When Hugh didn’t say anything, instead reaching out to try a piece of lightly smoked and grilled trout, she went on. “I don’t claim to know a lot about decor, but the concept is fresh so I think that’s how we should keep the decor. And it would separate us from the rustic and dark traditional barbecue places.”
After he went through a couple of baskets and plates, trying the food, but giving no indication of how he felt about it, he pulled out the sample board for the interior. Deep chocolate fabric swatches, buttery birch wood samples, and deep blue and green tiles made up the decor, and he touched everything before placing that on top of the menu at his side.
His silence was driving her crazy, but she was happy to endure it if only to be in his presence. “I’m not wedded to the decor at all, I just wanted to give you an idea of what it could be. I also had a logo made,” she added, pulling another mock-up from her file that she’d had a friend do on the fly. She’d thought it turned out pretty well, though.
“Ember,” he finally said, nodding approvingly at the name of the restaurant. “I like that.”
Finally meeting her eyes, he looked expectantly for her to continue. So she took out the contract he’d given her before she’d left.
“I signed it,” she told him as she handed it over.
Instead of looking at the papers straightaway, he let the moment stretch, and once again, she thought she might vomit.
“Consultant or partners?” he asked, his gaze intent on her face.
“Partners.” Nothing less. Ever.
That broken eyebrow again, the one she saw when she closed her eyes at night willing herself forget him.
“Does that mean we can’t be involved romantically?” he pressed, those bodybuilder arms crossing over his chest. The white fabric of his button-down stretched with the movement.
“Um, if that’s what you want,” she hedged, confused about that kiss if what he wanted was just to be business partners. “My dad is getting remarried so I’m putting my house in Chicago on the market. I don’t have liquid funds yet to invest as a full partner, but I will.”
The look he gave her was loaded, as if to say he was disappointed in her for not actually saying the words that needed to be said. Which was fair. This whole experience was testing her limits, but if being with Hugh had taught her nothing else it was to go balls-out, as he would say.
“I love you, Hugh,” she grumbled. “Is that what you want me to say?”
That all-or-nothing smile again, the larger-than-life football player who’d made her feel like she was the most important person in his life and in the world. She would never get tired of seeing it on his face and hoped she could make him as happy as he made her. She’d waited nearly thirty years to tell someone she loved them and it had been worth the wait.
“I’m sorry,” he said, putting a massive hand behind his ear, “I didn’t hear you.”
“I love you!” she shouted, her hands lifting above her head in frustration and complete elation. Just saying the words felt like starting a new and better life. One she shared with Hugh.
“Get over here,” he ordered, sticking out his hand. “Now.”
She clambered over the bench seat, not wasting any time getting into his arms again. He pulled her down into his lap so she was straddling him, the rest of the diners be damned, their eyes joined, and she could stare at the crooked nose, scars and broken eyebrow forever.
“I like the new earring,” she told him, drawing a thumb over the flame.
He grinned. “Yeah, well, the old earring didn’t quite make sense anymore and I thought I didn’t need one, but then I realized I just hadn’t known how to fill the empty space. But turns out I found exactly what I wanted there.”
She shook her head at what he was really saying, but also absurdly happy because that’s how she felt, too, that he filled the empty spaces.
“And I wish you would have given me more of a heads-up that you were coming back because I already bought a place in Chicago.”
Her head dropped in surprise. “What?”
He ran a hand through her hair, dropping a kiss on her temple. That freshly clean Hugh scent invaded her brain like a drug, sending pleasure waves through her entire body.
“Yeah, I’d planned to move my home base to Chicago so we could at least still date if you didn’t want to be in a serious relationship.”
She pulled back, meeting his eyes, her heart growing into one of those gigantic cartoon hearts. Happiness flowed through her, jubilant and fizzy. Hugh Matteson was the last person she ever thought she’d fall for, but he was also the best person she’d ever met. “But you want to move back home to San Antonio.”
“Not as much as I want to be with you,” he told her as if she were a child. “I love you, Parker. My home is wherever you are.”
She almost had the thought that she didn’t deserve him, but that was old thinking because she finally believed that she did.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye. I was in a terror state,” she joked. “I honestly don’t even know how I left. I didn’t want to at all.”
His lips met hers in a gentle kiss that settled all the guilt her speech had dredged up. They were together for real and it was awesome. All that time spent thinking she wasn’t fit for a relationship, and she’d found the perfect one without even really looking.
“I forgive you, Parker,” he said, his eyes serious. “I understand being scared, but you can’t shut me out again.”
“I won’t,” she promised, and she meant it. Their future was too precious to screw up. She’d found a partner in life who could keep up with her, propel her even further, and make her laugh along the way.
“Good,” he said, “because we have a lot of work to do, including buying a house in Chicago and restaurant space in San Antonio.”
Parker smiled and gave him a huge kiss. “I can’t wait.”
He squeezed her against him and her arms wrapped around him and she never wanted to let go. And if she had her way, she never would.
“Neither can I.”
* * *
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CHAPTER ONE
Freya
I HATED EVERETT’S launch party.
It wasn’t really his fault. It was just that my dress was too tight, making me feel like an overstuffed sausage, and when you’re nearly six foot, built on the Amazonian side—not to mention a redhead—an overstuffed sausage is not how you want to feel. Plus there was the whole being a Clydesdale in a room full of Arabian Thoroughbreds thing going on, what with the room being full of tiny women in glittering dresses, all prancing around.
But that wasn’t unusual for me. As a mechanic from a tin-pot little Texan town whose best friend just happened to be a billionaire, I was often in situations where I didn’t really fit.
I was way more comfortable in my garage, lying under a car in grease-stained overalls, than I was at fancy fundraisers like this one.
My friend Everett Calhoun and his two friends Damian Blackwood and Ulysses White were launching a special foundation that they’d set up with the backing of the giant multi-billion-dollar company the three of them had started years ago. The fundraiser had all the fancy trappings of a really big event, with famous people and designer outfits, jewellery auctions and a really amazing venue—the British Museum—in a gallery with lots of sculptures from ancient history.
Not my idea of a good time. I preferred hanging with friends at a low-key bar or pub, with a beer.
But then, I wasn’t here because I liked glitzy parties.
I was here because Everett’s business interests took him all over the world and I very rarely got to see him. He’d needed a date for this party, and so he’d asked me. He never asked for help; he was more usually attempting to help me—not that I’d ever let him—so it was nice to be able to do something for him.
I’d always wanted to see London and since I’d taken on Casey at the garage I was able to leave the business without worrying it might fall over if I missed a day or two.
Resisting the urge to rub my sweaty palms down the dress I’d hurriedly picked up at a store along Oxford Street that afternoon, I craned my neck trying to spot where Everett was. He’d told me he was going off to find me a drink and he was taking his time about it. Not that I was unhappy about that.
Because there was another reason why the party was getting to me. Why I was feeling antsy and restless and more than a little distracted. Everett might have needed me to be his date tonight, but I also needed something from him. Something I’d been considering a lot on the flight to London that I hoped wouldn’t change our friendship, but maybe would, and whether that was a good idea or not was anyone’s guess.
But I couldn’t start talking to him about that because he wasn’t here, which was super annoying. Especially when I really needed the margarita he was supposed to be getting me.
He shouldn’t have been that hard to spot considering he was six-four and built like Superman, but I couldn’t see him anywhere.
I could see Damian Blackwood, phenomenally good-looking and radiating charm like a Hollywood movie star, talking to a bunch of people and making them laugh, his beautiful voice and Australian accent making him easy to pick out in the crowd.
Ulysses White was there too, striding around grim-faced, his black eyes full of ice, his assistant trailing after him—another of those thoroughbred women—looking exasperated.
But Everett Calhoun? My best friend in the whole wide world? Where the hell was he?
‘Little,’ a deep voice from behind me said.
Only one person ever called me ‘Little’.
I turned and there he was, and right on cue my heart starting beating faster, the way it always did around him. The way it had been doing ever since he was sixteen and I, two years younger, was adjusting the bow tie on the suit he’d hired for prom.
He’d been gorgeous then and he was gorgeous now, especially in a tux, the tailored black fabric highlighting his height and the width of his shoulders and powerful chest.
Back in Texas, before the military, he’d worn nothing but jeans and T-shirts and always looked hot AF. But in the suits he now wore? Oh, man, flat out delicious.
His dark blond hair had once been shaggy and I’d always wanted to push it out of his eyes. Now he wore it cut army-short and, even though I missed the length, I liked the way the short cut highlighted his amazing face.
He wasn’t classically handsome, like his friend Damian. His features were blunter, harsher, intensely masculine. His jaw was strong and square, and his nose had a bump in it from when it had been broken while he’d been on deployment somewhere. His brows were heavy, his eyes deep set and blue as the ocean, with a tinge of green. He’d never been much of a smiler, which was a shame since his mouth was the perfect shape for kissing and—
Stop.
Everett was staring at me, blond brows pulling down into his usual frown, the one that made him look like a very stern Viking. ‘What’s up? I got you the margarita you wanted.’ He held out the drink while I tried to ignore my physical response to him.
It wasn’t usually this noticeable. Then again, I wasn’t usually at a party trying to get up the courage to ask my best friend if he’d help me out...sexually.
Not that I wanted actual sex. I just wanted an orgasm. No biggie.
First, though, I needed a drink.
Shoving thoughts of orgasms aside, I gave him a grin. ‘Took your time. What did you do? Make the tequila yourself?’
‘Had to help Damian with a problem.’ Everett was characteristically short on detail. ‘You want this or what?’
Still grinning, I grabbed the glass and took a large gulp, the alcohol burning on its way down. I probably needed to be careful, especially considering it had been alcohol that had put the thought of Everett and orgasms in my head in the first place.
It had been my twenty-first birthday and my first time in a bar. Too much beer and late night conversation about relationships—or, rather, my lack of one. And by ‘relationships’ I meant ‘sex’. Or, rather, me rambling on to Everett about how sex wasn’t that great for me, because men didn’t seem to know how to get me off. I couldn’t quite understand how the conversation had ended up where it had, but the result was Everett telling me that if I wanted an orgasm that badly to come and see him, and he’d give me one.
I’d forgotten about it the next day—mainly because I’d been drunk as a skunk—and he hadn’t mentioned it either, and so the offer had gotten lost in the mists of my own drunken memory.
But a week or so later the memory had popped back up, my embarrassment complete when it reminded me that while I might have been drunk during that conversation, Everett had been stone cold sober. Of course my brain had instantly frozen, the briefest burst of hope flashing through me before I could stop it. The hope that maybe the offer meant he was as interested in me as I was in him. Stupid brain. I knew he wasn’t. He’d never treated me as anything more than a friend and I was sure his orgasm proposal had more to do with friendship than it did with any kind of sexual attraction.
Which naturally had ensured I would never take him up on it. Ever. I didn’t want pity orgasms from Everett, because that was what it felt like, no matter what his intention had been in offering to help.
I didn’t need his help. Never had. And that had nothing to do with the fact that I’d been crushing on him since for ever and had always nurtured secret thoughts that maybe one day he’d suddenly turn around and see that his best fr
iend was a woman, not just a tomboy in grease-stained overalls.
Except then Tiffany’s wedding had come along. She was my favourite cousin—I was brought up with her after my mother died—and I’d been asked to go, but the thought of enduring a hen party full of sexual innuendo, when I had no decent sex life to make innuendos about, seemed sad. My aunt and her family—Tiff excluded—thought I was pretty sad as it was, and I was a little sick of it. Being nearly thirty and not having had an orgasm with a partner seemed wrong, and I was a little sick of that too.
I could have pretended, I guess. Made up some story of wild, no-holds-barred sex with some amazing guy. But the truth was that I’d always had a nagging doubt that the problem lay with me. That there was something wrong with me, that I wasn’t much of a woman somehow.
I hated that feeling since I knew exactly where it had come from: my very critical aunt who never failed to comment on my faults, especially on my height and how unfeminine I was. And even though I was totally fine with myself these days, her comments had stuck, echoing in my head when I was at my lowest. Whispering to me that I’d never be able to have a fulfilling relationship, that I’d end up being alone for ever.
I didn’t want to be alone for ever. I didn’t want her comments in my head any more. I didn’t want to feel like a lumbering Clydesdale in a room full of pretty fillies. I didn’t want that doubt about myself.
So I’d changed my mind about Everett’s offer. I wanted to feel like a woman and if anyone could do that it was him. Sure, it might be a pity orgasm, but hey, at least then I’d know that the problem wasn’t me.
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