Trisha snickered before sauntering into his office, a tiny smile playing around her matte red lips. One hand on her scandalously curvy hip, she gestured to the offending paper pile.
"The board expects your John Hancock on all these dead trees, so I hope nineteen ninety sent pens."
Walsh grinned, shaking his head before obediently plowing through the documents requiring his signature.
"Do we still have coffee around here?" He tried to keep a straight face while he growled, but it hadn't taken Trish long to figure out he wasn't the slave driver everyone expected Martin Bennett's son to be.
"Would you like coffee, Walsh?" Voice saccharine sweet, Trish arched her brows at him, one of the little tricks she used to remind him that he might be the boss, but she wasn't his lackey.
"Why, yes, Trish. Now that you mention it, a cup of coffee would be delightful."
"Make him fetch it himself."
Walsh and Trish both looked to the open door, where Jo Walsh stood like a queen paying a royal visit. Her chestnut hair waved in an angled bob around her shoulders, a studied, tousled mess someone had probably spent hours on. The black leather and tweed panel dress may as well have been poured over his cousin's long, elegant body, its lines liquid against every firm curve. She strode deeper into the office, tossing her clutch onto his desk and lowering herself inch by inch into the comfortable seat facing him.
"Jo, to what do I owe this pleasure?" He looked away long enough to catch Trish's eye and send her on her way. "Coffee."
"I'm here for Fashion Week." She pointed to the dress. "Zac Posen show this afternoon. Donna Karan later."
"Ah, I'd forgotten that was this week. Moneyed fashionistas descending on the city. One of your favorite times of the year."
When she remained silent, he looked up from the paper he was reading over before signing.
"Right? Don't you usually waste obscene amounts of money and spend the week hobnobbing with all the other beautiful, wealthy women who must have this season's whatever? You and Mom always … "
Walsh let his words peter out, dropping the pen to give his cousin his full attention. He looked past the glistening surface, looked at her eyes beneath the smoky eye shadow and mascaraed lashes and saw grief, a twin to his own.
It had been only a month since his mother's funeral. He and his father had spent the last three weeks in Hong Kong conducting business. It had distracted him from the yawning hole in his heart, but every time he stopped for even a minute, the wailing monster inside reminded him his mother was gone and wouldn't return.
"It's my first Fashion Week without her." Jo straightened out the wobble in her voice before continuing, fixing her eyes on the large hourglass his father had given him, in its place of pride on his desk. "I know it seems flighty to you, but fashion was our thing. One of our many things. Doing this without her feels hollow and empty and foolish, but not doing it-"
"She'd want you to." Walsh stood and crossed around his desk, settling on the edge and reaching for Jo's slim hand. "Enjoy it as much as you can. We've gotta find joy wherever possible. Dad and I have used work to survive the last month. Use fashion."
Jo ran the tips of her dark, square nails over a leather patch on her dress before looking back up at him.
"I miss you, cuz."
Add asshole to whatever titles his father and the board of directors wanted to bestow on him. How could he have neglected Jo? Sure, things had been strained between them before his mother had passed. All the drama with Kerris and Cam had managed to slither into his relationship with Jo, but she had needed him. Hell, he had needed her, and neither of them had reached for the other. Until now. He'd castigate himself as a self-centered so-and-so later. Right now he needed to fix this.
"Jo, I'm sorry we've barely talked. I didn't mean to abandon you. There was too much in Rivermont I needed to get away from. Mom's funeral and … "
Walsh didn't need to finish that sentence. Jo had stood witness to the Pompeii-like destruction of the scene with Kerris and Cam at their cottage. One kiss. It had leveled his friendship with Cam like a city, standing strong one minute, and nothing but rubble and ash the next.
Too many emotions tangled in his chest, a toxic helix of grief, regret, and frustration. He missed his mother. He missed Jo. He missed Cam.
He missed Kerris.
In a matter of months, his closest relationships had disintegrated. If it hadn't been for his father, irony acknowledged, he would probably have been drowning in one-night stands, vodka, and his own vomit. In the past, tough times had coaxed out his darkest side like a serpent from a basket, snake-charming him into a mire of bad decisions. Not this time. The last two years had changed him. How could they not have? Meeting Kerris. Falling in love with her. Alienating Cam. And to some degree, Jo. Losing his mother. Building a relationship with his father. And he'd experienced most of it without the close friendship that had always anchored him.
"How's Cam?"
Walsh stroked his Hermès Pele Mele tie between two fingers, training his eyes on the subdued blue pattern instead of looking at Jo. She let him stew in that silence until he finally looked at her. A wile she'd learned from his mother.
"He's okay." Jo crossed one long leg over the other, leaning an elbow on the back of the seat. "Like you. Like me. Managing the pain, I guess. The baby-"
Walsh narrowed his eyes against the glare of horror in Jo's gaze when she realized what she had let slip. Caution, too late, tightened Jo's lips and slowed her words.
"Ah, that awkward moment when you realize the woman I love is pregnant with my best friend's baby."
"You know about … "
"That Kerris is pregnant? Yeah, I know."
"And you're okay?"
A bitter imitation of a laugh spilled across Walsh's lips. His heartbeat quickened. Probably because of the hot poker slicing through it when he considered Kerris having Cam's baby.
"Do I have a choice?" He pulled himself out of his own ass long enough to note the sadness filling Jo's eyes. Separate from grief. Personal. "Do you?"
"Do I what?" Jo jerked a shade down over her pretty face, cording off her emotions beyond his reach.
"You still love Cam, Jo?"
He was a son of a bitch for asking her that, but they hadn't discussed her feelings for Cam since the eve of his wedding to Kerris. Inquiring minds wanted to know.
Jo raised her brows and sat up in her seat, scooting to the edge. She rested her elbows on the armrests and impaled him with a blaze of her silvery eyes.
"I don't poach."
Just a few words, but a recrimination. A condemnation. A judgment he deserved. He clenched his jaw around shame and guilt and the defiant words that still, after everything he'd promised himself he'd forget about Kerris, lay on the tip of his tongue. Their eyes and wills dueled across the small space separating them until Jo eased the haughty lines of her face into something softer. A distant cousin of sympathy.
"What do you want me to say, Walsh? Do I have feelings for Cam? Probably for the rest of my life, if the last fifteen years are anything to go by. Would I ever do anything about them?" She shook her head, but held his eyes steady. "No."
How he missed those absolutes. Those black and white certainties that didn't account for tornadic emotion sweeping through and ripping at your convictions until they were negotiable with the promise of the thing you wanted more than air. He didn't say that. He barely breathed, lest he reveal how shaky his foundations were even now when it came to Kerris. Having her. Taking her. Keeping her for himself.
One thing he'd realized while spending time with his father for the last month was that he was more like him than he had even suspected. A predator lay in wait inside of him, relishing the hunt and capture. That beast would possess, careless of the consequences. He wasn't sure he could ever be around Kerris and Cam again.
Jo stood up and settled beside him on the desk, pushing her shoulder into his.
"They're happy. I want you to be happy."
Walsh leaned his head against hers, reaching for her hand. Letting himself be soothed by the familiarity of the closeness they had always shared.
"Besides," Jo continued, looking up at him with her smart-aleck grin. "This is much too Dawson's Creek for me. Do you want to be Pacey in this scenario?"
Walsh laughed outright, slipping his arm around her slim shoulders. How had he forgotten how much she made him laugh?