Page 31 of I Choose You (Wilder #2)

Claire

My morning meditation wasn’t doing its job. It was supposed to help me clear my mind. Find peace and serenity in the everyday. Instead, I felt antsy and uncomfortable.

Ever since Reid left last night, I had a sense of restlessness.

Yesterday, when he called me out for pretending, I wanted to be incensed, but he was right. I thought I had been doing a good job of keeping my practiced positive mask in place, but he saw through it. He saw me, the real me, when no one else ever had.

I had been honest with him though. It wasn’t smart to start something. If things went south, we would need to figure out a way to work with each other every day for the next few months. If things went well, it would end anyway when I packed up and left.

Just thinking about leaving made me want to crawl into a hole.

We weren’t even halfway through the construction. We could have months together, enjoying each other like we did last night .

But then what?

Would he come to the DeLuca family dinner, sit around the table talking politics and news with my dad? Hardly.

I moved into my morning yoga routine, giving up the meditation for today.

My limbs were loose and ready to be stretched, reminding me of how relaxed Reid had made me feel.

My body heated as the memory of his warm, hard body pressed against me played in my head.

Being with Reid had been so carefree and easy.

We found our rhythm like we had been together forever.

He played my body like he knew its every secret.

Ugh. That boy had moved into my brain. He took up residence and refused to concede an inch of space for thinking about anything else. Well, not boy. He was young, but he was certainly all man.

I shook out my limbs, finishing my yoga routine. I was hot and sweaty, and it wasn’t just because of yoga.

I needed to get to work finding a new lighting manufacturer. I needed to talk to Andrew to give him a heads-up on the latest development—and hope and pray that he wouldn’t hold it against me. And I needed to see Reid. Make sure we were still good.

The whole reason I had said no to starting something was to make sure we stayed friends. Would it have been wiser to do that before we slept together… obviously. But too late for that. And I couldn’t bring myself to regret it.

The library was a cacophony of noise when I showed up.

The weather had turned frigid, a cold snap settling in for a few days making sure that Reid and his team stayed indoors.

They had taken over a couple of rooms near my office for their woodworking tasks.

Dale and Shawn were still working their way through the doors while Reid and Richie had set up the furniture restoration workshop in the other room.

“Good morning, beautiful,” Reid said, coming out of the workroom and making his way to me. I shot him a warning glare before darting my eyes around the room to see if anyone else could hear us. The sounds of hammering and sanding drowned us out.

“Shh. What are you doing?”

Reid reached behind him, grabbing his sweatshirt and dragging it over his head. A peek of his abs was visible, along with those sexy iliac furrows he had, and I couldn’t pull my eyes away from them.

“Are you embarrassed by me?” he asked. “Because it doesn’t look like it.” I could hear the cockiness in his voice before I even looked up. Although, in fairness, he had just caught me staring at his body like I was studying it for an exam.

“I’m not embarrassed, but I don’t want to announce it either. Especially since it’s not happening again.”

“That’s right.” He nodded like that conversation had escaped his memory. “You did say something ridiculous like that last night, didn’t you? It’s okay, we all say things we don’t mean sometimes.”

“I do mean it. It’s not happening again.”

“What’s not happening again?” Shawn was standing behind Reid. I hadn’t even seen him walk up, my eyes solely focused as they were on Reid.

Reid’s smile lit up his face, and he turned to Shawn. “Claire can’t admit when she’s wrong. But that’s okay. She’ll figure it out on her own.”

“Speaking of on my own, do you need something? Because if not, I need to get started on researching a new light supplier.”

“Check your email, love. I’ve got it covered already,” Reid smirked, his eyes sparkling as he started to walk away.

Shawn popped his head into my office. “You look really nice today, Claire. Did you do something different?”

Reid barked out a laugh, then yelled to Shawn, “Let’s go. We got work to do.” But his voice didn’t hold the same anger it did when I’d arrived a few months ago.

As soon as they left, I put my head down on my desk.

This was going to be so much harder than I thought, working with him every day looking like sin and knowing how well we fit together.

I fired up my laptop, immediately opening the mail app and finding the one from Reid.

He had copied me on an email chain, requesting I send in the specifications and designs for the chandeliers to Davis Ironworks and Manufacturing.

I searched through my files, and sure enough, I had his name added to my list of potential suppliers from my original research.

I even had his name starred as my first choice.

Andrew had overridden my decision in favor of Albert Baudelaire.

I emailed back the requested documents, deciding that I wasn’t going to mention it to Andrew unless it became a problem.

I put my music on, turning the volume up to drown out the sounds of construction, and got to work. The carpet for the main room was supposed to be in any day now, and we still needed to get a mason in to fix the fireplace and chimney.

Reid passed by my door all day. He never once looked in.

I knew that for a fact because I tracked him on every pass.

My eyes were drawn to him like a moth to a flame.

By mid-morning, not only was his sweatshirt gone from earlier, but his shirt had disappeared too.

His chest was made of stone and glistening with sweat.

Images of me licking up his pec flashed in my mind, and I had to put my hand to my neck to try to cool down.

Reid ordered pizza for lunch for everyone.

It wasn’t Millie’s pizza, which was too bad, but it was still pretty decent.

He set up a makeshift table between two sawhorses, and everyone gathered round to eat.

Reid’s hands landed on my hips from behind me while I was making my plate.

I had to stop myself from gasping at his touch, the heat of his fingers lighting me up, even through my sweater.

“Excuse me,” he said, moving me aside slightly so he could reach over me for a different pizza. My ass grazed his hips, and his fingers tightened their hold for just a second. He dropped his hands and kept moving along, making his plate.

It shouldn’t surprise me that he knew exactly how to get under my skin. He seemed to know every way to play me, in every sense.

I wanted to be mad about it. I wanted to not be affected by him at all, actually.

But I was, damn it.

* * *

The morning sun was low in the sky, the soft rays of light reflecting off the dusting of snow that clung to the grass. I pulled up to Flour Power Café to pick up the usual round of coffee for me and the crew when my phone rang out over my Bluetooth .

“Hey, Mom,” I answered with fake cheer. It had been months since the wedding blowup, and we had still never talked about it.

Pretend, pretend, pretend. It was becoming harder to keep my mask in place—or maybe I just didn’t want to anymore—but it was so ingrained in my nature I didn’t know how to stop.

“Your father needs you to come to the Levitskayas’ fundraiser tomorrow night. It’s black-tie, so dress appropriately.”

“What? I can’t be there tomorrow night. I’m in Calla Bay… working.”

“So, because you have a job, you can’t make time for your family? Is your work so demanding that you can’t take a couple of days off to see your only relatives?”

“Why would I need a couple of days for a one-night event? You know what, it doesn’t matter. I can’t make it.”

“Really, have I not been a good role model for you? Putting family first, sacrificing a career of my own for the good of my family.”

“You missed both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year,” I reminded her.

“Our vacation to St. Croix was booked well in advance. And did you really expect your father and I to pass up an opportunity to dine with a Supreme Court judge?”

“It’s fine, Mom. But I can’t make it back there for tomorrow night. Please give Dad my apologies.”

“This will be so much easier when you’re back home. How much longer do you need to stay in that little town anyway? Shouldn’t you be done by now?”

“I still have three to four months here.” And already, that didn’t seem long enough. “It’s a huge project. You should come see it when it’s finished.

“Just send me a picture, dear. Along with one of your dress for tomorrow.”

“Mom,” I warned.

“Fine, if that’s really what you want,” she sighed. “But just remember that you don’t need to live like this, having to choose between work and family. You know Will can give you a good life…”

“Have a good day, Mom,” I interrupted her before her lecture could go on any longer, disconnecting the call to try to save my sanity.

The icy wind whipped through my hair in the short stretch between my car and the café. The door slammed shut behind me, catching the attention of the barista.

“Morning, Claire,” she called. Her long brown hair was pulled into her usual ponytail, her makeup artfully applied, and her nails done up.

“Morning, Kayleigh.” I smiled. It wasn’t being fake; it was being pleasant. It wasn’t like it was her fault that my mother refused to listen to me, forcing us to have the same conversation over and over again. “The usual, please and thank you.”