Mitchell gave her a look before reaching out and shaking Cole’s hand in greeting.

“You lapped her, huh?” Cole asked, jerking his chin at Julie.

Mitchell gave a slight smile that softened his otherwise harsh features. “A gentleman never tells.”

He didn’t have to. The fact that Julie was red-faced and panting, while her husband looked like he could run to California without breaking a sweat said it all.

Julie waggled a finger between Cole and Penelope. “So Penelope’s mussed hair tells me what you guys were doing last night, but what the heck are you doing this morning?”

“Some people like to get up early,” Mitchell told his wife.

“Nobody likes getting up early, Mitchell,” Julie retorted. “Nobody with a soul.”

“I’m walking Penelope back to her place,” Cole said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world for him to accompany her from his place to hers in the early-morning hours. “She refused to take a cab. Something about fresh air and sunshine, blah blah blah.”

Mitchell nodded at Penelope approvingly and Julie rolled her eyes.

Penelope finally managed to unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth. “Cole and I were just—we only sometimes—we—”

“Are having rather fantastic sex,” Cole completed for her.

“Cole!”

“What, like they didn’t know?” Cole said, pointing his coffee cup toward Julie and Mitchell.

Sure enough, Julie was grinning happily, and Mitchell gave her a little wink.

“It’s not serious,” Penelope heard herself say.

“Definitely not,” Cole said in agreement.

“Of course it isn’t,” Julie said soothingly. “Mitchell and I weren’t serious either.”

Then she not so subtly reached up with her left hand and scratched her nose, causing the diamond on her fourth finger to catch the light.

Cole narrowed his eyes slightly. “Well, Jules, I need to get Penelope home, so we’ll just leave you to your speed-walking, shall we?”

“I was running,” Julie said.

“Were you, babe?” Mitchell asked. “Were you really?”

Julie huffed and turned to Penelope. “Mitchell here is a running freak. I tag along sometimes, because he buys me a donut after.”

“I buy you a donut even when you don’t come running,” Mitchell said.

Julie patted her hip. “Which is exactly why I need to run some of the time. Calories burned, et cetera. Anyway, Penelope, we should grab lunch later. If you don’t have plans?”

“I’d like that,” Penelope said.

“Careful, Pen. She wants to interrogate you about how massive my dick is,” Cole said.

Penelope met Julie’s eyes and wiggled her eyebrows. “Are you free later today? Lots to talk about.”

Mitchell and Julie laughed, and Penelope glanced up to see Cole looking down at her. He wasn’t quite smiling, but his eyes were warm.

Which made her warm.

This whole thing was getting highly inconvenient.

Mitchell had his hand on Julie’s back, nudging her forward. “We’ll let you guys get going. Come on, Jules. Still have four miles to go.”

Julie’s mouth dropped open. “We do not. You promised we were only going to run five miles total.”

“We are,” Mitchell explained patiently. “You’ve only run one mile so far, so—”

“One mile! That’s all I’ve run? I married a monster!”

“See you later, Jules,” Cole called over his shoulder.

“If I’m even alive!” she called back. Then she sped up into a reluctant jog, cursing her husband in quiet, heartfelt oaths.

“I like her,” Penelope said, watching Mitchell and Julie run off.

Cole nodded. “Me too.”

“Do you think she’ll tell everyone else about, you know…us?”

“Oh definitely,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee as they resumed walking.

“You don’t seem to mind.”

“Why would I mind? We’re two healthy adults engaging in casual, consensual sex. I can’t think of a single reason why that should be a secret.”

“You make it sound so easy,” she muttered.

He looked down at her. “Isn’t it? What am I missing that makes it more complicated?”

Oh nothing. Just the itty-bitty, minor fact that I think I’m falling in love with you.

But she couldn’t. She’d promised.

Not just him, but herself. No more falling in love with men who don’t love you back.

She’d played fast and careless with her heart once, and the darn organ still felt like it had a hole in it.

Never again.

If she and Cole were going to do this, they stuck to the rules. Colleagues during the week, sex on the weekends if they felt like it.

And she definitely felt like it.

It would be enough. It had to.

But then he took her hand again and launched into a new idea he had for a spread on the top college football recruits, and Penelope decided to give herself the rest of the walk home to pretend that it could be like this every day.

It was the happiest ten minutes of her life.

Chapter 20

After rifling around in her purse without finding anything resembling a lipstick, Penelope dumped the contents on her desk.

Surely she had a lipstick in here. Any lipstick would do.

Of course, even if there were a lipstick tube mixed in with the tampons and pens and ever-growing assortment of tickets to various New York sports events, there was no guarantee that it wasn’t expired.

Did lipstick expire? It was stuff like this that Penelope had never thought to figure out. Most of the time she didn’t even think to put lipstick on, much less know where it was.

Cole Sharpe’s other women likely knew their way around lipstick. Take, for example, that gorgeous blonde with her tongue in Cole’s mouth whom she’d walked in on not so long ago…

Penelope pushed the thought aside. It was Monday. For today, and the next four days, Cole Sharpe was her colleague. He could kiss whomever he wanted.

And if that person wasn’t her, she’d splinter into a million pieces.

“No,” Penelope muttered to herself. “You are a strong, independent woman. You don’t need a man to complete you. You don’t need lipstick to be a better person.”

Which was a good thing. There was no lipstick anywhere in this mess of stuff. She’d just have to go to lunch with Julie Greene as she was.

At least she was wearing a dress today.

It was one of the few that she owned, but after her sleepover at Cole’s last night that involved, well, not much sleep, she’d been feeling feminine and pretty.

The light green sweater dress had called to her.

High heels, on the other hand, had not, but her comfy yellow flats worked with the dress. At least, she was pretty sure…

Penelope’s cell rang as she was in the process of putting everything back in her purse. She picked it up. “Hey, baby sister.”

Janie made a huffing noise on the other end. “Finally. I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for over a week.”

Penelope felt a stab of guilt. “I know, I’m so sorry. Work’s been crazy, and Mom hogs all the phone time I do have. And Dad. Did you know he’s taking up fishing? Can we please veto that?”

“Working on it,” Janie said. “But why do I get the feeling you’re trying to change the subject? I’ve sort of been hoping there was a more interesting reason why you haven’t called me back. Maybe someone tall, dark, and handsome…”

Tall, blond, and handsome, actually.

The words didn’t come out. If she was going to tell anyone about the weird thing going on between her and Cole, it should Janie. But her sister would ask questions that Penelope didn’t know the answers to.

Or worse, questions she did know the answers to, but wasn’t ready to say out loud. Or in her head. Or at all.