Beauty and the Brooding Boss / Friends to Forever. Nikki Logan

broke the moment, moving away. “Are you always this concerned about other people’s welfare?” he asked, opening the fridge, “or just mine?”

      “Are you always this suspicious of people’s motives? Never mind. Pretend I didn’t ask,” she added as he glanced over his shoulder.

      With the atmosphere less charged, she returned to the task at hand, carefully measuring the beans into the grinder. A flick of a button filled the kitchen with a loud whir.

      “Clearly you have no idea how awful you looked yesterday,” she continued over the noise.

      “I’ve been having migraines my whole life. Last time I checked, I survived them all. Besides, I didn’t ask you to stay.”

      “Silly me, putting your health first.” She turned off the grinder. “Next time I’ll leave you to suffer all by your lonesome.”

      “Thank you.”

      “You’re wel—watch out!”

      Everything happened in slow motion. Alex had moved to her section of the kitchen and was reaching up to retrieve a cup from the cabinet. As he turned toward her, the outer edge of his cast smacked her coffee mug. The faded floral cup wobbled back and forth, then tumbled over the edge. Kelsey reached out to catch it, but moved too late. With a crack, the mug hit the floor and separated into three large pieces.

      “No!” Her stomach churning, Kelsey dropped to her knees. Not her mother’s cup. She blinked, hoping when her eyes opened, the cup would somehow reassemble.

      No such luck.

      Alex’s legs appeared at her side. “I didn’t realize the cup was so close to the edge.”

      “It’s ruined.” She looked up. His face was too blurry for her to read his reaction.

      But she could read his voice. “It’s just a coffee cup.”

      Just a coffee cup? Of course, that’s how he saw it. As just another old piece of kitchenware.

      “I’m sure you can find a replacement—”

      “How? Go back in time?” If she paused a second to think rationally, she’d realize Alex had no idea what the cup represented. How could he know that the last tangible piece of her childhood—her real childhood with her real mother—lay in pieces on his kitchen floor? Moisture burned her eyes. She was going to cry, and she didn’t care.

      “Don’t you understand?” she snapped, swiping at her cheeks. Of course he didn’t understand. Living up here as a hermit, not caring if anyone cared about him or not. Why would he understand losing something precious? “It can’t be replaced. It’s gone. Ruined.” A tear escaped down her cheek. Angrily, she wiped it away. Dropping the pieces on the floor, she stormed from the room before she crashed completely.

      “Kelsey!”

      She ignored him. Nothing Alex could say would make a difference. All she could hear in her head were his words from before. “Just a cup, just a cup.” They echoed with each step on the stairway.

      Once inside the sanctuary of the guest room, she slammed shut the door, pressing her back against it. Just a coffee cup. Alex was right. What was a faded, chipped-up piece of stoneware anyway? So what if she’d carried the stupid thing from foster home to foster home? So what if …

      The floodgates opened as everything hit her at once—her solitude, her past, her grandmother’s crimes. Why didn’t anyone want her? Was she that unlovable?

      Out of answers, she sank to the ground and gave in to self-pity.

      How long she stayed there crying, she wasn’t sure. Thirty minutes. An hour. Eventually she stopped sniffling. What was done was done, she told herself. No amount of wallowing would change anything. There was nothing else to do but pick up the pieces and move on. She done so her entire life; she would do so again.

      Swiping the moisture from her cheeks, she sniffed back the last tear and pushed herself to her feet.

      The house was unusually quiet when she came down the next morning which, given its usual silence, said a lot. Perhaps yesterday’s outburst scared Alex out of hibernation, and he was, at that moment, in town looking for men in white coats to carry her off. A fresh night’s sleep made her realize how disproportionate her reaction must have looked to him. Of all her missteps, this might be the one that finally helped him get rid of her.

      Puddin’ was in his regular spot when she entered the office. She gave the napping cat a quick glance, sat at her desk, and while she waited for the computer to boot, drank coffee from a substitute mug, telling herself the change in flavor was all in her head. As usual, Alex’s writing sucked her in, chasing away other thoughts. She welcomed the distraction, losing herself in today’s words. It wasn’t long before her absorption made her oblivious to anything but the story.

      She didn’t hear the door push open or the footsteps approach the desk. In fact, she didn’t notice a thing until she heard a thump on the wood in front of her. Pulling herself out of her typist’s trance, she looked toward the desk and blinked. There, in the middle of her papers, sat her coffee mug. Chipped and cracked, but whole again nonetheless.

      “I doubt it’ll hold liquid,” Alex said. “But you can put it on a shelf or something.”

      She ran her finger along the rim, feeling the gaps where the pieces were unevenly glued together. If the thing looked like a battered piece of junk before, it looked like a pre-schooler’s craft project now. A lump stuck in Kelsey’s throat. Unable to trust herself with words, she settled for raising her gaze.

      Alex’s face was soft, reminding her of the day before. In the entranceway. “The cup means a lot to you.”

      Throat constricted, she nodded.

      “I thought so. Consider it payback for the migraine.”

      “It was my mother’s,” Kelsey called out. She found her voice as he reached the door. Though he hadn’t asked for an explanation, she wanted to give one. Wanted to explain why she’d reacted so poorly. “She died when I was four. This mug is the only thing I have that belonged to her.”

      Kelsey imagined him wondering what kind of family left a child nothing but a battered coffee cup, but he said nothing. He simply nodded in a way that told her he understood. At least the gratitude filling her insides made her feel like he understood. “Then good thing I had glue.”

      “Yes,” she said, smiling up at him. “A very good thing.”

      CHAPTER FIVE

       STOP being a coward.

      Kelsey stood outside Alex’s bedroom door for five minutes with her hand poised to knock. Much as she didn’t want to, she couldn’t put off this conversation any longer. Mr. Lefkowitz wanted a status report. After days of dodging his e-mail requests, she got a phone call. A very testy phone call. “I hope the reason I haven’t heard from you is because you’re too busy typing,” he said as soon as she answered. That had been the high point of the conversation.

      She knocked.

      Alex’s answer came back deep and distracted. “Yeah?”

      Pushing open the door, she poked her head into the room and saw him seated at his desk near the window. Dozens of crumpled yellow balls littered the floor around his feet. He was working. A good sign. “Sorry to bother you.”

      “But you’re going to anyway. What is it?”

      “Mr. Lefkowitz called. He wants to know how the book was coming.”

      Alex didn’t look up. “I’m sure you filled him in on all the details.”

      “Actually I told him you were making great progress and were almost finished.”

      That got his attention. He turned sideways to look at her. “Did you now? And why would you say something like that?”