Apparently Friday night did not sit well with him after all. Not exactly a shocker after he’d practically run out of here, but still a disappointment. He’d said he needed time to wrap his head around their new closeness, and she could give him that, but the one text message since, to see how her ankle was, was short and not really sweet. Cordial but distant. There was no hint of the connection they’d shared Friday night, and her instincts told her he was doing his best to sever that connection, not wrap his head around it.

Her shoulders sagged at the physical twinge of disappointment deep in her chest.

She’d meant what she’d told him Friday. She’d decided, after her talk with Hayden, to put her doubts about their work positions to rest.

The truth was that she couldn’t get Cole out of her mind. She wanted to know him better, wanted to have him in her life after work hours, wanted to be a part of his. After his revelations Friday, she understood him so much better. Knowing some of what he’d been through only made her care more. And her need for him physically…

All it had taken was one evening out of their usual environment—the night of Kennedy’s wedding. One evening of her looking past his work façade to see the real Cole, or at least the parts he’d allowed her to see. It was as if she’d had blinders on to the chemistry between them, and once she’d lowered them, shared that intense, charged moment with him in her kitchen that night, the attraction had flooded in, making it impossible for her to go back to seeing him only as the tight-lipped man she worked with. In just over a week, she’d gone from zero to lying in bed at night longing for him.

But it seemed maybe it wasn’t as two-sided as she’d imagined on Friday. That or maybe Cole was just that reluctant to let anyone in.

Work could be interesting tomorrow. Interesting or frustrating or, most likely, awkward.

She’d left the balcony door ajar and now a knock at the apartment door startled her. She shoved the blanket aside, grabbed the computer, and went inside, limping only slightly after having iced and babied her ankle all weekend, to the mostly dark living room, illuminated by the faint light over the stove in the kitchen.

As she set the laptop on the chaise cushion, another knock sounded, louder, firmer, and, her heart hammering because it was late on a Sunday and that knock sounded like it meant business, she went to the peephole and looked out. What she saw didn’t calm her heart for a second.

Cole stood there with one forearm braced on the doorjamb, his head bowed as if he was studying the floor of the hallway. Sierra whipped the door open.