Page 41 of Breaking All The Rules

Her face fell as she turned to look away.

“Eva, what you and I are doing is nothing like what happened with Cora. She was a quick stress reliever—as terrible as that sounds. But she knew what she was doing when she initiated it and confirmed that she only wanted a one-time thing. With you, things are completely different.”

“How so?”

“Because with you, I know that I should stay away and leave you alone, but I can’t. There’s this physical attraction that is so intense that my body knows when you’re close by. You’re incredibly smart and sexy, and you're possibly the only person Iknow who can burn toast, but I find all of that so mesmerizing. I’m not the kind of guy who has ever done the wholecommitted relationshipthing, but yet I find myself wanting that with you.” I blew out a heavy sigh. “And now, because of this fucking lawsuit, I can’t do anything about it. I can’t be with the one person who I want to be with, even if it’s just baby steps toward a relationship.”

A beautiful smile pulled across her face as she leaned forward and reached across the table to hold my hand.

“You surprise me, Ethan. But I want to be with you too. Even if you judge my culinary abilities.”

She laughed, and I felt the tension start to ease from my shoulders.

“I understand that this lawsuit puts a hindrance on what we’ve been doing. Do you think it would help if we talked to Regina and let her know what’s going on? Then we wouldn’t have to hide it or worry about anyone finding out.” I could see the hope in her eyes, and I didn’t want to be the one who killed it.

“Unfortunately, I think it would only make it worse if we told anyone. I’m being sued by a former employee who claims that I sexually harassed her. I don’t think it’s going to look good if, not even six months later, I’m dating another employee. It could cost me my reputation, and I just can’t risk that.”

“I get it,” she said, slowly pulling her hand away from mine.

Fuck. This wasn’t how I wanted this to go.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” I blew out.

I knew that coming clean and talking things through with Eva would be complicated. Not because she was hard to talk to but because I had somehow created this ridiculous mess that she was now being dragged into. Even if we didn’t tell anyone about us, it wasn’t fair to her to ask her to be in a relationship with me that we had to keep hidden.

“Please, Eva,” I begged, trying to get the hurt look off of her face.

“I think you’ve said everything you needed to say. Thank you for breakfast.” She pushed her food away and stood up, not bothering to look at me as she grabbed her things and walked away.

Twenty-Two

Eva

The day had been long and exhausting as I replayed my conversation with Ethan this morning over and over in my head. It felt like the past few days had been a whirlwind of emotions, from finding out about Cora to Ethan confessing that he wanted a relationship with me. I knew it was immature to walk away at breakfast this morning, but the thought that he wanted to keep me—us—a secret really got to me. I couldn’t put my finger on why it bothered me so much because it wasn’t like he was trying to hide me for no reason. From a legal standpoint, I clearly understood why he didn’t want to tell anyone about our relationship, given the nature of the current lawsuit against him.

Maybe it was that I hadn’t really had time to process his confession, or maybe it was that I was still trying to figure out my own feelings about all of it. I wasn’t lying when I told Ethan that I wanted to be with him, too, but I never stopped to think about what kind of implication that could have on my career. Starting at a new law firm and sleeping with your boss didn’t exactly screamprofessional,and the last thing I wanted was for anyone to question how I got the position I did.

It was almost five o’clock, and Ethan was still in his meeting with Brent and some woman he had brought with him. I assumed it was his girlfriend the way his eyes constantly wandered back to her when she would laugh or smile. My heart ached with the way he looked at her and how his love for her was on display for everyone to see. I couldn’t remember the last timeanyone had looked at me like that. Perhaps it was never, and at this rate, it didn’t seem like that would change any time soon.

I pulled my attention away from the meeting when my phone vibrated on my desk. I looked down to find a text message from Brittany. It was Thursday, which meant she wanted to get together for tacos and margaritas like we did every week. I wrinkled my nose at the thought and swiped my phone to unlock it, hoping that maybe she was sending a text to cancel instead.

Brittany: Tacos and margaritas tonight. I’ll meet you at your office in ten minutes.

I groaned and let my head fall back dramatically. It was too late to cancel now if she was meeting me in ten minutes. I sent a quick text back to her confirming that I would see her soon and tossed my phone back on my desk.

My phone vibrated again, and I felt a smidgen of excitement that she had changed her mind after all. Instead, it was a text from Lucy.

Lucy: I talked with Art, and I have a meeting with him on Monday. He spoke with Lance’s attorney, and they agreed to start with mediation to see if we can resolve this outside of court first.

Me: Jeremy. He spoke with Jeremy.

I watched for a few minutes as the dots bounced in the text message and then disappeared. Finally, her text came through.

Lucy: Sorry. I know how much you hate talking about him.

Me: I hate even more that he is representing Lance.

Lucy: Me too.

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