A Christmas Together

by Tara Quan

  He wasn’t pulling any punches. A lump formed in her throat. “What difference does a handful of days make?”

  “It’s not how I wanted to play this, but it might be the best option.” He sighed. “If Riad knows I’m with you, he’ll make a move. When he does, I’ll kill him. You’re the perfect bait.”

  Dan coughed. “Remind me to ask you one day how this ‘smooth talker,’” he drew quotes in the air with his fingers, “managed to score a date.”

  Remembering the day they met, she couldn’t suppress a smile. Tugging down her husband’s wrist, she asked, “Why are you so sure he’s fixated on you? If what you say is true, the smart thing to do once he sees you is move on to someone else’s family.”

  His answer held a warped logic she couldn’t refute. “I was the highest ranking officer on the mission. It doesn’t matter that we were all following orders from some guy on the other side of the ear pierce. As far as he’s concerned, I was the person in charge.”

  “Christmas is in four days.” She made the statement as a reminder to them both.

  “If things don’t change by then, you can reevaluate.”

  She pondered her options. The fastest way to make him leave was to give him what he wanted. But if he was going to sleep under the same roof as her, she needed to make the boundaries clear. “Fine. But I have a condition.”

  “Anything.”

  Not breaking eye contact, she stuck out her hand. “You sign the divorce papers before you leave—no matter what happens. Deal?”

  He hesitated for much longer than she expected before meeting her palm with his.

  Chapter 5

  Karl woke to the smell of baking cookies. Groaning, he rolled to his side and glanced at his travel alarm clock. The electronic readout showed o-three-hundred. Wide awake and plagued by pangs of hunger, he cursed the existence of jet lag, a biological inconvenience not even the military could train out of him.

  He lay on a king-sized bed, covered in satin sheets. A memory foam mattress molded to his shape. Pale moonlight poured through the glass panels to his left. A wall-mounted sixty-inch LED television faced him. Underneath it, a multimedia system sat on top of a built-in chest of drawers that reached the ends of the large room. Sliding wood doors to his right opened to a mosaic-tiled guest bath.

  The massaging shower he’d taken before crashing had gone a long way toward alleviating the physical effects of a seventeen-hour flight, but it took a moment before his mind reconciled the plush surroundings with memory. He’d woken in one of the many guest rooms in his wife’s Dubai penthouse. Nothing about the location descriptor fit his preconceived notions about Brennan. While he’d always known she’d come from money, she’d never flaunted it. During the four years they’d lived together, their lifestyle had been quintessentially middle class. He now realized she’d gone out of her way to stay within his means rather than hers.

  In his boxers, he padded along a hallway to a living room three times the square footage of the townhouse they once shared. Despite its size, he felt like a bull in a china shop. Decorated with his wife’s petite size in mind, the furnishings, wall hangings, and light switches were placed in an ideal position for someone a few inches over five feet. He stood a foot taller.

  When they’d moved in together, his preference for clean lines and extreme minimalism had guided the decor, even though, all-totaled, he’d lived in their house for less than two months out of the year. Every space in their small abode had been sparse, functional, and neat. Her new home couldn’t be more different, prompting him to wonder if she’d made it that way on purpose. Souvenirs from all corners of the globe sat atop ornate wooden chests. A zoo of glass figurines filled an antique display cabinet. Porcelain lamps sporting hand-painted shades rested on delicate side-tables topped with inlaid wood and brass.

  Over a dozen holly wreaths adorned the interior walls. A large artificial Christmas tree stood in front of a low boxy sofa set that could seat a small army, the wiry metal base obscured by clear bowls filled with red and green pinecones. The city’s bright lights twinkled through thick panes of glass and reflected off ornaments hanging from the tree’s branches.

  Following his nose, he navigated through the dark room to the kitchen. Brennan leaned against a granite-topped island, her fluffy white bathrobe stretching from her neck to the floor. Her hair was twisted up and clipped with what looked like a cylindrical silver comb. She held a pink silicone spatula in one hand and a large mixing bowl in the other. In front of her lay half a dozen small containers. “Did I wake you?”

  Rubbing his eyes, he deposited himself on a swiveling stool across from her. “My stomach woke me. Those don’t smell like sugar cookies.”

  She placed the items in her hand on the wax-paper-lined counter. “I’m trying a new recipe—strawberry tea-infused shortbread.”

  His nose scrunched up. “It doesn’t sound appetizing.”

  “So you don’t want any?”

  “Even you aren’t so heartless.” He toyed with one of the small colorful pieces of ceramic. “What are these for?”

  She pointed to an array of dark-tinted bottles with food-coloring labels. “I need green, red, white, and pink icing.”

  He returned the bowl to its original spot. “Since when is pink a Christmas color?”

  “It is when I’m baking.”

  Blood had pooled to his groin since his arrival, and his cock jutted high enough he shifted in his seat. After a two-year hiatus, his libido had returned with a vengeance. Needing a distraction, he remarked, “You’re not wearing glasses.”

  “I don’t need them. I had LASIK surgery a year ago.”

  One of the countless changes he’d catalogued. The dark circles under her eyes caught his attention. “Do you still have trouble sleeping?”

  “Not since I left D.C.”

  He squirmed. The woman had a gift for inciting guilt without ever issuing a direct accusation. “Why aren’t you pissed off at me?”

  She filled a kettle and placed it on the stove. From one of the cabinets, she pulled out a teapot and two Japanese-style handle-less cups. “For what?”

  “For being a shit husband. For breaking our marriage. For getting my cover blown and pinning a target on your head.”

  She shrugged. “Anger is counterproductive. And our marriage didn’t break, it just never really existed.”

  Leaning back in his seat, he cocked a brow. “That’s one pretty-sounding load of bull. Did you practice the line in front of a mirror?”

  Her face froze. Then she laughed. “I chanted it, actually, in front of an ocean while balancing on one leg. Clearly, I need more practice.”

  He’d forgotten how much he loved her sense of humor. “Or you could stick with the facts. Our marriage existed. You left. I never chased after you. You have every right to throw things at me.” He’d rather she did. It would make him feel better.

  She tilted her head to one side. “Why didn’t you…chase after me?”

  “Part of it was pride. I came back from a cluster fuck of a mission to an empty house and divorce papers. Once I’d calmed down, I realized I couldn’t make you happy without quitting my job, which I hadn’t been willing to do. Since I’d promised to leave the service before I got down on one knee, the blame’s all mine.”

  “If I remember correctly, you never got down on one knee. You raged about your death benefits going to waste and dragged me to the courthouse on Christmas Eve. I was surprised you’d remembered to buy a ring. An hour after we signed the papers, you dropped off the face of the earth.” The oven timer went off. She grabbed purple silicone oven mitts before spinning and bending down. His gaze became glued to her terry-cloth-covered bottom. Perhaps because he didn’t know if she wore anything underneath, her current attire seemed sexier than the dress she’d worn in her office.

  While he understood things could never be the way they once were, his cock didn’t give a damn. Every instinct recognized her as his. Shear willpower prevented him from lifting
her onto the kitchen counter and settling his hips between her thighs.

  He leapt to his feet. “Let me help you.”

  She unearthed a large baking sheet laden with angel-shaped cookies. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  With a loud clang, she dumped the metal tray on the counter and kicked the oven door shut. “You asked me to be honest, so it’s what I’ll do. I was married to you for four years, so I sure as hell can tell when you’re horny. Since I don’t trust you to behave, I suggest you keep your distance. I’ve let our chemistry cloud my judgment once before. It won’t happen again. If you don’t mind, please plant your butt back down and eat these cookies.”

  *

  The last thing Brennan should think about was licking her husband’s abs. She didn’t understand why he had this effect on her. So what if he had a six-pack? Her personal trainer had one, too. She’d never once thought of licking any part of Marko’s body. She’d ogled the man, as any warm-blooded female had the right to, but there’d been no heat, no chemistry—nothing like the sexual tension sizzling between her and Karl at this moment.

  No one had ever affected her the way he did. A year ago, she’d toyed with the idea of dating and discovered her sex drive in deep hibernation. She’d flirted and danced with a few of Dubai’s most eligible bachelors, but never once did anyone make her want more. Her therapist had told her it was because she hadn’t gotten over the separation, and that when the emotional wounds healed she’d want sex again.

  Those sessions had been a total waste of money. She got hot and bothered just fine when faced with the inflictor of said mental scarring. Nothing was wrong with her psyche aside from her obsession with the one person she shouldn’t want. At this rate, she’d have to spend a few hours channeling her aggravation at a punching bag. She planned on doing so as soon as she finished icing these cookies.

  Noting Karl’s stunned expression, she sighed. She shouldn’t have pounced on him. The supercharged atmosphere was as much her fault as his. Taking a deep breath, she repeated a line from the anger management class she attended as part of her post-separation therapy. “I’m sorry. I overreacted. It was rude of me.” What did the instructor say she should do? Oh yes, try to figure out any underlying causes of aggression. Grinding her teeth, she spouted the fourth one that came to mind. “I haven’t slept since the night before, and insomnia makes me cranky.”

  His forehead wrinkled. “Why the fuck do you keep apologizing? And what’s with the whooshing breaths in and out? It’s weird.”

  The kettle whistled. She turned the stove off before filling the cast iron teapot with hot water. “I’ve been working on processing my frustration in a logical and productive fashion.” And doing a pretty decent job at it too, until he showed up.

  “Can you stop? I knew I should have thrown out those popular psychology books the first time you went all Stepford Wives on me. The last two years we were together, you acted so damn reasonable and polite it made me queasy.”

  Her arm paused in the air for a moment before she set the kettle back in its original place. She refused to get angry. Anger served no purpose. Remembering their marriage served no purpose. Punching him in the face would only bruise her knuckles.

  Four days. She could go four days without breaking something over his thick, promise-breaking, always-absent, opinionated head. “What would you have had me do those few days you came home?” she asked through clenched teeth. “What would have been a better course of action, in your vaulted opinion?”

  “I don’t know. Ranting, raving, yelling, lobbing things at me.” He sighed. “Maybe then I would have realized something was wrong.”

  Placing her hands on her hips, she looked at the ceiling and focused on her breathing. It didn’t work. When the accusation passed her lips, it came out as a growl. “You knew something was wrong. You chose not to do anything about it.”

  Their gazes locked. There was a time when she would have moved heaven and earth to look into those dark eyes again. Even after all these years, an invisible tether held them together. She wanted to snuggle into his chest. She wanted him to tell her everything would be alright. For this reason, letting him stay scared the bejeezus out of her.

  “I’m sorry.” His voice was low and husky.

  She blinked back tears of rage and forced levity into her voice. “Why?” The last thing she needed tonight was to rehash old wounds. She’d closed that chapter.

  He slid his hand forward until it rested within an inch of hers. “There was always one last mission, wasn’t there?”

  The need to touch him scorched her insides. Her throat dried up. Her cheeks flamed. Beating back the impulse with shear willpower, she closed her fingers over the teapot’s handle and poured each of them a cup. “I forgave you a long time ago.”

  He snorted. “Sure. That’s why are you acting like there’s a force-field separating us.”

  She nudged the steaming brew forward. “It’s just…self-defense, I guess. We’re not good for each other.”

  His lips firmed into a line. “I understand why you left. What I don’t get, is why you didn’t wait for me to come home. You’d never struck me as the running type.”

  Telling him the whole truth, at this point, would hurt him and help no one. “I didn’t leave you—I left the life I had in D.C. There were…personal reasons why I needed to be in a place where I had a support network. I figured you could as easily meet me in the Emirates as in America, and that if you’d wanted to, you knew how to get in touch.” Responding to his furrowed brows and tensed jaw muscles, she clarified, “I don’t know when you ended up finishing your mission, but I was gone for months before my father’s lawyers mailed you the papers. I didn’t even find out about them until much later.”

  Because reading him had always been easy, she could almost feel his shock—and his regret. “Did you want me to come after you?”

  She shrugged. “For a while, sure. Either way, it’s done.”

  His hand clenched into a fist. “The hell it is. There’s a huge difference between separation and divorce.”

  “And according to our deal, we’ll be divorced when you leave.”

  After a long moment of silence, he narrowed his eyes and he reached for his cup. “This tastes like water.”

  She sensed he might be up to something, but was eager to switch subjects. Lifting her own tea, she inhaled. “The flavor is subtle, but it has zero caffeine.”

  He snagged a cookie. When he grinned, so did she. “This shortbread tastes more like tea than the damn drink—in a good way. I’d bet those anemic white leaves cost you an arm and a leg.”

  “Of course. It was picked by monkeys and sorted by hand,” she deadpanned.

  He grunted. “What did you do for two years? Go on a hippie walkabout?”

  “Something like that—a spiritual retreat marketed to new divorcees.”

  “You didn’t.” He unfolded from his chair, stood, and leaned forward. “Is this where you did the one-legged chant thing? And learned all the stupid Zen stuff?”

  She drummed her fingers on the cold granite. “Yoga by the beach was what I needed at the time.” And she should book another trip as soon as he left, seeing as how she’d regressed enough to consider smacking him on the head. “It wasn’t all chanting and sun salutations. There were lots of classes and talk therapy.”

  He massaged the bridge of his nose. “I’m so sorry I inflicted that on you. I don’t know how you survived.”

  Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine a calm, peaceful ocean. For some reason, the water seemed streaked with red. “It was the best decision of my life. I learned not to let emotions get the better of me.”

  “Sweetheart, I hate to break this to you.” His grating voice added thunder and lightning to the imagery. “But our marriage might not have ended if you’d lost your damn temper.”

  *

  “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.” Brennan moaned as her gaze dropped to the empty teacup. Grabbing a hand towel, she rushed over t
o the fridge and filled it with ice.

  “I’m fine.” Karl squawked.

  His profusely-apologizing wife raced to his side and pressed the cloth-wrapped ice onto his chest. For once, their height difference worked in his favor. He was pretty sure the scalding liquid had been aimed at his face. Good thing she missed.

  He caught her wrist. “It’s alright. I’ve been through worse.”

  Her upturned face contorted. Tears brimmed. “I have no idea what came over me—”

  “I went out of my way to make you angry.” He gave her a reassuring smile. “I deserved it. I was being a Class A jerk.”

  The corners of her lips quirked up, but her brows remained furrowed. “Just a bit.”

  He guided her hand over his chest so the towel could absorb the remnants of her tea. Tendrils of golden hair escaped the clip to frame her face. All thought of pain went up in smoke. With her trim body an inch away, the slim possibility of a first degree burn seemed inconsequential. “I didn’t mean what I said. You know how everyone says it takes two people to end a marriage?”

  She nodded as he grabbed the towel from her and placed it on the kitchen island.

  “They’re wrong. In our case, it took one.” He cupped her face with both palms. Her skin felt like silk. She smelled of sugar and spice. “I don’t blame you for wising up and walking out. I hated hearing you apologize because you’re the last person who should.”

  Her eyes widened, lending her face a heartbreaking vulnerability. “I think I finally figured out why I’m so angry.”

  He chucked her under the chin. “Oh yeah?”

  “I’m happy you’re here.” Thick lashes fanned over her rosy cheeks. “And I don’t want to be.”

  He should step away. The right thing to do was let her go. But he couldn’t—not again. It’d taken all his willpower not to chase her down the first time, and he wanted her back. The sudden awareness made his head spin. No job was worth never seeing her again. He’d been a fool, and it might be too late.

  He wanted to kiss her so much it hurt. Her scent filled his lungs. Her satiny hair whispered over the back of his hands. When he bent forward, her lips parted. A blush colored her pale skin as she drew in a shallow breath. Desire shone in those green depths, and he knew he could push her to give him what his body demanded.