Risk (It's Complicated Book 2)

by Ann Christopher

  Bending his head, he pressed one warm cheek to her forehead. He smelled spicy and sophisticated, which was a heady combination. She breathed deeply, savoring him.

  When he spoke, his voice was so soft she almost thought she’d imagined it.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said on a slow exhale. “It hurts to look at you.”

  She sighed helplessly, swaying into him as her eyes drifted closed and wishing—desperately wishing—she could ask him to come home and make love to her. She was positive he knew far more about making love than she did (she’d only had two lovers since losing her virginity at twenty, and she thought of them as Bad and Worse) and would be an exceptional teacher.

  A distant corner of her mind warned she’d gone too far, but she couldn’t make herself care. At this point she was just grateful she’d somehow resisted the strong urge to press her hips against his.

  And that his girlfriend wasn’t there.

  It was over much too soon. When the song ended, she stepped out of his resisting arms and looked up into his face, which was strained and dark with lust.

  “Justus?”

  This plaintive voice to their right announced the reappearance of his long-lost girlfriend—pretty Carla; age-appropriate Carla—in her shiny red dress.

  Angela stared at the girl, trying not to hate her.

  Carla would have Justus moving inside her tonight.

  Not Angela. Never Angela.

  Determined to forget this shameful night when she’d felt such a powerful sexual attraction to a minor, Angela turned and walked away without a backward glance, weaving her way through the crowd.

  Justus stared after Angela until she disappeared, grateful his buttoned jacket hid his uncomfortable arousal.

  Angela.

  He wanted her. More than he’d ever wanted Carla or anyone else. More than he wanted to leave home. More, even, than he wanted to tell his father to go to hell. He wanted her back in his arms so he could feel her ample breasts against his chest again, touch her bare back and wonder where the silk of her dress ended and that of her skin began.

  As he avoided Carla’s accusatory gaze and led her off the dance floor, he swore to himself that one day—he had no idea where or when—he and Angela would finish what they’d started tonight.

  2

  Present Day

  Angela’s life fell apart with a one-two punch at the end of November.

  The first blow fell halfway through dinner at her favorite Italian restaurant.

  It started out the same as any other Friday night. They arrived right at six thirty. The server seated them at a very nice booth near the picture window overlooking the duck pond. The dining room was decorated for the holidays, with tiny white lights glittering everywhere. Jazzy Christmas tunes played.

  As soon as they sat, she began to relax and feel the week’s pressures slip away.

  Tonight promised to be absolutely perfect.

  “I can’t marry you,” said Ronald White IV, her boyfriend of three years, the man she’d thought would give her an engagement ring for Christmas. “I—I don’t want to get married. It’s not you—it’s me.”

  Say what?

  Angela carefully swallowed her mouthful of wine and put her glass on the table, positive she’d misheard. Her first reaction was to snort with laughter, but he seemed serious. He looked the same as ever: fair skin, curly black hair, earnest brown eyes behind his glasses, pin-striped charcoal-gray suit, and her favorite yellow bow tie.

  Nothing about him indicated he was about to yank the rug out from under her life.

  She blinked. “What did you say?”

  “I know we’ve talked about it,” he continued, “but I’m not ready. I just—I’m sorry.”

  Angela tried to think. To breathe. “You—you don’t love me anymore?”

  “Of course I do,” Ronnie said earnestly, as though he’d been watching YouTube videos on how to fire people and wanted to dispatch her in as upbeat a manner as possible. “I just need some time to, you know, concentrate on my career right now. It’s not you. It’s me. I’m not sure I’ll ever get married.”

  Oh, God.

  Too shaken to speak, Angela sat there and digested his words. She knew what the platitudes meant. She’d watched the TV shows and read the books of all the relationship gurus over the years. And all those years of self-education led her to one inescapable conclusion: Ronnie didn’t have the balls to tell her that, while he may care about her, he wasn’t in love with her and would never marry her. Since most men got married eventually, he would likely marry someone else, probably sooner rather than later.

  At that happy thought, her mind flashed to all the times in the past few months he’d worked really late—hang on. Maybe he had her replacement lined up already. That was it, wasn’t it? Ronnie hated being alone; he’d never cut her loose unless he had someone warming up in the bullpen.

  “Oh my God,” she said just as a shadow fell over their table. “Is there someone else?”

  “Angela?” asked a deep and vaguely familiar male voice. “Is that you?”

  Frowning at the interruption, Angela looked up, and that was when she got her second surprise of the evening. It was—

  “Justus.”

  He smiled with unmistakable delight. Dressed in a black turtleneck sweater and gray wool slacks, he was as tall and handsome as ever, although he seemed to have filled out a little and was no longer so wiry, and he’d replaced his flashy ear studs with one small hoop in his left ear.

  He was with a beautiful and statuesque woman—black; twenty-five-ish; nice weave—who kept her arm linked with his, as if she feared he’d run away if she loosened her grip for half a second. Upset as she was, Angela still registered the woman’s expensive little black dress, perfect hair, perfect nails, and perfect makeup. One glance at the woman’s bosom, which was crammed into the low-cut dress and shoved somewhere up near her throat, told her what Justus would be doing later tonight.

  Angela smoothed her hair and tried to school her features. In her functional but decidedly untrendy black silk wrap dress, she felt like she’d just stepped out of the pages of Working Woman next to this Vogue cover girl.

  The best she could manage was a smile that felt lopsided. “Justus! How are you?”

  Justus’s searching gaze met hers and skimmed over her features so thoroughly she lost all hope of hiding her upset from him. “Better than you.” He shot Ronnie a veiled death glare. “You okay?”

  Thoroughly embarrassed, she flashed him a dazzling why-would-you-ask-such-a-question-I’ve-never-been-better smile. “Of course! This is my, ah...” She gestured vaguely at Ronnie. Was there a classification for the man who was in the middle of dumping you? Did Hallmark have a card for that? “This is Ronald White. Ron, this is Justus Robinson, my sister’s husband’s brother.”

  Ron, who was shorter than Justus (wasn’t everyone?) stood and shook his hand.

  Justus gave him a grudging nod, then turned to his girlfriend. Fuck buddy. Whoever. “Janet Walker, this is Angela Dennis and Ron White.”

  They all murmured pleasantries while Angela wished Justus would take his arm candy and leave so she and Ronnie could talk. At any other time she’d have been glad to see him and eager to hear about what he’d been up to, because they’d somehow missed each other at the few events that included both their families in the years since V.J. and Carolyn got married, but not tonight.

  Tonight she needed to find an answer to the pressing question:

  Exactly how big an SOB was Ron?

  After an awkward beat or two, Justus took the hint.

  “Well. Good to see you,” he told Angela, then steered Janet toward their server, who led them to a booth near theirs.

  Angela immediately turned back to Ron, who squared his shoulders and regarded her warily.

  “Is there someone else, Ronnie? Is that what this is about?”

  “Of course not!” He got the outrage right, but his gaze skittered away. “But...I need s
ome time to get my head together.”

  Angela nearly choked on her shock. Oh, God, he was lying. Right to her face.

  Random thoughts churned uselessly in her brain, threatening to make her dizzy.

  Everything he’d said tonight was a lie, except for the part about not wanting to marry her. That was true. He didn’t love her, even though he’d told her for years that he did. So he’d either fallen out of love with her, or he’d never loved her in the first place.

  Both options were equally appalling.

  “So that’s it?” she demanded, her hysteria-tinged voice louder than she’d intended.

  Ronnie cringed. A few feet away, Justus looked up from his menu and stared openly, not even bothering to pretend he wasn’t listening.

  Embarrassed—she must never, never make a scene in public, no matter how upset she was—Angela planted her elbows on the table and rubbed her forehead with shaking hands.

  “After three years and telling me you wanted to get married when the time was right and stringing me along,” she continued, keeping her voice low, “that’s it?”

  “No, Angela.”

  Ronnie reached over and tried to take her hand, but she snatched it away, sending her glass of wine crashing to the tile floor with an explosive crash that had everyone in the dining room gaping at them.

  A worried-looking server scurried over to sop up the mess.

  Angela barely noticed.

  How could this be happening?

  She and Ronnie were the perfect couple. Everyone always said so. She was a lawyer; he was a doctor. They both loved Martha’s Vineyard in August and the opera and movies. They both worked at the homeless shelter every Thanksgiving. Sure, they’d never been able to spend as much time together as they would’ve liked, but that was only because they both worked so hard on their careers. They’d always been on the same page...until now. Now Ronnie, the man she loved, her best friend, the man whose children she’d thought she’d bear, had thrown a stick of lit dynamite into the middle of their relationship and blown it up.

  She gasped. Ah, God, she couldn’t breathe...couldn’t breathe...Her throat strained and she wondered if she was on the verge of her first panic attack ever. Wouldn’t that be funny? A hysterical bark of laughter surged out of her mouth before she clutched the edges of the table and tried to get a grip on herself.

  Ronnie shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  Justus stared.

  Angela pressed a hand to her neck.

  Ronnie cleared his throat. “I know this is hard right now, but I’m hoping that one day we can...you know...be friends.”

  With that final insulting nail driven into the coffin of her dreams, Angela lost it. Choking back a sob by clapping a hand over her mouth, she got up, snatched her purse and coat from the back of her chair, and, ignoring Ron’s voice calling after her, ran from the dining room.

  But when she passed the hostess station, it occurred to her that she was stranded unless she submitted to the indignity of letting Ron drive her home, which she would not.

  Shit.

  She looked left and right, desperately needing someplace to hide. Unfortunately, her choices were limited to the crowded bar area, where a hundred more people could see her fall apart, or the ladies’ room. Ladies’ room it was. Jerking open the door, she looked over her shoulder to the hostess, whose eyes were wide as baseballs.

  “Please call me a cab,” Angela said before she ducked inside.

  The restroom was a fancy deal that had probably required its own decorator: outer lounge area with a loveseat, chairs and coffee table on a rug. Enough toiletries and feminine products to stock a day spa sat over on the granite countertop, which was edged by a large mirror with elegant light fixtures. Two well-dressed women primped and chattered, but froze when they saw Angela.

  Their shock made Angela feel even worse. A crying mess did not belong in this lovely sanctuary.

  “Are—are you okay, miss?”

  Angela snatched a tissue from the counter and sank onto the loveseat. Crossing her legs, as if crying in the bathroom of a fancy restaurant was the most normal thing in the world, she said, “I’m fine, thanks. I just need a minute.”

  The women, exuding clear relief to be excused from some sort of uncomfortable service, nodded, shoveled their makeup back into their designer handbags, and hurried out before Angela changed her mind. When the door swung shut behind them, Angela collapsed back against the cushions and reviewed the wreckage of her so-called life.

  It was all over now; at thirty-four she was no spring chicken and had probably just missed the last train out of Loserville. She’d never find someone else now. And even if she met someone tomorrow, it’d be years until they dated, got to know each other, and married. Her eggs didn’t have years! And even if they did, she didn’t want to be a first-time mother at forty. And she didn’t want to be a single mother, either. And she didn’t want to adopt, because she could never love another woman’s child like her own.

  So where did that leave her? Screwed. Alone with only her thriving career to console her, and wasn’t that a bitch? She’d spent years thinking her career was the most important thing, and it had been. For a while. And now?

  Another of her hysterical laughing sobs zoomed out of her mouth.

  It was all fun and games to be a high-powered lawyer until you hit your mid-thirties and you realized your limited and precious supply of eggs were starting to shrivel up like raisins in the sun.

  Leaning back, she rested her arm over her face. How would she spend the holidays? Who would she kiss on New Year’s Eve? When would she ever get flowers and candy again for Valentine’s Day? She thought of the impending embarrassment when she told her friends and colleagues about the breakup. They’d feel sorry for her and immediately start to fix her up on blind dates with their loser single friends because—let’s keep it real—all the good men were taken. People said it wasn’t true, but it was. The men she’d consider dating—the good men, the ones worth having, the ones with advanced degrees, like her, the professionals, the doctors, lawyers, architects, accountants, executives—had been snatched up years ago. Hell, they were all on their second or third child by now, having been landed by women who were clearly smarter than she was.

  Sudden waves of nausea overcame her. She sat up and nearly gagged, and that was when she decided she’d had enough.

  Angry now, she wiped her face with the tissue and took several calming breaths. She would not let Ronald White, or any man, do this to her. No, she certainly would not.

  Another deep breath. And another.

  There. That was better.

  Where was that cab, though? She just needed to get home so she—

  “Angela!”

  Startled, she twisted in her seat in time to see Justus poke his head in the door.

  Oh, God—not Justus. Not now.

  Turning away so he wouldn’t see her wrecked face and the tarry black mascara she knew must be trailing down her cheeks, she worked on her eyes with that poor bedraggled tissue.

  “I’m fine—”

  “Bullshit,” he said, frowning, as he came inside and let the door swing shut behind him.

  3

  “Hey!” she cried.

  Justus ignored her and strode all the way in.

  All broad shoulders, long legs, hard planes, and angles, he looked ridiculous in this bastion of femininity—like a stallion in Victoria’s Secret. He regarded her gravely, but some of his tension eased after a couple seconds, as if he felt satisfied she wasn’t contemplating homicide or suicide.

  Then he smiled. “I kicked his ass for you.”

  Angela gaped at him before bursting into wild laughter she had no hope of controlling. Tears were streaming down her face again by the time she reined it in.

  “Did you make him cry?”

  “Squealed like a newborn pig,” Justus assured her gravely.

  “Good.” Her mood abruptly swung back to despair and she ducked her head even though
she was done crying. There was no point to wasting any more of her tears on a man who didn’t deserve them.

  She sure could use a new tissue, though.

  Justus sat onto the loveseat next to her and his hand, clutching a blindingly white handkerchief—wait, a handkerchief?—came into her field of vision.

  “What’s this?” Hesitating, she looked up, took the fine linen, and wiped her nose with it. Oh, wow. It smelled like him. She remembered his spicy scent very clearly from that long-ago night.

  His lips twisted with amusement. “It’s a hankie, you ignorant girl.”

  Laughing again, she blotted her eyes. “I really wish you’d stop making me laugh when I was trying to cry here.”

  “I really wish you’d stop trying to cry. Especially over that fool.”

  She had to smile at that. “He is a fool, isn’t he?”

  Justus stared her in the face, all signs of humor gone. “Biggest one I’ve ever seen.”

  She looked away because sympathy always made her cry harder, and that was the last thing she needed to do right now.

  “I wouldn’t take you for the hankie type, Justus.”

  “I’m quirky,” he said, grinning.

  It occurred to her that he’d interrupted his date to check on her. “You should go. I’m sure your girlfriend—”

  He scowled. “There you go assuming again.”

  “Yeah, okay,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I’m sure the woman you’re having sex with later is wondering what happened to you.”

  He was about to say something when the door swung open again. In came another well-dressed woman and a brief burst of music and chatter from the crowded outer hallway.

  She stopped dead when she saw Justus. “This is the ladies’ room,” she snapped.

  “I know,” he said irritably, not looking away from Angela. “I read the sign on the door when I came in.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Justus seemed to realize he’d been rude. He twisted at the waist and, focusing his gaze on the woman, smiled a dazzling smile that was like the sun hitting a handful of diamonds. “I hope you don’t mind, but we need to talk for a minute.”