Chapter 8
The trouble started two weeks later.
Someone knocked on my apartment door.
I didn’t check the peephole. I just opened it.
Tyler was standing there with a huge bouquet of flowers.
He looked thrilled.
I looked horrified.
“Claire.” He smiled like he’d found religion. “I finally found you.”
“How?”
“I asked around. One of your old classmates gave me your address.”
He was actually blushing.
That was new.
“I want us to get back together,” he said.
Before I could answer, a familiar voice floated from inside my apartment.
“Delivery?”
Tyler went still.
Ethan walked into view.
The two brothers locked eyes.
The whole universe seemed to go silent for three full seconds.
Then Tyler asked, in the flat voice of someone standing at the edge of a breakdown, “Why are you here?”
Excellent question.
Very difficult to answer honestly.
Because technically speaking, Ethan had stayed over.
And I was not interested in giving Tyler a full report on that.
So my brain sprinted.
“He came for work,” I said. “To collect some files.”
Tyler frowned. “His assistant couldn’t do that?”
“Vacation.”
I shoved an empty document folder into Ethan’s chest. “Here. Everything you needed is in there. You can go now. And please take your brother with you.”
Tyler looked personally offended. “Why am I the thing being taken out with the trash?”
Because he was.
But I didn’t say that.
Instead, Tyler planted himself in my doorway and launched into a speech. He admitted he’d used me. Admitted he’d been a coward. Swore he’d cut ties with Ava for good. Begged for another chance.
“Let me do this right,” he said. “Let me really be with you this time.”
“No.”
The answer came out fast and hard.
He stared at me. “Why?”
“Because I never liked you.”
That one landed.
Hard.
But Tyler still didn’t give up.
In fact, he did something worse.
He joined our company.
Within a single day, everyone in the office knew Tyler Crawford was there because he wanted me back.
He brought breakfast. Coffee. Afternoon desserts. He hovered around my desk like a regretful golden retriever in expensive sneakers.
It became intolerable.
So during lunch one day, I dragged him into the break room and shut the door.
“I want to work in peace,” I said. “Stop disrupting my life.”
Tyler was a little taller than me, rarely wore suits, and always looked younger than he should. Like some college boy who had wandered into an office by mistake.
He nodded. “Fine. I’ll tone it down.”
“That’s not the point. Can you just go back to the city and live your rich-kid life somewhere else?”
His jaw tightened. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because after you left, I thought about everything. A lot. I know I was awful. I know I hurt you. And I want to make it up to you.”
“I don’t want you to.”
His face changed.
I knew that expression by now. Guilt. Frustration. Want.
“Everything you’re doing,” I said quietly, “is exactly the kind of thing I hate. It only makes me dislike you more.”
Something moved in the glass panel on the break room door.
A shadow.
I didn’t have to turn to know who was standing outside pretending not to eavesdrop.
Tyler looked wrecked when he left.
The second the door clicked shut behind him, Ethan slipped in and locked it.
I folded my arms. “Really? The CEO is lurking outside break rooms now?”
“I’m happy,” he said simply.
Then he took my hand and pressed it against his chest.
“Feel that?”
I raised an eyebrow.
“My heart is beating very fast.”
“Oh.”
“Because you rejected him.”
I tried not to smile.
“Claire,” he said, moving closer, “you have no idea how happy that makes me.”
“There is no lock on this door,” I reminded him.
“We’re still technically on lunch.”
“That is not what I said.”
But he was already leaning in, boxing me in against the wall, warm and dangerous and entirely too pleased with himself.
I pushed at his shoulder. “Professionalism.”
He lowered his head toward my neck anyway.
“Later,” he murmured.
Later, unfortunately, came true.
And Tyler, to his credit or perhaps his emotional damage, really did calm down after that conversation. He stopped hovering so much. Stopped acting like a lovesick idiot in public.
Mostly he just sat in corners and looked miserable.
Then the company holiday team dinner arrived.
And everything almost exploded again.