Captivated: Letting Go / Seize the Night

Still, although they’d kept the condo and shared responsibilities for it, somehow it had become Colleen’s job to oversee them and Steve’s to criticize. Not that she was surprised. Despite Steve’s constant protests to the contrary, it had been that way throughout their marriage.

She didn’t have time for him today. Work was kicking her ass. It was her job to keep everything running smoothly and act as a liaison between the small mom-and-pop operation being consumed by the company she worked for, QuidProQuotient. Usually Colleen enjoyed working with smaller companies, helping them to make the transitions. Despite how ravenous QPQ had become over the past few years, Colleen believed in the company’s mission statement.

Enfold, embrace and embark on new adventures.

There wasn’t much embracing going on right now. Matt Lolly, the former owner and president of Lolly and Pop Computers, had agreed to sell his family business more than six months ago, but had not yet let go of the reins.

She thought about the conversation they’d had earlier that day since Mr. Lolly was...malingering. “I understand,” Colleen murmured, keeping her voice and expression neutral. “But believe me, Mr. Lolly, you are going to be leaving your grandchildren a legacy. Perhaps not the actual shop itself, but with the money you’ll be able to put aside for them...”

“I started that shop with my own dad, and then worked in it with my sons.” Mr. Lolly gave her a fierce look. “Money can’t replace any of that.”

Since he’d sold the company because both his sons had gone to find other jobs, and none of the grandchildren seemed interested in taking it over, his rationale wasn’t quite on point. But Colleen knew what he meant. She’d spent a lot of hours with her own dad in his workshop. Money could never buy back those hours.

“Mr. Lolly, I understand your reluctance.”

He gave her a stern stare. “I don’t think you really do. You’re going to buy my shop and turn it into some kind of fast-food restaurant type of place. My customers expect a certain level of service—”

“Your customers,” Colleen interjected, “are all buying their computers online or down at the Apple store, and taking them there to be fixed.”

Silence.

Mr. Lolly cleared his throat. Colleen expected to feel bad about the way she’d snapped, but the fact was, she’d been working with this guy for months, and he was still fighting her every inch of the way. She understood his reasons. She’d done her share of not letting go of things that no longer served her. But she no longer cared.

“You’ve signed a contract,” she told him. “You’ve been paid all but the final amount. Mr. Lolly, it’s time you signed off on the rest of the agreement. Okay? I have a check right here for the final payment. You could go on a nice, long vacation. Or put this money into a retirement fund. Or send your grandkids to college. But if you don’t sign, I’m going to have to declare this agreement void, and you’ll have to pay us back what you’ve already accepted.”

He looked startled at that. “But I’ve—”

“Sign off,” she told him gently and handed him a pen. All QPQ needed was his final signature releasing QPQ to take over the daily operations, including the hiring and firing of the current employees.

“You said they’d keep their jobs,” he said finally. “It’s just the two of them.”

“Or that they’d get a nice severance. And they will.” Her company actually had no desire to keep Lolly and Pop Computers in business. She’d been instructed to buy out the company for its inventory and real estate, a prime location on the main street of a small town. What QPQ’s owner decided to do with all of that, Colleen didn’t know. Also didn’t care.

Mr. Lolly sighed. Then sighed again. He hung his head, but if he thought puppy eyes were going to gain him any sympathy from her... Colleen put on a smile. She pushed the pen across the desk to him.

“Please sign, Mr. Lolly.”

He did, but with a resentful look she took as an affront, even though she didn’t react to it. At the doorway, the check still clutched in his hand, he turned to her. “It just seems like a very cold way to do business, that’s all.”

He didn’t give her time to respond, and even if he had, what might she have said? Colleen wasn’t the one who’d pursued the sale or even closed the deal. It was her job to see difficult acquisitions through to the end, that was all. And she was good at it. Over the years, she’d sold her soul to the devil for the ability to support herself.

With the plunging temperatures outside and bad weather in the forecast, all she really wanted to do tonight was put the day behind her, take a hot bath, get into a bed made up with fresh sheets and go to sleep. Her sleep last night had been interrupted again by bad dreams about losing her dad. About waking up in bed next to Steve, their divorce being the dream instead.

But it was Thursday, she reminded herself as she poured another cup of coffee from the office communal pot. Thursday meant The Fallen Angel and her ritual.

“Colleen.” It was Mark, looking dapper as usual in a three-piece suit complete with pocket watch. “You took care of Lolly?”

She nodded. “Yes. He signed, took the check. I passed everything along to Jonas.”

Jonas would take care of the final settlement with the Lolly and Pop Computers employees.

Mark grinned and poured himself a cup of coffee. Then he made a face.

“This is swill!”

Colleen laughed. “Um, well, yes. I tried to tell you not to buy the coffee service company. You didn’t listen.”

“I can be a fool.” Mark pulled a sad face so exaggerated that she laughed again.

He narrowed his eyes, looking her over, up and down. “Turn around.”

“No...”

“Colleen, turn around.”

“I’m going to sue you for sexual harassment,” she muttered, but did a slow twirl.

Mark huffed. “Go ahead. That skirt doesn’t suit you at all. Why do you insist on covering up your legs? They’re gorgeous. And those shoes, my God. A nun would think they’re dowdy.”

“I like these shoes.” Colleen looked down at her outfit. She had a few pairs of heels she wore to the office, but today, with the bad weather alert, she’d gone with a serviceable pair of loafers paired with thick tights and a long wool skirt. “Anyway, this is warm.”

“But it’s so not hot.” Mark shook his head. “I should fire you.”

She looked up, startled, to see if he was joking. “You wouldn’t!”

“I like pretty things. This makes me sad.” He waved a hand at her ensemble with a serious look.

She wouldn’t put it past him to fire her for her fashion faux pas. He was just unstable—and rich—enough not to care if there were repercussions. Colleen lifted her chin. “Too bad. I’m not here to look good. I’m here to do my job.”

She paused. Both of them stared each other down.

“Besides,” she added, “you act like I come in here every day looking frowsy. And that, I know for a fact, is not true.”

Mark smiled and tipped his head back in laughter loud enough to make Jonas and Patty both peek over their cubicles to see what was going on. He spilled some coffee on the floor in his delight, which made him put his mug on the counter. He pointed at the coffee station.

“Get someone to take care of this. This is disgusting. And you,” he said to Colleen, “leave early today. Get that abomination out of my office before it makes me puke.”

“I have work to finish,” she said mildly, but Mark cut her off with a furious hand gesture and a scowl.

“Out!” He said. “As a matter of fact, everyone, out! Go home early today. It’s going to be wretched out later. And take tomorrow off, too. I don’t want to see any of you until Monday.”

“We’ll still get paid, right?” Patty popped her head up again. She was already pulling on her coat.

“Maybe.” Mark had turned, heading for his office.

Jonas coughed. “You have to, Mark. It’s in our contracts. We get paid when you close the office.”

“Fine, fine, fine.” Mark didn’t look over his shoulder, just disappeared into his office and closed the door.

Jonas, Patty and Colleen shared a look. Of the three of them, Colleen had known Mark the longest. Her relationship with him was the most complicated because of their history, but that didn’t mean she liked him any better than anyone else did. Colleen was grateful to Mark. She always would be. But he wasn’t easy to deal with on any level.

“He’s such a pain in the ass,” Jonas said, clearly agitated.

Mark’s office door opened. “I heard that. I should fire you.”

Jonas slowly, slowly, slowly raised his middle finger. Patty let out a muffled giggle. Mark slammed the door.

“He can’t fire me, ever,” Jonas said. “I added it to my contract, and he signed it, that crazy jackoff.”

It was not the best of office environments, but then it was also never boring.

Back in her office, Colleen quickly checked her appointment calendar, made a few calls to rearrange some things due to the “weather-related office closing” and shut down her computer. Getting out of work unexpectedly early was the equivalent of a snow day in elementary school, and she intended to make the most of it.

She’d been to the market earlier in the week, but made another trip now to stock up on milk, bread, eggs, toilet paper and chocolate, the staples for any snow day. She added some tortilla chips and salsa, a few gossip magazines and, on impulse, a bottle of bath oil some clever stock person had featured near the romance novels and a display of funky battery-lit candles with lights that flickered. She bought some of those, too.

It was lucky Mark had let them go early, because by the time she’d finished her shopping, the store had been nearly emptied of the same kinds of things she was buying. Two women almost got in a fistfight over toilet paper. And outside, the first white, fluffy flakes had begun falling.

In the ten-minute drive back to her apartment, the snow had become thick enough to make it hard for her to see, even with the windshield wipers going nonstop. Colleen pulled into her parking spot, not looking forward to having to dig herself out and do the parking-space shuffle. Last year, two of her neighbors had nearly come to blows over a space. Life in the city, she thought, remembering the heated driveway and three-car garage she’d given up when she left Steve.

Even if she had to shovel herself out from under three feet of snow and defend her spot in hand-to-hand combat, it was worth it.

The snow had made darkness fall even earlier than usual for January, and by three-thirty Colleen had turned on all the lights in her living room. She’d started a Crock-Pot of chili simmering for tomorrow, with some baked mac ‘n’ cheese for tonight’s dinner. Comfort food, perfect for winter weather. She’d put on some soft music and pulled out a book to read, wondering if it was too early to get in the bath. If she waited a while longer, she could go to sleep right after. She could watch a movie in bed. She could stay up late playing games on her phone. She could eat whatever she wanted, sleep however she wanted, wear whatever she wanted.

Do whatever she wanted.

And as always, even four years later, this freedom sent her spinning in dizzy, delightful circles in her living room until everything slipped sideways and she had to sit down, hard, to keep herself from falling.

Colleen clapped her hands to her face to hold back the laughing sobs that tore at her throat and made her stomach sick. Nothing came without a price, especially freedom. She could do what she wanted because she’d sacrificed a lot to have it.

It was still Thursday, but the weather outside made anything but an emergency too much to deal with. And it wasn’t an emergency, was it? To sit at the bar and order that drink the way she did every week? Nothing bad would happen if she didn’t do it. And maybe, Colleen told herself, it was time to stop going at all.

And then her phone rang.

Chapter Three

“When I was a kid, you had to listen to the radio station at five in the morning to figure out if school was canceled.” Jesse held his phone up to John’s bored face. “Now they text you the night before. So, hey, at least I don’t have to get up early.”

John tossed a towel over one shoulder and leaned over the bar to look out the front windows as best he could. “We should close early. Nobody’s gonna come out in this mess, and anyone who’s here should be getting home, anyway. Hell, I want to get home. It’s nasty out there.”

All the storm watch warnings had been right on target for once. The flurries had started that afternoon and grew increasingly heavier as the day passed. The weather forecast was calling for six to eight inches of snow by 2:00 a.m., which was normally when Jesse was closing up and heading home. But John was right—the weather was bad enough that if they could shuffle out the three people gathered around the table in the front, it would make sense to close up early.

As it turned out, the trio was finishing their drinks and signaling for the check even as John started running the register receipts and getting the few glasses that had come out of the kitchen back on the shelf. He told the small kitchen staff to pack up and head out, then turned to Jesse.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Just as Jesse was getting ready to agree, the bell over the door jingled, and in she came. Colleen, the Thursday night special with the sad eyes and love of onion rings. He’d been certain she wasn’t coming tonight and telling himself that he didn’t care. But here she was, stamping her feet and brushing the snow off the shoulders of her heavy black coat. White flakes covered her light blond hair. In the few seconds before they melted, they looked like a circlet of flowers.

“We’re—” John started.

“I got her,” Jesse said, already pouring the glass of whiskey, neat, and sliding it into the spot she always took.

“You’ll close up?” John asked.

Jesse barely gave him a glance. “Yeah. I’ll take care of it. Lock up the back, okay?”

“Got it.” John clapped him on the shoulder, gave Colleen a nod as he passed, and then...

They were alone in the bar.

“Nice night.” Jesse twisted a wedge of lime into the glass of seltzer and put that in front of her, too. He’d meant it as a joke, but Colleen gave him a blank stare. No smile.

“Yeah, it’s great. Thanks.” She pulled the glass of seltzer closer, but didn’t take a drink. She looked at the whiskey, and her mouth twisted.

Something was wrong. She was always quiet, but polite, and though he’d seen her give more than one hopeful douche bag the cold shoulder, she’d always been nice to Jesse. Well, until last week, when he’d somehow pissed her off. He hadn’t meant to, had felt terrible about it. She’d seemed okay to him in the market, though. It didn’t seem like she was holding a grudge. No, something else had closed off her face like a mask.

She’d been crying.

It didn’t take a genius to see the faint streaks of mascara smudged under those beautiful gray eyes or the shadows beneath them. Those sad eyes. He’d always been a sucker for the girls who cried.

“Can I get you something else?” he asked carefully, too aware of how last Thursday he’d pushed the onion rings and mousse on her, thinking he knew what she wanted when he obviously didn’t. “The kitchen’s closed, but I can do a few things back there. If you want.”

“Closed?” She blinked slowly. Understanding dawned. She flinched, looking around. “Oh. Shit. Oh, yeah, you’re closed? I didn’t think about it, the weather. It’s so bad. I’ll just go. I’ll go now.”

But she didn’t go. She sat motionless, frozen, one hand on the seltzer glass and the other on the edge of her stool, as though she needed to push herself off it to get moving. A rivulet of icy water trickled from the melting snow in her hair, down her temple and over her cheek like a tear.

She looked at him then, though it was clear she didn’t really see him. She shook her head, that gorgeous hair falling over her shoulders and half covering her face. It was the first time he’d seen it worn down, and he wanted to fist his hands in it. Tip her head back. Find her mouth with his.

Jesse had known he had a crush on her, but this was getting out of hand.

“I should go,” she said again. And then, incredibly, she did something she’d never done before in all the months he’d been working Thursday nights. She picked up the glass of whiskey, and she drank it. She wiped her mouth with slightly shaking fingers. “I should go.”

“No,” Jesse told her. “Stay.”

* * *

Uptight, controlling bitch.

The words echoed in Colleen’s head, over and over. Steve’s words. She’d heard them a thousand times before and had convinced herself they no longer stung. That he could no longer control her, no longer hurt her. Somehow, that self-delusion had made it worse.

You can’t make it without me, can’t make a decision, can’t take care of anything, without me. I have to do it all for you, Colleen. You need me.

You need me.

Colleen swallowed against the smoky flare of the whiskey. It had gone down a little rough, but now warmth spread through her. She looked at Jesse. “Stay?”

“What else are you going to do? Go out into the cold? Not just yet,” he told her with that smile, that damn smile she’d been trying to ignore all these nights when she came in to prove a point to herself.

A point she’d failed to make tonight. Or maybe it was the opposite. Maybe tonight was the first time anything she’d done had made sense.

She didn’t need Steve, and hadn’t for a long time. She never would again. She wouldn’t need anyone again, she thought, finally looking at Jesse. Really looking at him, that smile, that earnest look. No more need, she told herself.

But she could want.

Colleen let her tongue dent her lower lip, where the whiskey flavor still lingered. It was not her imagination, was it, that Jesse watched her do it? Or that something in his gaze flared? Embers that had been banked so long inside her she’d have sworn they’d gone cold kindled at the sight of his look.

“You don’t have to get home?” she asked him, pausing. Thinking. “Your kid?”

“She’s with her mother. School’s canceled tomorrow. So’s her mom’s work. They’re all set.” He put both hands on the counter and leaned a little closer with a head tilt that made everything inside her tumble and twist. “Can I get you another drink?”

The one she’d had was already softening the edges of everything. How long had it been since she’d had liquor? “Four years. Eleven months.”

“Hmm?”

She looked at him. “The last time I had a drink was the night I finally decided to leave my husband. He goaded me into it. Both the drink and the leaving.”

“What about tonight?” Jesse asked quietly.

“That,” she said, “was him, too.”

Without a word, Jesse pulled out a squat glass and poured a shot of Jameson into it, then another into her empty glass. He lifted his.

After a moment, she did, too.

It went down smoother this time. And somehow sweeter. Colleen shivered, not from the alcohol’s burn but at the way Jesse was looking at her.

“He used to tell me all the time that I needed to loosen up. Lighten up. That I didn’t know how to have a good time. That because I liked things a certain...way...” She paused, swallowing, not sure why she was telling him this. Only that she needed to tell someone. “He said I was a pain in the ass to live with. No fun. I was a boring, nagging bitch who had to control everything, but that I was incapable of doing anything on my own. He made me feel constantly incompetent. Oh. And, according to him, I was frigid, too.”

Jesse coughed lightly.

Colleen laughed. Low at first, then louder, letting her head fall back. The sound was harsh, very little humor in it. She closed her eyes for a second, memories unfurling like a ribbon inside her head, before she opened them to focus on Jesse.

“I’m not,” she said. “I just didn’t like fucking him.”

It was Jesse’s turn to laugh, the sound sweet as honey and just as thick. He leaned on the bar, hands shoulder-width apart. Fingers slightly spread. “He sounds like an asshole.”

“He was.” She licked her lips, watching again as his eyes followed the movement of her tongue. His gaze warmed her more than the booze had; Jesse looked at her as though he wanted to eat her up.

It had been a long time since a man had given her that stare. No, that wasn’t true. It had been a long time since she’d paid attention to a man giving her that look and wanted to return it. Colleen let her fingertips trace a circle of damp left behind on the bar by her now empty glass. She glanced out the front plate-glass windows to the cobblestone street outside. A few people walked past, laughing and tossing snow at each other. Night had fallen, hard and dark and deep.

“It’s still snowing,” she murmured.

“Good thing we don’t have any place to go, huh?”

“Why did you let me stay, Jesse?”

His smile faded for a moment, just long enough for him to blink. Then he leaned a little closer. “Because...I thought you needed to.”

She remembered him giving her the chocolate mousse, and how it had rubbed her the wrong way. Yet he’d done so many things for her over the past few months since he’d started here at The Fallen Angel. He’d come to know her preferences so easily and had made it so easy for her to come back, week after week.

“I told you how I feel about people assuming they know what I need.”

He nodded and turned to press a button on the small remote that controlled the pub’s sound system. In seconds the slow, distinctive beat of “Cry to Me” filtered through the speakers. It had been one of her favorites for years, first as a cut on a vinyl album she’d found as a teenager scouring thrift stores and then later, as an adult, an iTunes track. How had he known?

Like the whiskey and onion rings and mousse and everything else, Colleen thought, he just had.

Chapter Four

Jesse moved before he could second-guess himself. He went around the bar, one hand out. He didn’t ask her to dance. He waited for her to take his hand.

She waited long enough that he was certain she wasn’t going to, but then her fingers eased into his and squeezed. Colleen slipped off the stool, a little unsteady but catching herself so that she didn’t stumble. She was in his arms half a minute after that, the two of them pressed close on the splintery wooden floor that wasn’t really meant for dancing. On one of The Fallen Angel’s good nights, when the crowds of Fell’s Point filled this bar cheek to cheek and hip to hip, there would have been no been room for them to do this, but now he spun her out slowly and back in again to dip her.

She laughed as he pulled her up, and damn, that smile, that gorgeous chuckle, made him understand why men had claimed they’d die for their lady loves. Everything about this woman made him want to make her happy. Keep her safe. When she allowed him to pull her in close again, he took a long, deep breath against the fall of her pale hair.

She shivered, tensing, but he kept his grip steady so she didn’t pull away. He’d have let her go, of course. He wasn’t grabbing her. Wouldn’t force himself on her. But in another second she relaxed against him, her face in the curve of his shoulder. And yes, oh, shit, yes, her hand cupping the back of his neck.

They danced.

Someone had been messing with the controls for the sound system, and when the song ended, there were two beats of silence before the same one started again. He waited for her to pull away from him, but she didn’t. They moved to that old song as though it was the first time they’d ever heard it, and Jesse let himself get lost in the heat of her body. The scent of her. The smoothness of her cheek against his.

She murmured something under her breath as the song came to an end for the second time, but he couldn’t catch what she said. He paused, not wanting to ruin the mood. “Hmm?”