Sweet in Love Read Free Page A

most notorious workaholic. He’d recently cut back, but that meant everyone else at his firm worked longer hours.
    “Don’t worry. I can leave when I clear my to-do’s.”
    “Well…okay. Where are you taking me?”
    “On a life-long journey of excitement and romance, if you’ll let me. Oh, you mean tomorrow? La Mer.” And he smiled and walked away, his gait loose-hipped and relaxed.
    She wished she could be that casual. But she was too wound up to do anything but lean against the door and pull herself together before slowly making her way to the ninth floor, where her apartment was.
    * * *
     
    The next afternoon, Brooke sat next to Amandine in the master bedroom suite of the gigantic mansion her best friend called home.
    Brooke took off her sandals and tucked her feet under her butt. Amandine was on the bed, surrounded by interior decorating magazines, browsing flooring quotes on her slim tablet. She was showing now, and given how she’d fainted once during the first trimester, she basically stayed home except for some moderate exercise and dining out once or twice a week. That meant Brooke had even fewer things to do, since Amandine’s social calendar, which she managed, was far less full. Being married to a man as successful as Gavin Lloyd meant being kept busy—well, normally—with fundraisers for charities and foundations.
    Why couldn’t Amandine just have a healthy and uneventful pregnancy? It would’ve relieved Brooke’s mind, and having her normal duties would have kept her too busy to think about Pete and what had happened the night before.
    She’d sternly ordered herself not to think about it, but to no avail. Her perverse mind kept flashing images of them doing it in her apartment, like Mrs. Nesbitt had suggested. She and Pete on her bed, bodies flush against each other; she bent over the back of her couch, Pete’s hands on her hips, thrusting into her from be—
    “Hel-looo?” A hand waved in her vision. “Are you even listening?”
    “Huh?”
    Amandine frowned. “You okay?”
    “Yeah.”
    “It’s not like you to space out like that. And you look a little flushed.”
    “Sorry. Just, um, some insomnia last night.”
    “You?”
    “It happens.”
Impossible to get a good night’s sleep when my mind keeps playing porn featuring me and your brother
.
    “You want to take the afternoon off? Maybe catch a nap?”
    “I’m all right.”
    “Well, I’m going to have one. You know I need my rest these days.”
    True. Amandine had been sleeping a lot since her pregnancy.
    “C’mon, we can nap together. It’ll help you feel better too.”
    Not a bad idea. Besides, she had no idea how late Pete planned to keep her up on their date at La Mer. Or how late she wanted him to keep her up. “Okay. If you’re sure.”
    “I am.” Amandine smiled and stretched again. “God, I’m really starting to show.”
    “You look great.”
    It didn’t matter Amandine looked like she’d swallowed half a watermelon. She glowed, not just from pregnancy but with the assurance of a woman who knew she was loved unconditionally. She had everything she wanted: a loving husband and a successful brother and a great set of in-laws who adored her. What Brooke had was something a lot simpler—a job she generally enjoyed and friends and family who loved her—but just as satisfying. It’d mess everything up if she gave into Pete’s offer and dated him. She wasn’t sure if he wanted to date casually, the way she preferred. Guys didn’t wait eight years for a casual date.
    And when things ended—like they always, inevitably did—there’d be an ugly, awkward mess to deal with.

Chapter Three
     
    PETE’S OFFICE WAS just like any other at the firm: ten by ten with a couple of windows. But that was where the similarity stopped. Everyone else had decorated theirs with the discretionary budget they’d received upon joining the firm. Shelves and bookcases holding cheaply framed photos of friends and family were de