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He smiled, wiping at his eyes too. “Let’s get your bed set up. You’ll need somewhere to sleep tonight too.”

* * *

My body achedwhen I went into work on Monday from the strain of the weekend, but the nerves flitting around my stomach were so much more distracting than sore muscles.

Seeing Gage at the bar, hearing the truths he admitted to me... I shut down that train of thought. Even if he wasn’t my boss. Even if I wasn’t newly divorced... Gage would still be a busy billionaire CEO. And I’d been burned by love before. I wouldn’t settle, not again. Especially not when I knew I could make it on my own.

If I ever got married again, it would be to a man who would put me first. And when he asked me to marry him, it wouldn’t be because I was pregnant or out of a feeling of obligation—it would be for love.

I brought two cortados into the office, giving one to Gage as a friendly gesture. We’d left things kind of weird Friday night, and I didn’t want work to be awkward.

His blue eyes darted over me, like he was trying to guess how I’d react after our interaction Friday night. It hit me that I was beginning to sense the moods of this unreadable man, and a strange, pleased feeling warmed my chest.

The ball was in my court now, so I simply smiled and passed him a coffee. “Did you have a nice weekend?”

He nodded. “Rhett stayed over, and we grabbed some things Tyler and Hen needed from the city.”

“Tyler and Hen?” I asked. The names sounded familiar. “Do they work for you?”

He chuckled. “Tyler would never. He’s my brother, and Henrietta is his wife. They just renovated a schoolhouse and turned it into senior apartments in my hometown.”

“Cottonwood Falls, right?”

His dark blond eyebrow quirked. “How did you know that?”

My cheeks flushed. “A friend told me.”

“Which friend?”

“Google,” I mumbled.

His lips twitched. “You Googled me?”

“Why does it sound dirty when you say it?” I giggled, and he even chuckled. I loved how easily I could make this bear of a man laugh now.

“I had to look up the man I’d be working with,” I said finally.

He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the desk, and I found myself leaning closer as well. His voice was a low hum as he asked, “What did you find out?”

I tapped the pad of my pointer finger, loving making him wait. “I found out you don’t have an Online Encyclopedia page.”

“I made them take it down.” I waited for him to laugh, but he didn’t.

“Wait, what?”

He shrugged, his large shoulders moving under his perfectly tailored suit jacket. “I didn’t like my family’s information being on one of the most highly trafficked pages of the internet. It might surprise you, but there are people out there who don’t like me.”

“They don’t like you? No way,” I teased.

He rewarded me with an exasperated smile.

I bit my lip. “Gage Griffen, thirty-six years old. Born December twelfth. Star baseball player in high school but didn’t play in college despite being recruited by multiple Division 1 universities. Attended technical college to study diesel mechanics, then went to a four-year university and majored in economics with a minor in entrepreneurship. Interned with a Big Four accounting firm, then worked with a well-known realtor in the Dallas area before getting his own real estate license and growing his own business from nothing like no one has ever seen before.”

As I spoke, his expression grew serious, curious.

“But that didn’t cover any of the things I came to know when working for you,” I continued.

His hands stilled on his coffee cup, strong, big, belying the gentle nature he had underneath the exterior.