Page 8 of Decidedly Off Limits

Silly me.

“You’re right,” I said. “He wasn’t the right man for me. But I haven’t exactly met the right man. All the good ones are already taken.”

“And that’s why I’ve made it my personal mission to help you find the perfect guy. I love you, Kels, and I just want you to be happy like I am with Darren. Are you sure there’s no one you’re interested in?”

I wavered for a moment, lips parted. Trent’s name sat on the tip of my tongue, waiting for me to say it.

I bit back the words. “Nope, no one.”

“Don’t worry,” Erin said, “I’m positive you’ll love Stephen. He’s really excited to meet you.”

Inwardly I cringed. I didn’t need to go on the date to know it would be an epic failure. Since when did blind dates ever work out?

Never. That’s when.

Ugh.

4

Trent

Sweating from my workout, my T-shirt sticking to my skin, I strode through my apartment, taking in the expensive decorations and furniture that didn’t feel like me. I had hired someone to decorate the place at the recommendation of my boss. Something about the condo reminded me of how far I’d come, and how hard I’d worked my ass off to get to this point—the point of being one of the youngest and hottest portfolio managers around.

By hottest, I meant I knew my shit when it came to the stock market and it showed. My mutual funds had outperformed everyone else’s in the company for the past two years. I’d been quoted a number of times in the financial sections of respected newspapers—which I could guarantee the girls I’d slept with over the years had never heard of or read.

But I did refuse an interview last year withForbes Magazinebecause they wanted to talk about my success. I didn’t want to risk a money-hungry bitch painting a big fat target on my chest, and scheming to be the first Mrs. Trent Salway.

I’d already traveled down that path.

A path filled with thorns and poison ivy.

I quickly showered and grabbed an equally quick dinner. Now, I wasn’t ashamed to admit it…but my cooking skills were greatly absent. But hey, it wasn’t like they had cooking classes at Columbia. Or at least if they did, they hadn’t existed in my program while I was there.

Which was why Mom had given me leftovers from the party.

Yep, I was her favorite child.

I chuckled, knowing Mom loved us all equally. We’d never given her a reason not to. Well, most of the time we hadn’t given her a reason.

I loaded the dishwasher and headed back to the office. If I had a T-shirt that said, “Workaholics Need Only Apply” I would wear it with pride.

By the time I arrived, the place was empty except for Holly (of course) and one other guy who was packing up for the day.

You know how every company has that one asshole who is a step away from being slapped with a sexual harassment complaint? A jerk-off who thinks all women were hired for his own personal pleasure?

Meet Dick Head. Or as Human Resources knew him, Brent Dickinson.

He jerked his chin toward Holly, who was standing at her desk, papers in hand, then winked at me. His face wore a leer I would’ve liked to wipe off with my fist. It wasn’t like that with Holly, and I didn’t want him believing that it was. I didn’t want him fueling the office grapevine with his blatant lie. While it wouldn’t have hurt my reputation, it would’ve destroyed Holly’s. She worked too hard to prove herself in a testosterone-dominated world to deserve that.

Before I could say anything to him or push him against the wall and tell him where he could take his douchebag attitude, he walked past me and left through the main door to the elevators.

At the sound of the door clicking shut behind him, Holly looked up and smiled. “Hey. Did Dickinson finally leave?” She visibly shuddered, leaving me to wonder what he’d said to her.

“You mean old Dick Head?”

Holly laughed and I did my best not to cringe. How could someone so beautiful create such a hideous sound? I swear there were male cats who wanted to hump her whenever she laughed.

And of course thinking about her laugh made me think of another laugh. One that I used to live for. There were days when it became my personal mission to make Kelsey laugh, just so I could hear the sweet sound. The downside was my cock always got excited when I heard it. It was both sexy and sweet, even back when she had been only sixteen—back when she’d been too young for me to consider dating (if you ignored the part about Liam being her brother and my best friend). Back when I had believed love was possible for me.