Loved By The Hero (Hero Romance 3) (8 page)

Chapter Six

“Marie, do you have a minute?” Claire was shocked her friend hadn’t tried to meet her at the front door of the building much like her ex-boyfriend had tried.

“Sure, I do,” Marie said as she stood from her desk and hurried to close the door. She was the head of accounting at the news station, which seemed kind of funny considering most wouldn’t think a news station would need an accounting department. “What is it?”

“I got your text but I didn’t get a chance to send you one back because I went out with James last night. I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. I kind of overreacted yesterday and I shouldn’t have been so dramatic,” Claire said as she plopped down on Marie’s desk and stared out over the other side of the building’s view. From this view, she could see the ocean on the horizon.

Marie sat down in her chair and let out her held breath as she did. “I think I kind of babied you and I should have been honest with you. I will, next time. I won’t hide anything like that from you again.” Her sincerity rang true in her words and Claire knew that they had delved into a new level of friendship.

“I know. So, we’re sorry, it’s over, and we can have lattes at lunch?” Claire asked as she stood. “I have so much to tell you about last night!” She’d glaze over the hand down the pants at the restaurant part, and the elevator part, but there were still plenty to discuss.

“I’ll be there,” Marie said with a smile. Claire hummed as she walked back to her office on the other side of the building and got to work. There was a lot of weather data to be monitored and there was some thinking she had to do. By the time lunch rolled around, she was bogged down with papers around her and bleary eyed from looking at the storm data.

“There’s a storm heading up the coast,” she told Marie as they sat down with their lattes in the coffee shop on the third floor of the building. “It looks like James won’t be coming back any time in the next few days. This thing’s huge and it looks like it’s going to get bigger.” Claire could hear the sadness in her tone and tried not to let it show on her face too much.

“You mean it’s a Nor’easter?” Marie asked as her eyebrows shot up. They had weathered a few during their time in New York together, and none of them had been pretty. The gusts could get fairly strong in a Nor’easter that made it up as far as New York City, and the sound of the wind howling through the buildings was eerie.

“Yeah, it’s going to be by the time it gets to us. I feel so bad about poor Denise! It’s her nephew’s birthday on Thursday and they were going to take him to the park. Now I have to tell her this afternoon that there’s no way the poor kid’s going to the park.” She sipped her cold latte and shivered.

“So maybe James will be back in time,” Marie said with a smile to lighten the mood. They were both worried about a hurricane tearing up the coast, but maybe Marie was right.

“I don’t know. He said the meeting was today or tomorrow, but depending on what they say, they may need him there longer. It’s some legal meeting about employee wages.”

“You mean like a union meeting?” Marie tried to clarify.

“I guess so. He didn’t have, uh, much time to tell me.” Claire tried to shrug it off, but her friend was staring her down like a cat that had found a mouse.

“Oh, do tell,” she whispered as she leaned in. Claire found herself blushing and her friend whacked her on the shoulder good-naturedly. “You dog,” she said loud enough to have a few people looking in their direction. Claire blushed as she hushed her friend and leaned in close to tell her what had happened.

“Well, we were in the elevator,” Claire continued with her retell of what happened and she was abashed to see that Marie was actually blushing.

“Wow, I’ve never done that,” she said in awe as she finished her hot latte. “That must have been exciting.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Claire said and stood. The two of them walked in companionable silence to the trash can, and then they looked at each other as they stepped onto the elevator that would take them back to their floor. Marie grinned first and showed her pearly whites, and Claire couldn’t help but giggle as she put her hand up in front of her smile.

“You’re so bad,” Marie said and drew out the word.

Chapter Seven

It had been two days since she’d heard anything from James, and that had been when he’d told her he would call her the night he stood outside of her apartment. Claire moped around her kitchenette as she popped some popcorn and poured herself a glass of wine. It was going to be a fun night whether he called or not.

Her heels clicked on the floor as she took her popcorn into the living room. Then she leaned down and tore them off her feet and threw them up onto the arm of her couch. Claire was just getting comfortable and about to order herself another sappy romantic comedy when her cell phone rang. At first, she figured it was Marie calling to see if they were going to go out that weekend. But then she got a hunch and reached for her phone on the coffee table.

When she saw that it was James, she flipped the answer bar without thinking and put it up to her ear. “Well hello, stranger,” she said into the mouthpiece.

“Hey, yourself,” James responded in a weary voice.

“Uh oh, things didn’t go as planned?” Claire asked as she sat up and put her feet flat on the wooden floor. She flicked off her television and sat in the soft glow of her living room lamp.

“No, not as well as I’d hoped,” he confirmed. Claire listened to him breathing on the other end of the phone and wished she were there to comfort him.

“When are you coming back to New York?” she asked as she popped a piece of popcorn into her mouth and chewed quietly. There was a short silence on the other end of the line before James’ voice came back on.

“I’m already back. I got back about an hour ago,” he told her. She could hear him pacing in his dress shoes and a thought came to mind.

“Then why aren’t you over here with me? I’ll have a cup of tea waiting and some popcorn, although, the popcorn might be a little stale,” she told him jokingly.

“The tea’s fine, and the company,” he told her. “I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.” For New York, that was pretty fast. Claire smiled as she hung up the phone and went about her business of getting together two mugs, two glasses for wine, and some tea bags. She waited until he was about five minutes shy of arriving and boiled the water for the tea. It was an old tradition her family kept when they were upset.

The doorbell rang and she let him in. James grabbed her around the waist and kissed her hard, his hands roaming up her back and bunching in her shirt.

“Hey there, cowboy,” she told him gently as she pulled away from him. “First, you’re going to tell me all about what happened. And then I’ll decide if you need comfort sex,” Claire told him firmly as she led him to the kitchenette. She didn’t want to be his pacifier when he was feeling low. Eric had done that to her, and when he hadn’t seemed satisfied or happy afterward, she’d felt pretty low herself.

James sat down without a word and took a sip of the tea first. He made an appreciate noise and reached for the sugar. When they were both settled, he began to tell her about the union demanding higher wages for the bartenders, which would pull away money for the waitresses. She listened with admiration as he talked about how hard the waitresses and waiters worked at his club, and he didn’t want to undermine their capabilities by telling them they had to take a pay cut if he was going to keep the place open.

“I’m sure you’ll find a way to make them all happy,” Claire told him gently as she reached across the table.

“How do you know that?” James asked as he fiddled with his tea bag. He hadn’t touched his wine and neither had she. The moment seemed to have passed.

“Because you’re a good man,” she said with clarity. She knew then that she meant what she had said. While she hadn’t known him long, his intentions were clear and he wasn’t afraid to tell her what he was thinking. It was refreshing to see someone be so honest with her after she’d been with a man who had kept secrets.

James swallowed once and looked up at her with thanks in his eyes. He didn’t need to say it aloud for her to know that she had helped relieve some of his worries. Claire took his hand and stood. She walked him quietly to the couch where they sat down with a bowl of popcorn and watched the movie she was going to play together. When they laughed and looked at each other at the same moments, she felt like she was finally right where she belonged.

Chapter Eight

Claire woke the next morning to three loud knocks on her front door. At first, she thought James had left during the night or morning to get something and had locked himself out, but that thought left as quickly as it had come when she realized he was still lying in her bed, naked and sated. They had made slow, passionate love the night before and she smiled when she looked at him.

When three more knocks resounded through her apartment, she remembered why she had woken in the first place. It was a Wednesday morning and she wasn’t late for work, yet. She’d been pondering calling off sick for once in her life, but it was too early for someone from her workplace to be checking in on her. Besides, the only person who would do that was Marie, and she had a key. She wasn’t one to be shy about letting herself in.

Part of Claire was thankful it wasn’t her friend, but the other part was a little unnerved at who could be at her door. James mumbled in his sleep as he rolled over and Claire decided not to wake him. It was probably the building manager or John letting her know that was going to be maintenance that day. But they usually left a note.

She pulled herself out of bed and grabbed her robe as she walked past her bedroom door. Claire stifled a yawn as she opened up her door that was rudely interrupted when she realized who was standing in front of her. His dark skin was a little paler than usual, which told her he’d been drinking, and his normally blue eyes were cloudy with his hangover. “Eric,” she said just as she heard James walking around the corner of her hall.

He stopped short when she said the name and his lips twitched as if he were about to snarl. Eric’s gaze narrowed, too, and Claire felt she was stuck between two lions about to fight over a prized gazelle. She closed the door in Eric’s face before he could get his bearings and flicked the deadbolt. James handed her cell phone to her before she had to ask.

“Do you-”

“No,” she told him firmly as she dialed her apartment complex’s security line. Claire spoke with a man on the phone and waited patiently as she listened at the door. James stood with his arms crossed and looked like he might go take care of the problem himself when the two of them finally heard Eric trying to explain what he was doing standing outside of her apartment door.

Claire breathed a sigh of relief when there was a single, brisk knock. “It’s John,” her doorman called out.

James gently put his hand on her shoulder and pulled her back. He’d managed to pull on his slacks before he’d come out to see what the commotion was about, but it was still obvious he had spent the night. He opened the door and spoke with John briefly about not letting Eric back into the building, and then he thanked the man for his time and politely closed the door.

“Are you okay?” Claire hadn’t realized she was gnawing on her bottom lip until he asked.

“I’m fine. I just don’t get why he can’t let it go. It’s pretty obvious I don’t want to talk to him, but he keeps showing up at my work and now he’s coming here.” Eric had never seemed like the crazy type, but he had been a little jealous.

“Do you think he’ll do something irrational?” James asked her as he wrapped his arms around her.

“No, I don’t know. I don’t think so,” she finally amended as she snuggled into James’ chest. She didn’t want to think about what might have happened if he hadn’t come around the corner. What had Eric been doing there, and why couldn’t he just leave her alone?

By the time the two of them were eating a late brunch together, Claire had managed to call her boss to let him know she wasn’t coming in, and she’d put Eric’s antics to the side. She’d deal with him on another day. That day, she was going to spend her time in the last rays of autumn sunshine. Then she had a date with a man at his club around seven, where the two of them would wine and dine alone.

“Claire?” James asked as he sat down with another cup of coffee in his hands. She must have been daydreaming and staring at her latte too long.

“Sorry, just thinking about tonight,” she said with a flush in her cheeks.

THE END