If not, what’s the point of living?
His words haunted her. Their influence had been the tipping point, and the rest was history. Granted, a very short chapter in Caroline’s romantic history. But still, it was something.
Maybe he was onto something with his “authentic living” philosophy. Maybe she should borrow a page from that philosophy and tell her father that the stuffy offices of Coopersmith & Bales weren’t where she wanted to spend the rest of her life.
What would he say if she told him she wanted to put aside her Harvard Business School education and bake?
She could hear her father’s humorless laugh in the recesses of her mind. It was a stupid idea. It wouldn’t be the first time she had broached the subject. But Charles Coopersmith always seemed to go deaf when she talked about a career change.
Right now everything was in order in the Coopersmith universe: Claudia was married to a man their father had all but hand-picked, and Caroline was in line to step into her father’s role of senior partner when he retired.
A knot formed in her stomach at the mere thought. There was nothing she could do about it right now. That’s why having a one-night stand with the best man at her sainted sister’s wedding—a man of whom her father would never approve—was as close as she would come to defying him.
She tried to shrug off the inner voice calling her a coward. But it didn’t really matter, did it? She knew in her gut that when she left the sanctuary of the bathroom, she would find the bed empty. Drew would’ve taken advantage of her absence to take his leave, and she would leave the fantasy of their one night behind and step back into real life.
So buck up. One night with Drew was exactly what you signed up for. This is how you wanted it to end.
She gave her reflection one last once-over. The foggy bathroom mirror reflected back a soft-focus image of a woman who looked a bit too hopeful to return to an empty bed. She ran her fingers through her damp hair, pushing the errant chestnut strands away from her face. Tightening the sash of the bathrobe, she opened the collar just a little bit so that the right amount of cleavage showed.
She turned out the light before she opened the door, standing in the pitch-dark for a moment to gather herself. She heard a distant door slam; someone moving around in the room upstairs; the distant resonance of a toilet flushing, a shower starting. The symphony of hotel sounds set over the reverb of her own breathing.
All right, come on. You can’t stay in here forever. Slowly, she turned the doorknob and stepped into the dimly lit bedchamber.
The first thing to come into focus was her bridesmaid dress, lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. Next, a trail of various articles of underclothing and men’s clothing—
Her gaze zagged to the bed, where a mound in the bed verified that Drew was still there. She froze, uncertain of what to do. Should she get back in bed or get dressed?
So much for avoiding the awkward morning-after dance.
When Caroline’s gaze adjusted to the low light, the bridal bouquet, which lay on the nightstand, came into focus. Perched precariously on the edge of the table, its bloodred roses were now drooping and showing their age. However, the blunt, thorn-free stems, chopped to uniform perfection and bound tightly in virginal, white satin ribbon, were still perfectly in place.
None of those roses could possibly break free from the pack. Now, if that wasn’t a metaphor for the Coopersmith family way...
In Caroline’s mind, a vision flashed of herself growing old and used up but still toeing the line at Coopersmith & Bales. All the blood drained from her head.
Drew stirred. His hand went up to his face, and he scrubbed his eyes before he propped himself up on his elbow.
“Good morning.” His voice was a hoarse rasp. He eyed her up and down, and the last traces of bravado she had been full of last night vanished, like someone deadheading roses.
“Good morning.” Her words slipped out on a whisper.
Grasping the lapels of her robe, she held them together, as if she were all modesty and virtue.
Oh, God, help me. It was too late for that now—too late for help or for modesty and virtue.
Drew patted the empty side of the bed next to him. “Come here.”
It took a couple of beats to unstick her bare feet from the floor, but finally she forced her legs to move. She perched primly on the edge of the bed next to him, her hands in her lap. Her gaze again landed on the bridal bouquet, but she redirected it to Drew.
He looked so darn sexy lying there on his side, propped up on his elbow, the sheet pulled up to his waist, barely covering his hipbones. His biceps bulged and his broad shoulders looked a mile wide. She swallowed around the angst that was blocking her airway.
“Do you want some coffee?” she offered, finally finding her voice, then cringing at the inane question.
“No thanks.” His hand was on her back, kneading her shoulder through the soft terry of the robe. “That’s not what I’m in the mood for just now.”
Without another word, he reached out and ran a finger along her jawline, down her neck, to the collar of her robe.
In one firm motion, he pulled her on top of him. And coffee completely lost its appeal.
* * *
“Tell me everything, and don’t you dare skip a single detail,” demanded Pepper Merriweather.
Caroline and Pepper had been best friends for as far back as they both could remember. Tonight they sat at Caroline’s kitchen table, sharing a bottle of pinot noir and some to-die-for parmesan spinach dip Pepper had commandeered from the kitchen of Celebrations, Inc.
They’d settled in with a spread of crudités and crackers, and Pepper was obviously expecting the details of Caroline’s time with Drew to be the main course.
Seeing as how they always told each other everything—stories about first boyfriends, first kisses, first heartbreaks, first and last dates—Caroline was having a hard time coming up with diversionary tactics. Because Caroline wasn’t so eager to share the story of her first one-night stand.
She wasn’t embarrassed. On the contrary, she was rather proud that for once she had not bowed to fear and had taken what she wanted. Not to mention the fact that it had happened with a guy like Drew Montgomery. That they’d spent all of Sunday morning in bed. Later they’d gone to brunch and had played together all day, until he’d dropped her off at home.
When was the last time she had played?
She had shared the surface points with Pepper. It was the more intimate details she was keeping closer to her chest.
Really, the only reason she and Pepper were having this conversation was that Pepper had said she’d seen Caroline and Drew dancing at the wedding Saturday night...and then she had seen the two of them leave together. Pepper tended to have a special kind of radar for things like that.
Now here Caroline was with her friend on Monday evening, sharing a bottle of wine, Pepper getting bolder and more insistent with each sip. The vaguer the answers Caroline gave, the more Pepper demanded the details.
The truth was, Caroline felt sort of like Cinderella having been to the ball, having danced with the prince all night, and now her coach had turned back into a pumpkin. Like Cinderella, she wanted more, despite the pact that she had made with herself that it would be just one night. But one night had turned into the next day, and pretty soon that pact she had made with herself was falling through the porch cracks as Drew kissed her good-night just before midnight.
So, now pactless and wanting more, she wasn’t sure how Drew felt.
When