Tempting the Best Man

by Tanya Michaels

  Inside was a gorgeous hand-beaded necklace. While Mia was oohing and aahing over it, Wren handed her two more bags. They contained a matching bracelet and a couple pairs of earrings.

  “Just be glad I stopped before I got to a tiara,” Wren said wryly. “I really miss the sex.”

  “I know what you mean.” But if Mia were being honest with herself, she didn’t just miss the sex. She missed him. His wry sense of humor had brightened her day so many times over the past month. And he’d been a great listener, especially the night they’d had dinner with her parents. And...

  Dammit, listing all of the things that made him wonderful was not going to help her miss him less. It only made her throat burn and her eyes prick with tears. “Will you excuse me?” she asked her friend. “I want to find the ladies’ room, then check to make sure Riley and Jack don’t need anything.”

  She darted through the crowd, hoping no one saw her cry. But, since this was an engagement party, if necessary, she could say she was choked up for the happy couple.

  Yeah, tears of joy. Not at all tears of disappointment and regret that she’d fallen in love with the wrong man. And lost him.

  * * *

  DANIEL HAD DRAGGED himself to the black-tie fund-raiser because he’d promised his family he’d attend—and because it beat moping at home over Mia. But given the way he’d been snarling at people left and right, his parents were probably now wishing that he’d canceled. Only moments ago, he’d snapped at his mother for making critical comments about Rachel’s dress.

  “I think she looks lovely,” he defended his sister-in-law, “and I certainly didn’t hear her ask for your opinion.”

  His mother drew back as if he’d slapped her, cheeks mottled, but across the table, Rachel beamed at him. For all that Rachel never complained, why should she have to put up with nitpicky remarks or condescension? I should have said something to my parents years ago.

  Actually, no. His brother should have said something in his wife’s defense, as a show of support that they were a united front. If he’d supported Mia at the faculty reception—told leering Dr. Goff to take his damn eyeballs out of her cleavage and put them back in his head or even silently allowed Mia to conclude her own conversation with Carolyn Hollis—maybe Mia would be with him now. In which case, she would have plenty to say about this fund-raiser. There’d been no vegetarian entrée option at the high-dollar buffet, and the band’s music was putting people to sleep rather than engaging them.

  His mother touched the edge of his sleeve, her expression conciliatory. “I’m going to overlook how rude you were—”

  The way Rachel had overlooked Mrs. Keegan’s rudeness for years?

  “—because I know you’re probably just cranky after breaking up with that woman. But I assure you, it’s for the best. She wasn’t right for you.”

  “Mother, if you say Felicity’s name, I’m leaving.” It wasn’t an idle threat, he realized. He was prepared to get up and exit the ballroom right now, to hell with her ire. He respected his parents, but he couldn’t live his life to please them. “In fact, if you try to push her back into my life, this will be the last fund-raiser I attend all year.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Your brother is running for governor.”

  “And I wish him luck. He should go to lots of fund-raisers, shake a lot of hands. But it’s his campaign not mine. I’ve never wanted the spotlight, and I don’t want Felicity Green.” He wanted Mia. He knew it with a clarity so sharp that it pierced through him; he wouldn’t have been surprised to see actual blood on his tuxedo shirt.

  Which begged the question—if he wanted her so badly, why was he here at a boring fund-raiser he hadn’t wanted to attend in the first place instead of fighting for her?

  He almost bolted from his seat then and there. His mother studied him, her expression alarmed.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  No. He was miserable without Mia. With each day that passed, he second-guessed his actions and words, wishing he’d handled things differently. She’d given him a second chance. If he figured out how to apologize, was there any possibility she’d give him a third? “You’re wrong when you say Mia isn’t right for me.” He only hoped he was right for her.

  Mrs. Keegan paled. “You really care about her so much?”

  “I do. I know that’s not what you want to hear, but you have to give up this insane dream of controlling who I love.”

  “Daniel! My intentions were to be helpful, not controlling. Felicity’s a wonderful girl, and your father and I truly thought she would make you happy. That’s what we want for our children—happiness.”

  “And the governor’s mansion,” he said wryly.

  “Well, yes, that, too. But winning that election would make your brother happy. Just like getting tenure makes you happy.”

  Not as much as he would have expected. The news had come yesterday, and Eli had taken him out to celebrate. Daniel had tried to be appropriately jovial, but not being able to share his success with Mia had dulled the victory. “Mia makes me happy.”

  His mother sighed. “Then I’m sure your father and I will learn to love her. In time.”

  He smiled, touched despite his bleak mood. “Thanks, Mom.” Did that mean Mia could learn to eventually love them?

  More important, was there any chance she could ever love him?

  * * *

  WHEN MIA CAME back from lunch on Monday, the office door was locked. Shannon hadn’t mentioned that she would be out that afternoon, but maybe she’d had errands to run. Or maybe she’d gone upstairs to visit Paige. Apparently, their date over the weekend had been a big success.

  I told you, Shannon had grinned this morning, that I’d make my move when I was ready.

  Mia was glad someone’s love life was working out. She dug through her purse for the keys she hadn’t expected to need. Then she opened the door, making a mental list of—

  Her heart stopped. “Daniel.”

  He was sitting on a picnic blanket in the middle of her reception area, a bottle of champagne chilling in an ice bucket next to him.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Waiting for you,” he said simply.

  She narrowed her eyes, sensing conspiracy. “You sent Shannon away.”

  “More like she enthusiastically volunteered.”

  So much for not interfering in each other’s personal lives. Mia had some choice words for her friend when she came back.

  Daniel stood and came toward her.

  The closer he got, the faster her treacherous heart beat. Stay strong. “Daniel, this isn’t like when you sent flowers. We didn’t have a fight that you need to apologize for. We just aren’t—”

  “I love you.”

  Her vision swam, and she leaned against the door for support. “Wh-what?”

  He tilted her chin up so that she was meeting his eyes, and the rush of pleasure she got just from that contact was so strong she almost nuzzled his hand. “I love you,” he repeated.

  “But that’s a terrible idea!”

  He chuckled darkly. “It wasn’t exactly something I set out to do. I know you think we’re too different to make this work, but I’m a lit professor. Going back centuries, you know what the great love stories have in common? It was never easy.”

  She swallowed back a tide of emotion. “This isn’t Shakespeare, Daniel. It’s my life.” My heart.

  “Mine, too. And my life feels
flat and purposeless without you. I found out Friday that I got tenure—”

  “Congratulations!”

  “—and once I realized I couldn’t celebrate it with you, I barely even cared. That’s why I brought the champagne. I was hoping you’d celebrate with me now, that you’d give me another chance.” He ran a thumb along her bottom lip, and she trembled. “I want to kiss you so damn badly.”

  Bad idea. If he did, she’d be lost. She ducked her head. “Daniel, I—” love you, too “—care about you a lot. But I don’t think I’m what you need long term.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  He said it with such confidence that she wanted to shriek in exasperation. It had been a lot easier to break up with him when he’d calmly gone along with it. It was more difficult to send away this man with the sexy gaze and declarations of love.

  She switched tactics. “All right, maybe you aren’t what I need—”

  “I told my mother to be nicer to her daughters-in-law and to quit trying to control my love life and that you’re the woman I want.”

  “You did?” That couldn’t have gone over well.

  “She’s making her peace with it. My parents aren’t terrible people, but I let them bully me for too long. No more.” He smiled like a man with a weight lifted from his shoulders.

  “I’m proud of you.” Whatever happened between her and Daniel, she hoped he had a healthier relationship with his family going forward.

  “I love my family,” he said, “but I don’t want to live my life for their approval. And I don’t want to be the cold, judgmental bastard I was in college. I’ve worked to change that over the past decade, but a few weeks with you was more effective than any of my solo attempts. I don’t want to revert to life as an ice cube.” He leaned in so close they were sharing breaths. “Keep melting me, Mia. Please.”

  She’d have to be made of solid ice to resist that voice. “I love you, too,” she whispered.

  His eyes widened with surprise and pleasure, and then he lifted her off the ground for a frenzied, openmouthed kiss that was a celebration all its own. No champagne required. Heat flooded her veins as his tongue licked against hers, and she wrapped her legs around him, wanting to feel him everywhere at once. Wanting to tell him she loved him as he moved inside her.

  Which would be a great plan if she didn’t have a client meeting in twenty minutes. She bit his bottom lip. “You had to do this in the middle of a workday?”

  “I couldn’t wait until tonight. I already regret the lost hours we could’ve spent together.”

  “You’re not an ice cube, you’re a romantic.”

  “Not always,” he cautioned. “We’ll still argue. I know our perspectives are different—”

  “I have it on good authority that being with someone who agrees with you on everything is boring as hell,” she said, thinking of Wren.

  Daniel laughed. “Honey, the one thing I can guarantee you is we’ll never be boring.”

  This man was willing to make changes for her; she supposed she could make a few for him. Small ones—nothing that sacrificed who she was or what she believed in, but enough to show him that he was worth the effort. Worth her love. “Maybe we could try going out to dinner sometime with your parents,” she said grudgingly. “Just the two of them, so they can focus on how great you are instead of your brother’s potential future as the ruler of the free world.” It couldn’t be any more awkward than the twenty-minute conversation she’d had with Patience last night. The two of them might never be BFFs, but as Patience had gushed about how impressed she was that Mia built a company from scratch, some of Mia’s old bitterness had faded.

  Families were complicated, but she was willing to attempt making peace with the Keegans. “I don’t know if I could ever be nice to Carolyn Hollis, though,” she warned. “That woman was vile.”

  “I’m tenured now,” he reminded her, “almost impossible to get rid of. You don’t have to suck up to anyone on my behalf, I promise.” The humor faded from his tone. “I’m sorry about that reception. I should have told Goff to go f—”

  “I know how important your job is to you. I could have tempered my approach a little, too. But speaking of jobs, I’m afraid I have a meet—”

  “Shannon cleared your afternoon,” he told her, kissing the curve of her neck. Pleasure danced over her nerve endings.

  “The whole afternoon?” Shannon was forgiven for her meddling. In fact, Mia was thinking about giving her friend a huge raise. “So how am I supposed to spend my time now?”

  He nipped at her earlobe. “What does your shoulder devil suggest?”

  “Oh, she has some ideas.” Joy blossomed through her, every bit as potent as the rising desire, and she tugged him down onto the picnic blanket, her fingers already freeing the buttons of his shirt. “Lots and lots of ideas...”

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from HOT PURSUIT by Lisa Childs.

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  Hot Pursuit

  by Lisa Childs

  1

  ANOTHER BIG FIRE was coming. Braden Zimmer didn’t see or smell the smoke yet. He didn’t hear the crackle and roar of the flames. But he felt it—not the heat; he felt the certainty and the dread and the foreboding.

  A fire was coming.

  Unless he could stop it...

  Unless he could stop the arsonist...

  For months Braden, the superintendent of the Huron Hotshots, an elite team of US Forest Service firefighters, had been trying to find the person responsible for setting fires in his home base of Northern Lakes, Michigan. But he was no closer to nailing a suspect than he’d been when the first fire was set six months ago.

  He wasn’t giving up. He wouldn’t stop looking until he found the person responsible for the fires. But he could no longer argue he didn’t need help. Yet catching up an arson investigator from the US Forest Service who knew nothing about the case was going to take more time Braden didn’t have.

  Not when he was so certain another fire would be set soon. It wasn’t just his instincts warning him about another blaze. It was the arsonist
himself.

  He glanced down at the note he’d found sitting on his desk in the Northern Lakes firehouse. There was no envelope. It hadn’t been mailed; it had been placed on the scratched surface of his old metal desk. The son of a bitch had walked right into the firehouse—into Braden’s office. Too bad they didn’t have security cameras in the firehouse. But they had never needed them; until the fires, there had never been much crime in Northern Lakes. The arsonist had been getting bolder and bolder with each fire, but this was ridiculous.

  The action taunted Braden as much as the note itself:

  YOU MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE. AND IT’S GOING TO COST YOU AND YOUR TEAM GRAVELY...

  Since the fires were only set when his team was in Northern Lakes, he’d already figured out it was personal. He just hadn’t realized how personal—that he was the one the arsonist wanted to hurt the most.

  Leaving the note where he’d found it, Braden pulled the office door shut behind him as he exited the room. This time he tested the knob, making sure it was locked. Few people locked their doors in Northern Lakes. Until the fires had started, it hadn’t been necessary. Nothing bad had ever happened here, as far back as Braden could remember, and he’d been born and raised in the northeastern Michigan town. He’d only left for college.

  He headed down the hall toward the workout room. Like his office, the hallway walls were concrete blocks—the floors bare concrete, too. But in the workout room there was a wall of mirrors behind the equipment. Ignoring his reflection, he settled onto the weight bench and began to lift. Despite not having to wield a chain saw or ax anymore like his team, he liked to make sure he still could. He wouldn’t have their respect if he couldn’t physically do the job he asked them to do. At thirty-three, he was one of the youngest Hotshot superintendents, so it was important that he maintained authority over his team.