She’d walked into this, completely sure of herself and her decision. Nicole had been so certain she could have a little fling without letting her heart get involved. Turned out that she just wasn’t the have-an-orgasm-or-two-and-move-on kind of girl.
“Oh, God.”
“Sweetie…”
She came up out of her thoughts to see soft concern and worry in Sandy’s eyes. That pride she and Griffin had fought over reared its head.
Instantly, Nicole shook her head. “This is exactly why I didn’t want anyone knowing what Griffin and I were doing. You’re different, of course, since you knew even before anything had happened, but Sandy, if you feel sorry for me now, I might scream. Or cry. And I don’t want to do either.”
“Yeah,” her friend said, “but I don’t like knowing you’re setting yourself up for pain.”
“Not my favorite thing, either,” Nicole admitted, already dreading the misery she’d feel when whatever it was she shared with Griffin was over. “No, I went into this with my eyes open, and they’re still open.”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Sandy asked.
Sighing, Nicole admitted, “Probably. I can see the end coming, Sandy.”
“It doesn’t have to end.”
Nicole laughed shortly. “No sympathy or delusions, thanks. Of course it has to end. I’ve known that all along. It’s my own fault if I let myself forget that, even for a second.”
Taking a deep breath, Nicole changed the subject, because she really couldn’t take much more of Sandy’s warm, sympathetic gaze. Pretty soon she’d start feeling sorry for herself and where would that get her? Nowhere.
“So—” She tapped one finger on the sheet of paper she had slid in front of Sandy a few minutes before. “How about instead of my love life, we talk about this order from your supplier for the week’s flour and sugar? I couldn’t make out the amount at the bottom of the bill. Your handwriting sucks. Haven’t we talked about you entering all of your bills on the computer?”
As if understanding that her friend was close to the edge, Sandy picked up the paper and smiled. “But if I did that, I wouldn’t need you, would I?”
“Good point.” The only reason Nicole had a successful business was because her clients unilaterally loathed or were confused by the bookkeeping software available.
While Sandy studied her own handwriting as if it was hieroglyphics, Nicole thought about Griffin. Again. About the end that was coming and about the nights she still had to look forward to.
She was making memories, she told herself. Memories that would both comfort and torment her long after this affair with Griffin was over.
*
“Are the new cabinets in yet?”
“What?” Griffin looked at Nicole over the dinner table. This was getting so damn comfortable, he could hardly remember sitting in his empty condo with a nuked dinner and the sound of silence hanging over him. Funny, but he really wasn’t looking forward to having his nights to himself anymore. Okay, maybe that wasn’t funny, but it was a little unnerving.
“The cabinets?” she repeated.
“Oh. The cabinets.” He nodded and told himself to pay attention. “Yeah, they’re in.”
And they were light oak instead of pine, but she hadn’t asked him that, had she? He frowned down at his dessert. He wasn’t sorry he’d been upgrading Nicole’s kitchen, but he could at least admit to himself that he was beginning to regret lying to her about it.
“Oh, good. Then the counter should be going in soon, right?”
“Yeah, in a few days.” The granite guy they were working with was still searching for the right stone that would match the description Nicole had given Griffin when she’d described her dream kitchen. “They’re putting the floor in tomorrow, though.”
Nodding, Nicole leaned over Connor and dropped a few sliced strawberries onto his high-chair tray. Instantly, the boy made a lunge for them.
Griffin grinned at the action. The boy had sneaked up on him. He hadn’t meant to get involved with Connor; it had just happened. Those wide eyes and happy smiles had sucked him right in and now the boy had carved a place for himself in Griffin’s heart.
He was going to miss the little guy, he thought, and scowled even more fiercely at his plate.
“Do you think the linoleum I picked out will go with the green walls?”
“Absolutely,” Griffin said, dropping a couple of spoonfuls of whipped cream onto his own bowl of strawberries. The cream-colored flooring Nicole had chosen would have been a good match with the wall paint. But it was linoleum—cheap, but hardly the best choice, and it wouldn’t last more than five years. The warm, cream-and-green-flecked tiles Griffin had approved instead would look better. And last longer.
She still wouldn’t like it, but the deed would be done and unless she wanted to take a hammer to her new tile floor—which he wouldn’t put past her—she’d live with it. More, though she might not admit it, she’d love the changes to her kitchen.
Sometimes, Griffin told himself, you just had to do the right thing whether other people agreed with you or not. And damned if he’d let her shortchange herself because of her damn pride. He was prepared for the battle that would erupt when all of this came out.
He rubbed the back of his neck and listened to Connor’s laughter as he chortled at something only an almost-three-year-old would understand.
“My friend Sandy said I was crazy for not keeping an eye on the remodel, but I told her I trusted you,” Nicole was saying, and Griffin looked at her. In the overhead light, her blond hair looked bright as sunlight. Her blue eyes met his, and there was a question in those depths that he had no intention of answering.
The fact that she trusted him was working to his advantage here. And God, even thinking that made him feel like a bastard. But he was in too deep to change course now.
“Thanks,” he said, swallowing the knot of guilt in his throat along with a mouthful of strawberries. “I appreciate that.”
Outside, darkness crouched at the windows, but inside, the kitchen was warm and…cozy, Griffin thought. As soon as the thought appeared, he had to wonder when the last time he’d been around anything cozy had been. He couldn’t come up with a single example. Not since he was a kid, anyway. Back then, with his parents still alive and all of his brothers at home, there had been the same sort of feeling he had now: that sense of belonging to something bigger than yourself. To being a part of something.