But that didn’t absolve him from the racking feeling of guilt and doubt that plagued him.
Comments from Lisa, casting aspersions on his attention level that night, didn’t help.
Speaking of distractions, as he headed for the subway he realized he needed to discard as much of this as possible from his mind, purging the negativity. Seeing Josie for morning coffee meant getting a fresh start at something that should have gone very right, but somehow got derailed.
He didn’t need to question his judgment in yet another arena of his life. What he needed was to get back to living. Not worrying or second-guessing. As the escalator took him down into the dark cave of the T line, Alex’s grit and determination shored up. Josie could blow him off, but she’d have to do it to his face, and with a full awareness of what he felt for her.
Anything less would leave him looping endlessly through his own actions.
And he’d had plenty of that today. No more.
Tap tap tap. Josie’s foot bounced against the thick table leg like a jackhammer on Ritalin. Although she’d already had a two-shot espresso and now nursed a latte, it wasn’t the caffeine that fueled her nervous movement. What a strange situation. Being pursued. Men didn’t do that with her. They didn’t keep trying. Once she decided to weed them out of her life they complied, a mutual agreement that it was over coinciding beautifully with the fact that it was over. Whatever purpose they’d served was over and she just moved on with her life. Done. The end. Fin.
Not Alex. Damn him! Ignoring him had been one of the hardest intentional acts of her life. The texts begged for a reply. His voicemails, with the warm, soothing tones of his voice, made her nearly cry—and nearly start dialing. An act of constant restraint kept her from responding, knowing she was being foolish. Her conversation with Laura yesterday confirmed that.
She was a fool.
Her heart stopped as she caught sight of him a few steps from the front door. Like those scenes in movies where everything suddenly shifts into slow motion, Josie eyed him from head to toe. The button-down oxford business shirt, crisp blue. The black dress pants, probably from a suit. Wingtips that would fit in at any financial institution on State Street. Freshly cut hair and a clean-shaven face. A slightly worried look creasing his brow. Intense brown eyes that seemed impossibly deep.
His arm reached forward to open the door, the curve of his bicep tight against the cloth of his shirt. If the scene had a soundtrack it would be lurid and sensual, sultry and tantalizing.
What the f**k was wrong with her?
Why wasn’t she with him?
Laura was right.
Laura was sooooooooooooooooo right.
Every fiber of her being, nipple to cl*t to brain, strained for him. Their eyes locked. The expected friendly smile and wave didn’t appear. Instead, his eyes narrowed, and he stopped a few steps inside the small coffee shop, hands planted on his hips. The shirt was unbuttoned at the top, a smattering of chest hair poking out. She licked her lips; he was smoking hot in dress clothes, such a departure from his casual look. He could be a CEO or a quant or a tech director. Or, he could be none of those and strip out of the striking outfit and be na**d with her in her bed.
Or on the baseball field.
Heat poured into her core and she shifted, painfully aware of how sensitive she was, how her body ached for him.
And then his eyes stayed riveted to hers as he smiled, a grin so ferocious and predatory she felt the oxygen in the room disappear.
Oh, f**k me now, she nearly begged.
“Josie,” he said simply.
“Alex,” she rasped.
“You got coffee already,” he said, clearly disappointed.
She shrugged. Words were gone. She could grunt in Morse code if forced.
Holding up one finger in a gesture designed to buy him a few moments, he entered the line. This gave her a great view of his ass for precious few seconds. Something about men in business dress had always made her pause and take notice. Maybe it was because so few men in her life had worn anything other than t-shirts and flannels. Perhaps it was the medical world, where scrubs and lab coats were de rigueur.
Or, perhaps, she was just really enamored of a grown-up, hot as f**k Alex standing there, just being.
Being hot.
What was Morse code for “I’ll get the rope while you draw up the contract”?
Drink in hand, he took a seat next to her. Heat emanated from every inch of his body, his posture different today. More powerful. Tense.
Angry?
Not at her, though. She could feel it. There was relief and happiness and attraction. But something she couldn’t put her finger on lingered beneath the surface. Animalistic and fierce, it seemed to have consumed Alex, though he did a good job of hiding it. A subtle shift, but she picked up on it. Finely honed skills in reading people, cultivated from years with an emotionally erratic mother, meant that she constantly scanned the emotional state of the person she was most invested in.
And that was Alex right now.
Whether he still liked it or not.
Having expected irritation or annoyance directed at her for blowing him off, this was a different animal (pun intended) altogether. His eyes were a bit wild and he carried himself with a more aggressive stance, eating the room as if it were his. The laid-back, grounded man she’d met at Laura’s birth was still there, but with an edge.
She liked the edge.
“Thanks for meeting me,” he said, toasting her with a white coffee cup. Laughing, she joined him. Both sipped in silence and she found herself grateful for his persistence. Mornings were the worst lately, the loneliness more acute. Her own stupid—what? Pride? Fear?—had made her clam up and stop responding to him. Alex coming to the research trial with Ed was brilliant. And yet….
“You knew who I was when we first met at Laura’s birth, didn’t you?” she asked, bold and open.
His shocked look told her he wasn’t expecting that. “Yes,” he said simply. “I’d been taking Grandpa to his appointments for a few months and had…” His voice trailed off. Curling one fist, he leaned in, then relaxed his hand. “Had noticed you.”
“Noticed me?”
“That’s code for ‘was too much of a wimp to ask you out.’” He drank half his coffee in one long swallow, the liquid burning his throat, an oddly pleasant juxtaposition against the pain of this awkward verbal groping.
“So instead you nearly f**ked me in the on-call room at my friend’s birth?” Two women chatting next to them stopped, one leaning closer. He watched Josie take a dainty sip of her drink, her head tipped down, eyes looking up at him. Audrey Hepburn. Damn if she didn't look like her doppelganger.