by Mia Sosa
Karen furrowed her brows. “Abuela Marta?”
Gracie nodded. “Yes.”
“But she’s never going to leave the island.”
Gracie nodded again. “I know. So we plan to take the wedding to her.”
Mimi waved her hands in the air like she was partying on the dance floor. “Puerto Rico? I am so there. I could use a few days in the sun.”
A wedding in three weeks. On the island of Puerto Rico. Mark gave the couple credit for focusing on what they wanted as opposed to what others might expect of them. “Well, congratulations to you both. I’m really happy for you. It sounds like fun. And Ethan, take all the time you need. The KisNet launch will be here when you get back.”
Ethan laid a hand on his shoulder. “Not so fast, buddy. I need a best man, and you can’t say no. You’re coming with us.”
Mark’s stomach flipped. “To Puerto Rico?”
Ethan smiled. “Yeah. Mimi, too. And Karen, of course.”
Mark darted a glance at Karen’s expressive face, which this minute had a delightful flush to it.
Right. And Karen, of course. Because that’s just what his overactive imagination and underserved libido needed. Miles and miles of beautiful beach, sun-kissed skies, sweltering, sticky nights, and Karen.
He couldn’t think with everyone staring at him, waiting for his answer, so he said enough to pacify Ethan. “If I can adjust my schedule to make it work, I will. But I can’t make any promises.”
Ethan nodded. “Sure, sure. Just let me know soon.”
Whatever lie he could tell to get out of this jaunt, he needed to come up with it fast.
CHAPTER THREE
The man lied as well as she drank.
Karen knew he hadn’t been drinking when they met. After all, he’d been the one to claim he couldn’t pursue her precisely because she’d been tipsy. She knew that. He knew that. Hell, she knew he knew she knew that.
As she watched Mark hand the valet a tip and slide into his Aston Martin, a sleek, silver number that attracted the envious attention of passersby, Karen considered their initial meeting. When Mimi’s car arrived, he revved his engine. Before he pulled away, he tipped his head in her direction and tapped on the red fur dice dangling from the rearview mirror. That about summed up her take on Mark: He was a walking curveball. And that was the reason she hadn’t stopped thinking about his lie. She hadn’t known what to make of it.
But now that the effects of the whiskey had faded, she came to the embarrassing conclusion that she’d made such an ass of herself he’d had no other choice but to make the episode disappear in a puff of smoke. Abracadabra. Gone. Never to be spoken of again.
That was fine with her. Actually kind of sweet on his part. And for the best, too. She’d always rejected the idea of a committed relationship, precisely because she had neither the inclination nor the time to date anyone. Her past foibles in the bedroom had rid her of the desire for a lover. Why put herself through the awkwardness of another unsuccessful attempt at sex? Plus, when she started medical school in the fall, she’d be on permanent lockdown anyway. No dating. No social life. No nothing.
So thinking about Mark in that way was pointless. Yes, pointless.
Except the memory of his reaction when she’d told him about her inability to relax during sex called to her like nothing ever had before. In that moment, her embarrassment over her past failures in the bedroom had receded, replaced by the promise of becoming the lover she’d always wanted to be. Confident. Sensual. Attentive. Her instincts told her Mark would help her become that person or die trying.
Mimi waved a hand in front of Karen’s face. “Hello? You okay?”
She shook her head, more so to give herself time to respond than to clear her brain. She didn’t want her expression to reveal her thoughts about Mark. “I’m fine. The whiskey’s definitely gone to my head. Thanks for the ride home. Gracie and Ethan clearly needed some alone time.”
Mimi grimaced as she fished in her purse. “Dammit. Finding money in this purse is like searching for a dick in a bushel of corn on the cob.” She pulled out a few bills for the valet. “No need to thank me for the ride. Gracie’s family is my family.”
She’d never admit it, but Karen envied Gracie and Mimi’s relationship. Always had. Their relationship sprang from friendship rather than obligation. And while some might consider Mimi high-maintenance, Karen knew Mimi had her sister’s back. Always. High-maintenance or not, friends like her were not easy to find. “Well, I appreciate it anyway.”
Mimi ducked into the car, and Karen buckled herself into the passenger seat.
A thought occurred to her then. What if Mimi was interested in Mark? It would be great if she was, actually. That way, Karen would have no choice but to step aside and stuff any thoughts about Mark into the forbidden closet. Wait. Mark. In a closet. With her. Doing forbidden stuff. No, no, no.
She took out a compact and pretended to check her lipstick. “So what do think of Mark?”
Hands on the steering wheel, Mimi whipped her head in Karen’s direction and narrowed her eyes before returning her attention to the road ahead. “I don’t. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I just wondered if he was a prospect for you. You two would be cute together.”
Goodness, she was just as bad a liar as Mark was.
Mimi arched a brow and shook her head from side to side. “Mark is definitely not a prospect.”
“You wouldn’t pursue him?”
“Nope.”
“Huh.”
“Now, don’t get me wrong. I’d bang that in a hot minute. But he’s Ethan’s best friend, and Ethan’s practically my brother-in-law. I suspect I’m a little too headstrong for him. And I like a bit of Tarzan in my men. Mark doesn’t give off that vibe. So the odds of any relationship between us working out hovers around zero to zero. Plus…”
“Plus what?”
“Plus I don’t roam in my own backyard.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means when I send a guy packing, I want him gone. I can’t guarantee that with Mark.”
Karen kicked off her stilettos. “You have a point.”
Unfortunately, Mimi hadn’t erected the barrier Karen was hoping for. And worse, the reasons Mimi discounted Mark as a prospect were the very reasons why he tempted Karen. No long-term relationship would arise from any tryst between them. And he resided in her own backyard, a convenient fact given that she didn’t want or have time to get to know someone outside her small social circle. But she had no business contemplating a liaison with Mark, she reminded herself, not with medical school barreling toward her. She’d worked hard to get to this point, and no man would deter her from focusing on her career.
At the end of the summer, she’d disappear into the world of a sleep-deprived medical student, never to be heard from again. Until then—and probably well beyond then, too—she’d work out her desires with the help of her battery-powered life partner. So what if Mark would feature prominently in her fantasies? That would be a secret between her and her vibrator.
CHAPTER FOUR
I think it’s time for me to settle down.”
Mark and Ethan ran along the C&O Canal Trail in Washington, D.C., their favorite place to exercise on Sunday mornings. He needed the stress relief, especially after a restless night in which he’d been unable to do anything but think about Karen.
To Mark’s left, an old lock house sat near a narrow expanse of the canal, hidden from the sun by the overgrown foliage surrounding it. He breathed in the smell of wet grass, a remnant of the morning’s sun shower. Peace. It hung in the air and comforted him. Engrossed by his surroundings, it took him several steps to realize Ethan no longer ran beside him.
When he turned, his friend was doubled over, hands on his knees. Mark spun around and jogged backward. “You okay, Ethan?”
Ethan sucked in air and squinted at him. “I’m fine. The real question is, are you okay? Did I just hear you correctly?” Ethan st
raightened and walked toward him. “If I did, the apocalypse must be upon us.”
Mark took that as a sign they wouldn’t be running the rest of the trail, so he whipped off his T-shirt and swiped it across his sweaty chest. “I’ll be honest, your engagement to Gracie has something to do with it. It got me thinking about my own future. Maybe it’s time to stop messing around and find a wife.”
Ethan picked up a rock, threw it into the canal, and walked beside him. “Interesting.”
Mark watched the rock skip across the water and disappear. He expected honesty from Ethan. Always. But the pensive look on Ethan’s face suggested his friend was holding something back. “Go ahead and say what you’re thinking, E.”
Ethan sighed. “Let me preface this by saying, I’m not judging you, just noticing things. You’re a bachelor. Rich. Relatively good-looking. You’re obviously discreet, too, because you don’t talk about your sex life all that often. And the next thing I know, you’re talking about finding a wife. Not a girlfriend. Not someone to fall in love with. A wife. As though you have to check some box that fits into your life plan.”
Damn. When Ethan described it that way, Mark saw his point. And maybe he was going about this all wrong. But last night’s festivities, from his run-in with Karen to Ethan and Gracie’s engagement, had spurred him to want to work on his own love life, and he couldn’t shake the sense that he needed to be quick about it. Otherwise, he’d end up like his father. Alone. Still pining for someone he should have stayed away from. The trouble was, he’d been dodging a serious relationship for so long he didn’t know where to begin.
If he tried to cultivate a relationship on his own, he’d resume his old habits and use his busy work schedule as an excuse to avoid spending any meaningful time with a woman. A ride on his boat? Easy. A weekend trip to Paris? Not a problem. But a sustained effort to talk to a woman and get to know her? Clueless.
Then it had occurred to him. If Ethan and Gracie were involved, they’d force him to make an effort; if nothing else, he’d follow through to avoid pissing them off. Accountability. That’s what he needed.
Ethan cleared his throat. “Mark.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a planner. I get that. You even schedule your relaxation time down to the minute.”
“C’mon, man, you’re exaggerating.”
Ethan stopped and gave him a wide-eyed stare. “Oh, yeah? What’d you tell me this morning about when you needed to get back?”
Mark thought about it and mumbled his response.
Ethan laughed and cupped his ear. “Excuse me? What was that?”
“I said I had to be back by ten thirty-five.”
With a triumphant gleam in his eyes, Ethan slapped him on his shoulder. “Exactly. Not ten thirty. Not even a quarter to eleven. Ten thirty-five. Every minute of your life can’t be planned. That’s not how it works. And if my experience with Gracie taught me anything, it’s that you can’t plan love.”
“I know that, E. I’m not trying to plan love. I’m simply trying to do things a little differently this time. And I’m man enough to admit I need help. Yours and Gracie’s, specifically.”
“I’m flattered, man.” Ethan waggled his eyebrows. “And you came to the right person, too. I’m a bit of a connoisseur when it comes to matters of the heart.”
“I know this, E. In fact, if you weren’t committed to Gracie, I’d date you myself.” Mark wrapped his arm around Ethan’s shoulder. “Plus, you’re so fucking hot, I can’t stand it.”
Ethan rested his head on Mark’s shoulder and batted his eyelashes. “Really? Tell me what makes me so hot. I’m not fishing for compliments or anything, but I’d like to know.”
Ethan pushed Mark’s arm off him and twisted his waist as he bent into an overly dramatic runner’s stretch. After several seconds of that ridiculousness, he straightened and flexed his biceps. “It’s the guns, right? Gracie loves them.”
Mark barked out a laugh. “Nope. It’s that big, bulging…brain that makes you so hot. It’s so huge, it’s a wonder you can keep it under a hat.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot. Okay, back to the finding a wife thing. Let’s not call it that. Let’s not call it anything, for that matter. Let me and Gracie set you up. No pressure. No expectations. If you find a wife, fine. If you find the love of your life, great. The point is, you’re looking for something more than casual, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay, Gracie will eat this up. So give me the details. What kind of woman are you looking for?”
Mark’s thoughts turned to Karen. Gracie would clobber him if he showed any interest in her “baby” sister, particularly because she’d convinced herself he embraced his bachelor status with more enthusiasm than most. On this issue, she and Ethan agreed. They both swore he was hiding a harem. Neither was right, but he’d never disabused either of them of their incorrect assumptions.
He approached his answers to Ethan’s questions with two purposes in mind. One, he sincerely wanted to give Ethan information that would be helpful to the task. Two, he needed to remind himself how incompatible he and Karen were, so he could move on with no regrets. “I’d like to meet a woman around my age. A professional in a good rhythm career-wise.” In other words, someone nothing like Karen. “Someone busy like me who would understand the pressure of our respective positions and wouldn’t make unreasonable demands on my time.” Karen probably wouldn’t make unreasonable demands on his time, though. Soon, she’d be a medical student. Great. Just like that, he’d circled back to Karen.
Ethan pretended to scribble notes on a pad. “Okay. What else?”
“Settled.” As his father had told him countless times before, Mark’s mother had nearly suffocated under the burden of being tied down to a husband and a kid well before she was ready. He wouldn’t repeat his parents’ mistakes. “She should be settled in life.”
“Meaning what?”
They’d reached a fork in the trail, a weathered bench marking the spot where bikers were no longer permitted to ride. Ethan sat on the bench, and Mark followed suit. Mark raised his face to the sun, enjoying the warmth of its rays on his skin. “She’s figured out the answers to the big questions. What she wants to be when she grows up. Where she wants to live. The kind of man she’d enjoy spending time with.”
Ethan nodded. “Got it. What about children?”
Mark imagined a life without kids. Definitely doable, but someone who’d rule out raising children altogether was probably a nonstarter. “She should be receptive to the idea of children, let’s start with that.”
“Throw out some traits.”
“Confidence, both socially and in the bedroom. That’s a definite turn-on.”
“I’m not sure I’d be able to vet someone on their confidence in the bedroom. Gracie would flash-fry my balls in a skillet.”
Ouch. “For fuck’s sake, Ethan, that’s not even funny. Let’s focus on confidence in general, then.”
“Okay. What about physical traits? I have no idea whether you’re a leg man or a breast man.”
Mark waggled his eyebrows. “I’m partial to wings, actually.”
Ethan simply stared at him and that blank stare prodded Mark to take the question seriously. He winced when a vision of Karen’s face popped into his head. Fucking Karen. Her image refused to go away.
She wore her long, dark brown hair loose, a mass of waves dancing around her heart-shaped face. What was the opposite of that? Oh, that was easy. “I’m not one to pick apart a woman’s features, but I like the sexy librarian look. Hair pulled back, black-framed glasses.”
“Back to the breasts and ass. Which do you prefer, or is it both?”
Mark didn’t have to think long about that one. “If I could have both, I’d die a happy man. I’m a leg man, too.”
Now Karen’s legs, hers he liked a lot. Long, toned, and smooth. The minute he’d touched them, he’d regretted it. The move implied an intimacy neither he nor she had been prepared for. If he sa
w her again, and he had every expectation he would, he’d know that her calves were strong and that if he applied just the right pressure to the backs of her knees, she’d moan her appreciation.
This. Was not. Helping.
Ethan rubbed his hands together, a lopsided grin transforming his face from pensive to conniving. “That’s enough for Gracie and me to work with. You’ll have to give us a little latitude, okay? If this is going to work, you’re going to have to relinquish some control.”
Fat chance there. The thought of losing control made him queasy. And these days more than most, he hated the idea of losing control. He liked plans. Order. Organization. Without them, the slippery slope led to chaos. And given his tumultuous childhood, chaos was not an option. “I won’t pretend to like it, but I’ll do my best to give you the latitude you need.”
Ethan slapped a hand on his shoulder. “Excellent. I have a great feeling about this. As soon as Gracie and I return from Puerto Rico, we’ll get on it. Unless you meet someone there, of course.”
Ethan had just given him the conversational opening he needed to bail on the trip, but he couldn’t muster the assholery to take it. He’d suck it up and go, no matter how uncomfortable things might be between him and Karen. With any luck, and perhaps in tacit agreement, they’d limit their exposure to each other until their initial encounter was no longer fresh in their minds. And when he returned from Puerto Rico, he’d focus on finding a serious girlfriend. A potential wife, even. But for now, he had a wedding to attend—and a woman to avoid.
CHAPTER FIVE
Gracie would kill them if they missed this flight.
Karen paced in front of the departure gate at the airport. As far as she could tell, the other two members of their impromptu wedding party hadn’t arrived yet. But Gracie, who’d traveled with Ethan to Puerto Rico a few days ago, had warned her that Mimi rarely got to the airport on time.
The airline personnel busied themselves with pre-flight procedures, and one of them hovered near the microphone, ready to announce the start of boarding. Karen searched the faces in the crowd. Unless Mimi and Mark caught this flight, they’d likely miss the pre-wedding dinner that evening. Karen wanted everything to be perfect for her sister’s celebration, so the thought of the bride and groom’s closest friends not being there made her anxious. Her rattled nerves had nothing to do with the fact that Mark would be joining them on the flight to San Juan. Nothing. Besides, Mark would be settled comfortably in the first-class cabin, far away from the screaming babies and manspreading she and Mimi would be forced to endure in coach.
