Can I see you in my office, please?”

“Hell no.”

Trace’s gaze shifted from Izzy, to Danny, and back again. “Have I interrupted something?”

Izzy unwrapped herself from Danny and stood, fingers twined awkwardly in front of her to stop from throwing her arms around him. “No. He was just keeping me company while I packed up my office. Trace, this is my friend Danny. I think I mentioned him once or twice. Danny”—she turned to her friend—“this is Trace Shanahan.”

Danny stood and extended a hand. “AKA, the bear daddy. Delighted to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Trace said, never taking his eyes off her. Which seemed only fair, since she couldn’t take hers off him. Big, rugged Trace Shanahan standing there, clean-shaven, absently tugging at the knot in the tie he’d clearly rather not be wearing did stupid things to her insides. Ironically, she had on an oversized white T-shirt that read, Don’t Make Me Use My Lawyer Voice, in flowing black script, black yoga pants, and white Chucks—by far the most casual outfit she’d ever worn to the office. “Izzy, could I talk to you? Privately?”

“Ye—”

“No,” Danny interrupted.

Izzy expelled a breath and turned to him. “Go away.”

He shot Trace a narrow-eyed glare before asking, “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Fine. I’ll be down the hall.” He stepped past Trace. “Just a couple doors away. If you need me.”

They both waited until he left, then Trace shut the door and turned to her. Before he could speak, she said the thing uppermost in her mind. “You shaved.” She had to restrain herself from lifting her hand to his smooth jaw. All those hidden, chiseled lines. “You’re all…” She gestured at his clothing.

“I wanted to prove I can clean up, when necessary.” He cleared his throat. “I can be the guy on the arm of a junior partner at a top-tier L.A. law firm.”

Her heart thudded unsteadily against her ribs. She ran a hand self-consciously down the front of her T-shirt. “I’m sure you could. It’s too bad I don’t know anyone like that.”

His dark brows furrowed, forming the 11 lines she knew and loved. “You?”

She shook her head. “Didn’t Chuck tell you?”

He stepped closer. “Tell me what?”

“I resigned.”

“Oh, shit, Izzy.” Big hands folded around her upper arms. “Over this? Us? The deal? Please don’t. I’ve already told Chuck I’m not moving forward with the sale. It’s my choice. You were right about everything. I was selling for the wrong reasons. I didn’t have all the necessary facts, including some painful truths I’d hidden from myself. Now I do. Now I know beyond a shadow of a doubt what I want. Everything I want.”

Relief coursed through her. She went onto her tiptoes and hugged him. Closed her eyes and clung on as she felt his arms enfold her. “I’m happy to hear it. So happy.” Knowing she had to, she slowly released him. He, however, didn’t release her, which sent her pulse spiking. “But I resigned for other reasons, too. This”—she pointed around the office—“isn’t what I want. It hasn’t been for a long time, but it took stepping away to recognize it. I guess I was hiding from some painful truths of my own.”

“Yeah?” His brow quirked up, as did the corner of his mouth. “So, what’s your plan, Isabelle Marcano?”

That look. It put wings in her stomach and did equally distracting things to other places. “I, uh…I don’t really have a firm plan. I guess you could say my plans are up in the air.”

“I have a plan I’d like to sell you on.” His smile faded as he said it. “It’s a three-part plan, actually.”

Hoping to lighten the mood, she quipped, “Turns out I’ve got nothing but time.”

He nodded, still serious. “Great. So, the first part involves an apology.” Bringing his hands up to cradle her face, he lowered his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry, Izzy. Sorry for lying to you about Shay. Sorry for breaching your trust. I’m also sorry about passing you off to everyone as my girlfriend. It put you in an awkward position. Several awkward positions,” he amended. “Though I’ll never be sorry about how things evolved between us.”

She pressed her palms to his smooth cheeks and tipped her face up. “Me either.”

“Can you forgive me?”

“There’s nothing to forgive. I asked you to promise me your decision to sell had nothing to do with Shay’s death because I needed to make sure you took sufficient time to reflect on your motives. You have. That’s all I ever wanted.” She leaned closer, lowered her eyelids, inviting a kiss, but he released her.

She blinked her eyes open to find him kneeling in front of her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Not a thing.” He took her hands, linked their fingers together. “It’s just, I received very explicit instructions on how I’m supposed to fix things with you. Part one was the apology. Part two is begging.”

Oh, God. This man. “Begging for what? Trace, you don’t have to beg me for anything.”

“I do. I have to beg you to come home with me. Please know I was willing to split the difference—do part of the time in L.A. and part of the time in Captivity—hence the shave and the suit. But I’m thinking that’s not going to work for you anymore?”

Everything inside her fell away and held fast at the same time. “You’re right. That wouldn’t work. My future isn’t in L.A.”

“Could I interest you in a future in Captivity, with one slightly hardheaded bush pilot, a town full of busybodies with absolutely no boundaries, and a gaggle of territorial geese?”

Tears sprang to her eyes. She blinked as quickly as she could, hoping to hold them back. “Even with the geese, that is the best offer I’ve had all day. All week.” She freed her hands and sank them into his newly trimmed hair. “All my life.” Lowering to her knees, she looked up at him. “What’s part three?”

He cupped her jaw, drew her closer, and kissed her. Kissed her as an office door closed down the hall. Kissed her as the elevator bell dinged. Kept right on kissing her as she moaned and melted against him. When everything around them fell still and silent, Trace broke away and murmured, “Part three is persuasive make-up sex.”

She stared up at him, dumbstruck for a solid thirty seconds. “Here?”

He nodded.

“Now?”

“Turns out you’ve got nothing but time.”

True. And while she’d worked, stressed, eaten, and, at times, even slept in this little room, she’d never once had sex there. Her final hours seemed like the right time to rectify that. She got to her feet.

“You need more begging?” He shot the question at her quickly. “No problem. I can beg. Baby, come on. What are they going to do, fire you?”

She walked to the door, stopped, and locked it. Smiling, she turned and leaned against it. “You don’t need to beg, except maybe later, for mercy.”

He rose now, too, smiling as well, and walked to her desk. “Come here.”

She strolled over, peeling her top off as she went.

His eyes lit with lust and approval. Her confidence soared. He pointed at her desk. “Any of this stuff important?”

An empty bankers box. Some mail. A stack of various sized sticky note pads. IT had already come for her laptop and accessories. She shook her head.

He cleared the surface with the sweep of an arm.

Why that set her panties afire, she couldn’t say, but then he picked her up, pivoted, and laid her out on the desk and her thoughts scattered. Bracing his hands on either side of her head, he loomed over her, raking his hot gaze over every inch of exposed skin, then lowered himself and recaptured her mouth. The kiss went long, and wet, and, at least on her part, restless, as the fabric of his suit, tie, and shirt teased her skin. She grabbed handfuls of his jacket and held on while his mouth roamed her jaw, her throat, and lower. Through the white lace of her bra, he laved her breast, drew it into his mouth, scored it with his teeth until only the very tip of her nipple remained trapped in the careful vice of his incisors. Need ripped through her like lightning, from her nipple to her core. Head thrown back, she arched and bucked, all the more desperate for him after days of despair and distance.

Long fingers shoved lace away, freeing her flesh for more direct torment. He delivered it with breathtaking speed to her other breast. Biting her lip to hold back a groan, she raked her fingers through his hair. “Hurry. Hurry.”

“Gotta be persuasive,” he growled. “Are you ready to be persuaded, Izzy?”

She wrapped her legs around his waist and tried to rub herself against him. “So ready. Please persuade me.”

Those wide hands lifted her hips, those long fingers hooked into the waist of her leggings and swept them downward in a long, fluid motion. One of her shoes went flying. It bounced off the sofa and tumbled to the carpet. Then he was between her thighs again. Vaguely she realized her pants hung from one ankle, but she didn’t care. He looked down at her, a smooth-jawed stranger in a gray suit, until she gazed into his eyes. Clear blue eyes. Trace’s eyes. She fixated on them while, from somewhere far off a zipper rasped, clothing rustled, latex snapped. And then, oh yesssss, His mesmerizing eyes stared into her soul as his perfect cock sank into her body. In that moment he owned her, body and soul. Then he started to move—fast, fierce—and cognition spun away in a blinding storm of sensation.

Hands found hers. Pinned them to the desk on either side of her head. Hot, hard strength pounded into her, lifting her closer…closer…ever closer to heaven. A gruff voice close to her ear whispered, “Look at me, Izzy. Look at me.”

She opened her eyes, had to accept that her view of him was blurry from tears of joy, and whimpered his name.

“Hey, Isabelle?”

“Huh…uhh?”

“Honey, I’m about to persuade you.”

Oh, God—

That’s as far as she got. He gripped her butt in both hands, lifted, tilted her to a new angle, and thrust deep. She came. Surged up, wrapped her arms around his neck, buried her face in his chest, and came with a long, muffled moan of relief. His groan followed, equally long, equally muffled.

Minutes later, as her body glowed from the aftereffects of his tactics of persuasion, he kissed her slack lips and then rested his forehead against hers. “I love you, Izzy.”

“I love you, too. Take me home, Trace.”

“Are we persuaded, then?”

She smiled. “I think so, yeah.”

He smiled back. “You’re such a wild woman, having make-up sex in your office.”

“You just wait ’til I get home, sir. I plan to go wild in Captivity—where I can be as loud as I want.” He pinched her backside. “Ow!”

Blue eyes flashed beneath stern brows. “Only with me, right?”

“Only with you. Always with you. Forever.”

“Forever. That, counselor, is a deal I refuse to walk away from.”