Page 18 of Worth the Wait

"Sometimes the best protection is a strategic offense," he counters, his shoulder brushing mine as he reaches across to indicate a specific clause.

The casual contact shouldn't affect me—shouldn't send heat spiraling through my core—but my body remembers his touch with humiliating precision. I shift away slightly, creating distance that feels both necessary and painful.

As the evening stretches on, I become increasingly aware of office sounds fading, of colleagues departing, until the hushed silence suggests we're among the few remaining. The knowledge creates an intimacy I neither want nor can escape.

"We should eat before the food gets cold," Jackson suggests, pushing away from the table to stretch. The movement pulls his shirt tight across his chest, and I catch myself staring at the flex of muscle beneath the fabric before quickly averting my eyes.

I nod, grateful for the break from the growing tension. We move to the small seating area at the end of the conference room, the casual furniture creating a dangerous illusion of informality.

"How's your sister?" he asks as we settle with our food. "Ellie, right? She'd be what, twenty-eight now?"

The question catches me off guard—this careful probing into my personal life wrapped in casual conversation. "Twenty-nine," I correct, focusing on twirling noodles around my fork. "She's in Seattle. Pediatric nursing."

"You mentioned that," he says with a genuine smile. "Two kids, right?" He laughs and shakes his head. “Honestly, I always thought she’d end up with like six at least the way she’d push her stroller around with all those dolls.”

The easy way he recalls my family—the intimacy of shared knowledge—creates a tightness in my chest that feels dangerously close to longing. I redirect the conversation to safer terrain.

"How's the Chicago apartment hunt going? Finding anything in your price range?"

He hesitates just long enough to tell me he's noticed my deflection. "Wasn’t easy. The market's competitive, but I managed to find an affordable place in Lincoln Park."

"That's a great neighborhood," I say, the banality of the exchange almost painful after the depth of connection we once shared. But banality is safe. Professional. Appropriate.

As we eat, I notice how the sunset has given way to twilight, the conference room windows now reflecting our images back at us against the darkening sky. The office has emptied further, the silence growing more complete, more intimate.

"You never answered my question," Jackson says suddenly, his voice low in the quiet room. "About whether you knew I was coming to Blake."

I set down my food, appetite vanishing. "I didn't know."

"Would it have changed anything if you had?"

The question hangs between us, weighted with implications neither of us fully articulates. Would I have warned Miguel about our history? Would I have left before he arrived? Would Ihave prepared better defenses against this unwanted attraction that still hums beneath my skin?

"I don't know," I answer honestly. "It's irrelevant now."

His eyes hold mine, the blue darkening to midnight. "Is it?"

I open my mouth to say something that will pull at this thread between us but then decide against it. “We should really get back to focusing on the contract.”

“Right,” he agrees, his eyes dropping down to refocus his attention back on his food.

I reachfor my coffee without looking, my eyes fixed on the clause in the Westfield contract that's been bothering me for the past hour. My fingers connect with the ceramic mug just as Jackson shifts a stack of papers, and suddenly everything moves in slow motion—the coffee tilting, the dark liquid arcing through the air, the splash as it lands across three separate documents representing countless hours of meticulous work.

"Shit!" I grab for the nearest document, as if plucking it from the spreading stain might somehow undo the damage. Jackson reaches at the same exact moment, our hands colliding in the rush.

"Let me—" he starts, just as my "I've got it—" creates a verbal collision to match our physical one.

And then we're frozen, suspended in a moment that suddenly has nothing to do with spilled coffee or ruined contracts. Jackson hovers above me, his body half-stretched across the conference table, his face mere inches from mine. I can count each individual freckle on his nose, see the tiny flecks of darker blue in his irises, feel the warmth of his breath against my lips.

Time stretches between us like pulled taffy, sweet and impossibly thin. My heart hammers against my ribs with such force I'm certain he must hear it. A strand of hair falls across my face, and Jackson's hand rises slowly, deliberately, as if to brush it away. His fingers hover near my cheek, not quite touching but close enough that my skin tingles with the phantom caress.

His cologne—that maddening blend of cedar and bergamot that's haunted my dreams for eight years—mingles with the rich aroma of the spilled coffee, creating a heady scent that seems to belong uniquely to this moment. Something both bitter and sweet, like the history between us. The conference room lights buzz overhead, but all I can hear is the shallow cadence of our synchronized breathing.

Jackson's eyes darken, pupils expanding until only a thin ring of blue remains. The sensation of being drawn toward him is so powerful I have to grip the edge of the table to resist it. We're not touching, not really, but every cell in my body is screaming for contact.

His throat works as he swallows, his gaze dropping briefly to my mouth before he catches himself. The moment stretches between us, taut as a wire about to snap. I'm not breathing, can't remember how breathing works, can only focus on the magnetic pull between us.

Then, as if waking from a trance, Jackson pulls back, his hand dropping to his side as he straightens. The loss of his proximity leaves me oddly cold, despite the flush I can feel spreading across my cheeks.

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