Page 36 of All’s Well that Friends Well (Lucky in Love #2)

LUCA

To my surprise, I actually don’t dream about Juliet the night after we kiss.

In fact, I don’t dream at all. I sleep so deeply, so soundly, that when I wake up the next morning I’m briefly disoriented.

I scramble to look at my clock, only to realize I was woken by my alarm.

So while my pulse slows, I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, taking stock of how I feel.

Rested. Genuinely rested. And calm in a way I can’t explain—I’ve woken with a faint sense of unease stirring inside for years and years. It’s simply a part of my life.

But as I poke and prod, I realize that feeling is absent today.

I shake my head, bemused more than anything, and hurry to get ready for work.

I try to focus on the tasks I need to get done today—the forms I need to sign, the information I need to get sent to the Denver office, the candidates I need to vet for my eventual replacement—but despite my best efforts, Juliet Marigold keeps slipping into my mind.

I find myself thinking of her without even realizing it.

They’re not coherent thoughts, either. Nothing concrete or specific. She just floats around in there, hovering in the background.

I let out a bark of laughter at this, the sound filling the car as I pull into the parking lot at Explore. I don’t think Juliet has ever hovered in the background a day in her life. She could try, of course, but she’s not a background person. Whether she wants to or not, she’s going to be noticed.

My smile fades, though, and I grimace when I add one more thing to my mental to-do list: talk to her. Or, more specifically, have a talk with her. I have to make sure she understands what our relationship will look like going forward.

Because we may have kissed, and we may have enjoyed it. We may have shared things with each other that were far more intimate than normal coworkers would share. But when all is said and done, she’ll be my assistant starting Monday.

The exhale that escapes my lips is rough as I pull into a parking space. Then I grab my phone and hit number one on my favorites list of contacts.

Rod answers after three rings.

“What?” he barks. He’s not grumpy; it’s just how he answers the phone.

“I need to talk to you about something,” I say heavily. “You’re in Boulder for a while, right? Can I come over there later?”

There’s a rare hesitation from his end of the line, maybe because he can hear how off my voice sounds. Then he says, “I’m already on my way to Lucky. There are a few last things I need to work out in the HR office, and I needed to drop by to talk to you about something too.”

I nod. What does he need to talk to me about? “I’ll see you here, then,” I say, because I know Rodney won’t tell me until he’s good and ready. “Later.”

Rod grunts his goodbye and then hangs up; I do the same.

My steps are brisk as I enter the building through the side stairwell so I don’t have to go through the storefront.

When I get to my office, I inhale deeply without even thinking about it, and sure enough, there’s the strawberry shortcake scent I will forever associate with Juliet.

I peek into my trash can to find it empty, lined with a new liner.

She’s been here already this morning, before I arrived, just like I asked.

My mouth goes dry when my gaze shifts to the edge of the desk, the place she sat and kissed me, her arms tight around me, eager, wanting?—

“Stop it,” I mutter. I toss my briefcase down beside my chair and then reach over to turn the desk lamp on.

The light it casts is still sad and yellow. Maybe Juliet was right. Maybe I should get one of those sun lamps. It certainly wouldn’t hurt anything. It might even help.

I could use help right now. I’m in an odd headspace; definitely feeling the effects of a good night’s sleep, but distracted, too.

I’m so distracted waiting for Rod, in fact, and thinking about what I’m going to say to Juliet, that I do nothing but drift inefficiently around my office for the next twenty minutes—although I do stick my head out of the office and tell everyone good morning on my trip to the break room for a mug of tea.

I get a few surprised looks at this, but a few responses as well, some of them even friendly.

I can’t explain the sense of satisfaction I get from this. I’m not a warm, fuzzy guy. But I appreciate a plan well executed and concrete results.

I hold on to this feeling as I mill around the break room, letting it bolster me as my mind works. The discussion I need to have with Juliet could go many ways, but it’s better to get it over with—even if I’m strangely reluctant.

So when I’m done brewing my tea, I head to the supply closet. It’s not somewhere I normally visit, but I do my best not to seem timid or uncomfortable; I just act like I come here all the time. The chairs I brought have been getting use, I notice, but no one is currently around.

Where would she be? Doing a bathroom, maybe? She does the break room sometimes, but she wasn’t there.

I nod to myself and head for the bathroom instead, but she’s not there either. Finally, after too long looking, I find her vacuuming a conference room.

“Juliet,” I say, my voice raised over the sound of the vacuum. She glances up, a smile splitting over her face when she sees me.

Like I’m her favorite person in the world. Good grief.

“Hi,” she says, though I barely hear it. Then she fumbles with the vacuum for a second until the industrial roar disappears, and we’re left in a suddenly silent room. “Hi,” she repeats, a little breathless.

“Hi,” I say lamely.

She hurries around the conference table toward me, her white pants and pink heels coming into view as she approaches.

“I recognize that,” I say when I glance at her shirt too; it’s the pink lace top she wore when she broke into my house.

“Isn’t it cute?” she says, looking happy. “I love lace, don’t you? ”

“I’m not sure it’s ever occurred to me to have feelings about lace.”

“Well, now you can,” she says. She smooths her hair—it hangs down her back today, which is rare—and then gives me another smile. “What are you doing here?”

Right. There’s a reason I hunted her down, and it has nothing to do with pink lace. I sigh. “We need to talk.”

Her smile fades, her gaze growing skeptical as she glances over me. Her pink nails tap lightly against the tabletop next to her, a little click-click-click sound, and then they stop. “Why do we need to talk?”

I snort at this. “Like you don’t know.” With a quick look over my shoulder, I ease the door shut so we can have some privacy.

“Hmm.” Juliet’s eyes narrow too. “Are you going to say something I don’t like?”

“Yes,” I say, leaning back against the closed door, my arms folded.

She turns her gaze back to her tapping nails. “Then pass,” she says airily.

I swallow the bark of laughter trying to rise in my throat. “This is not optional,” I say, keeping the words stern.

Her shoulders slump as her expression fades from detached to disappointed. “Boo,” she says, a little pucker forming between her brows. “Fine.”

The deep breath I take doesn’t seem to do much, but I speak anyway. “We’re both adults. So we can acknowledge that we kissed.”

At the word kissed , her eyes brighten, her gaze swinging up to meet mine. She nods eagerly. “We did,” she says, her lips curling into a smile. “You should kiss me again.”

“You know I can’t do that. ”

“Yes, you can,” she counters, leaning closer. “You really can! Kiss me however you want.”

I sigh. “We can’t always have what we want, Juliet. I can’t have the perfect job. I can’t have the nicest car. And I can’t—” My voice breaks as my heart pounds. “I can’t have my young, beautiful employee. I certainly can’t kiss her—the way I want or otherwise.”

“So there’s a specific way you want to kiss me?” she says quickly, and I rub my temples.

“Of course there is,” I say. “But?—”

“What about just one more time?”

“Zero more times,” I say firmly. “We will kiss zero more times.”

Her lower lip juts out as she looks up at me with a pout.

“Put that away,” I say, eyeing that lip, “and listen up.”

“You’re very bossy this morning,” she says, and she puts her hands on her hips.

“Yes, well, I’m the boss,” I say.

She shakes her head and steps closer. “A relationship should be founded on equal?—”

“What?” I cut her off, momentarily startled. I shift, still resting against the door, but I can feel the tension entering my body. “No relationship. We just discussed this. There’s no relationship.”

She hums and takes another step closer—and I can’t escape, because my back is already to the door, but I straighten up. Her voice is skeptical as she says, “Are you sure?”

“I—yes.” I clear my throat and try to sound more certain. “Of course I’m sure.”

“Boo,” she says again.

“And stop—” I shake my head. “Stop distracting me. Going forward”—I rally my speech, the points I need to make, and then go on—“Going forward, you will be my PR assistant. You will help me within the bounds of your work duties. We will not kiss again. We will not touch inappropriately.”

“Mmm,” she says slowly as her lips twist in concentration, her brows furrowed as she thinks. She nods slowly. “Got it.” She pauses and then tilts her head. “Could you define that for me?”

“I—what?”

“Touching inappropriately,” she says, her voice bright now. “What does it mean? What’s inappropriate? Like am I allowed to touch your hand?”

“I—no.” I answer on autopilot, because I wasn’t expecting this line of questioning.

“Well, what if our fingers touch while I’m passing you a piece of paper?” she says reasonably, her head still tilted. “Is that allowed?”

“I…guess so?” I say, my voice hoarse.

She nods and takes another tiny step forward, so that there’s barely a foot between us, and the scent of strawberry shortcake grows more potent. “Noted. Am I allowed to touch your neck?”

That one’s easy. “Definitely not,” I say.

“Sad,” she says with a little sigh. “Okay. And what about your muscles? Am I allowed to touch?—”