Until Dawn

by Melinda Di Lorenzo

  “Is that what you want?” Ethan growled back. “To kiss him?”

  “Why? Afraid he’ll give you some competition?”

  “You know as well as I do that he wouldn’t compare.”

  “You arrogant asshole!”

  “Monday night,” he said. “I’m booking it now.”

  “Don’t bother,” I retorted. “Even if I didn’t have plans, I’d rather crawl into Mr. Right’s bed than spend a minute with you.”

  “Plans? What pl—”

  I slammed my thumb to the phone, ending the call. For good measure, I turned the slim device all the way off. Then I stepped furiously out of the alcove, and lo and behold…smacked directly into Mr. Right. His hands came out to steady me, a pleased little smile showing off a dimple. He was hot, dammit. I could see that he was. Cuter up close than from far away, which was kind of a rarity, I thought. And judging from the appreciative way he studied my face, he thought I was attractive too. But being this close to him still did nothing for me. Not even the vaguest tingle.

  I tried to imagine myself kissing him. I squinted at his lips. But the thought of getting any closer turned my stomach. I couldn’t even listen as he opened his mouth to speak.

  “Excuse me,” I muttered, then pushed right by.

  And I didn’t stop moving until I’d reached Liv and Aysia and the two other girls, who were all sitting at our table with fresh drinks in their hands.

  Aysia jumped up right away. “Lu, what’s wrong?”

  “Terrible migraine.” It wasn’t that far off from the truth; my head was definitely aching. “Will you hate me if I cut out early?”

  “Not at all,” said my future sister-in-law. “You want us to call you a cab?”

  I nodded gratefully, glad to be given a reason not to turn my phone back on. And ten minutes later, I was sitting in the back of a taxi with my forehead pressed to cool window, and thoughts of Ethan pushed firmly to the back of my mind.

  Chapter 13

  Ethan

  I stared across the room at my phone—which had just hit the wall, then bounced to the floor—and wondered what the hell was wrong with me. I didn’t lose my temper. I got ice cold when I was angry. I became more effective when I was fired up about something because I channeled my frustration into turning things to my advantage. I’d never in my life thrown something the way I’d just thrown my phone. I was half afraid to walk over and check if it was broken. No way did I want to be that kind of man.

  I tore my eyes from the facedown device on my floor, and paced the length of my bedroom.

  Why the hell did she have to turn the phone off?

  But I knew the answer. The second the line went dead, I’d realized I was being an asshole. A few seconds more, and I realized why. I was jealous. Another emotion I hadn’t had much occasion to embrace, and one I’d now definitively say didn’t bring out my best. Yet there I was, wanting to be a physical barrier between Mia and the unknown man in the club. Something I had no right to do. She wasn’t my girlfriend. Even if she had been, the overreaction was totally unacceptable.

  Unfortunately, knowing it was true didn’t mean I could shake the feeling.

  Is she kissing him now? I wondered. Going home with him?

  I gritted my teeth and tried to fight the green-tinged emotion as it stormed through me.

  I had tried to set it right. I’d hit redial as soon as I connected the ugly dots, ready with an apology. The first time I got her voicemail, I hung up. I dialed back. It took me two more tries before I clued in. She’d cut me off. It made me angry at myself, which is what resulted in the juvenile phone throwing.

  I ran a frustrated hand over my hair, then sank to the edge of the bed.

  “You’ve got no claim on Mia Diaz,” I said firmly, hoping that hearing it aloud would help.

  But maybe you want a claim on her? countered a little voice in my head.

  I tried to mentally refute the idea, but I gave up after only a moment. There wasn’t much sense in denying it. The proof was in the discarded phone. In the way I hadn’t slept properly in days. In the fact that I really had booked myself a flight going out Monday afternoon.

  I turned my attention to my laptop, which sat on the edge of the bed with the confirmed flight details still open. I considered whether I should cancel it. Mia was rightly furious with me. I didn’t know if I could muster up the energy to fight with her on the business front.

  And she also said she had plans tomorrow night, I reminded myself.

  What were they? Would they be derailed by the presence of Mr. Right?

  My teeth tried to gnash again, and I forced in a calming breath. I glanced at the clock on my nightstand, and was startled to see that it was almost two in the morning already. How had nearly two hours passed already? Not that it mattered. I somehow doubted that I’d be able to get to sleep anytime soon. I was too geared up. Too worried that I was making a mistake.

  I flopped back on the bed, thinking about it. Are you really letting yourself consider making a business decision based on how you might feel about a woman you met a week ago?

  I blinked up at the ceiling. It wasn’t that I usually disregarded the human factor in my dealings. I just never doubted that I was right. When I came after a business, I was always sure that what I offered was fair. Sometimes more than fair. The people on the other side weren’t my enemies; they were just as driven by profit as I was. Hell. Sometimes they bordered on greedy, and I felt like I was doing the world a favor by taking them out of the equation. It was usually easy to figure out what they wanted from me. It was usually one of two things—more money, or more prestige. Or a little of both. Once I had that pinned down, I was on the path to win.

  In the six years since starting Burke Holdings, I’d acquired roughly one business per quarter. Not once had I not been able to see what the original owner was after.

  With Mia, it was different.

  She didn’t seem to want money, or need it. I inferred from the lunch with her family that there was some pretty comfortable backing there. Her brother certainly made a pretty penny at Eco-Go. I knew enough about the home development company to be sure of that.

  And if Mia was concerned about making her jewelry a household name, she didn’t show it. My research told me that her advertising was strictly word of mouth. Three months earlier, a local Vancouver paper had even reported that the company had turned down a celebrity endorsement of some kind.

  Yet—like I’d said to her—I had no doubt in regards to her business skills. In the three years since she’d started Trinkets and Treasures, it’d gone from a small-time, home-based hobby to a flourishing company that allowed her to afford the rent on a prime piece of real estate.

  So if she didn’t want money or prestige, what did she want?

  “Shit,” I said as it suddenly dawned on me.

  Mia wanted what I wanted—to hold on for dear life and be her own boss.

  And that’s what really makes her different, I realized. She’s like me.

  I suddenly felt foolish. She’d told me her business was everything to her. Actually, what she’d said was “ditto,” when I explained how I felt. Somewhere in my head, I’d assumed it was a deflection rather than a sincere exclamation.

  I pushed back to a sitting position. What would I do, if I were in her spot? If someone was trying to push me out of Burke Holdings? I sure as hell wouldn’t let him or her into my house, no matter what they said at my doorstep. I wouldn’t make small talk over lunch with family, or take time out of my evening with friends to explain myself. And if the usurper in question told me to do something—like not kiss someone, maybe?—I’d laugh and go out of my way to do the opposite.

  “Shit,” I repeated, this time a little louder.

  I’d probably pushed Mia straight into another man’s arms.

  Jealousy took a backseat to panic, and
I realized something significant. I was a hell of a lot more worried about the thought of losing any chance with Mia than I was about anything else. Even more than getting my slice of her company. It was enough to startle me into immobility.

  “This is crazy,” I muttered.

  And maybe it was. A week, I’d known her. Not nearly long enough to make the risk worthwhile. Except I was an expert at making instant decisions. A pro at assessing whether the rewards outweighed the potential. Why should this be any different?

  Maybe because it’s your heart, dipshit, not your money?

  Unconsciously, I placed my hand over the organ in question. I wasn’t a sentimental man, but I believed in instinct. I’d been living by my gut for six years. Successfully.

  I had some damned good reasons for caution, but my intuition rarely let me down.

  So yeah, it might be my heart. Right then, though, it was thumping out a rhythm that said Mia was worth it. And I needed to tell her that. In person.

  I glanced at my computer again. There was no way I was giving up the Monday reservation. In fact, I needed to see if I could get into Vancouver sooner.

  I jumped up, moved to my closet, then remembered that I’d accidentally let my small suitcase be destroyed by the rain. Annoyed by the delay, I made my way from the bedroom to the storage closet in the hall, sure that I’d stuck my old set of luggage in it. I flung open the door, pushed aside a dusty box, and peered into the dim space.

  “Aha!”

  I could just see the handle, jutting out from behind a pair of skis. I tried to yank it free. Much to my dismay, it broke off. I rolled my eyes, tossed the stupid thing aside, then bent down and reached in a little farther. My fingers clasped the edge of the suitcase. As I dragged it forward, though, it bumped against the skis, which in turn smacked the bar below the overhead shelf. The shelf rattled. Before I could react, something with a hard, sharp corner slid down and cracked me right over my eyebrow.

  The pain and the blood came immediately, and it only took a few seconds of cursing and a look in the mirror to acknowledge that I wouldn’t be running off to any airport anytime soon. What I would be doing was getting some stitches.

  Strangely, after several hours—which included a visit to the ER, and a warning from the doctor to take it easy for the next day or two—I wasn’t feeling discouraged. Instead, I felt challenged. Invigorated. Like the universe was presenting the whole situation to me in just the way I liked it—hard, and worth doing.

  * * * *

  Mia

  Unsurprisingly, I slept terribly on Friday night. The fluorescent blue cocktail I’d had at the club didn’t sit well. And neither did the last conversation I’d had with Ethan.

  I kept asking myself if I’d overreacted. Was it so wrong of him to ask me not to kiss someone else? He’d said please. And had sounded a little desperate.

  He doesn’t own you, I reminded myself.

  But what if I flipped it over? What if he was threatening to kiss another woman? I couldn’t lie and say I wouldn’t care. The idea of Ethan’s lips on someone else’s…it made me feel physically sick.

  And he was right about there being no comparison. Until Ethan, it had been literal years since I kissed anyone, but I knew it had never been like this before. That it might never be again. It made my heart shrink painfully to think about it.

  And yet instead of just agreeing to not kiss Mr. Right, I’d blown up. I’d name-called like a kindergartener with a sailor’s mouth. I’d threatened to sleep with a stranger. Then I’d shut him out, and when I finally got up the guts to turn on my phone again, the only messages were from Aysia and Liv, checking to see how I was feeling. I’d sent them each a reassuring text, then stared down at the phone for far too long. Like I was hoping I could will a message from Ethan into existence.

  Except I wasn’t sure that I really wanted to hear from him. Because I was perfectly capable of calling him back on my own. I was an adult who could apologize when she ought to.

  But he was still after Trinkets and Treasures, and that threat hung over me like a dread-weighted cloud.

  I wanted to ask him to walk away. To explore the possibility of me instead of my company. And the desperate desire to do it was what stopped me. I didn’t need the humiliation or the heartbreak. And I was starting to think the latter was an inevitability, so I had to avoid the former at all costs.

  Heartbreak.

  Even the word made me cringe. Knowing someone for a week wasn’t enough time to care enough to get heartbroken. But there it was anyway. That sharp ache. The feeling that a chance at something—someone—great was slipping through my fingers. It made me furious with myself. I knew better than to let someone get behind my wall. I wasn’t one of those people who didn’t know I’d built one. My wall was conscious and carefully crafted.

  But there I was anyway. Thinking of Ethan. Plagued by him all night Friday, and all day and night Saturday too. Wishing he would call, but knowing that when he did—or when he came into town on Monday, as promised—it would be for all the wrong reasons.

  And Sunday was no better than Friday or Saturday. Work went by in a blur, and I tossed and turned all night to the point where I wondered if someone could die from sleep deprivation.

  It was so bad that on Monday, when Liv came into my shop to go over the last-minute details for the unique bachelorette party we had planned for that evening, she asked me if I was sick. And when I brushed off her concerns with complaints of plain old exhaustion, she insisted on sending me to the spa for an hour. My protests were met with a plea. People would turn and run at the sight of me, Liv said. And probably assume it was the start of the zombie apocalypse, to boot.

  So I gave in. And admittedly, it wasn’t all that bad. The twenty-minute power massage actually put me to sleep. The mini-facial took off that freshly-dead hue, and the fresh polish on both my fingernails and toenails perked me up just enough that I felt like a new dress was in order.

  But by the time I was actually at the party I’d helped plan, the melancholy was creeping up again.

  Case in point, I’d been listening to the same woman talk for the last five minutes, but I couldn’t even remember her name. Emma? Emily? Ellie? It didn’t seem to matter to her in the slightest anyway. She’d been talking for a century about her ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend, and balancing my reactions equally between nods and cringes had worked so far.

  I shifted in my three-inch heels, took a halfhearted sip of my champagne, and nodded sympathetically yet again, then subtly craned my neck to see past the complain-y brunette. Aysia stood on the other side of the room, and when she spotted my glance, she offered me a congenial wave, mouthed a thank-you, then laughed at something the woman beside her said. I was glad she was having fun. I just wished I could manage to do the same.

  I stifled a sigh and moved to offer Emma-Emily-Ellie a fresh cringe, but realized a little belatedly that she was gone. I cringed anyway, this time at myself.

  Indulging in a moment of self-pity, I lifted the glass and downed the rest of the sparkling beverage. The bubbles popped along my throat, a welcome distraction from the small crowd around me. There were thirty women there, give or take—cousins and aunts and friends and long-lost roommates had all been included on the guest list—but I knew few of them, and I honestly wasn’t sure if I could handle another round of small talk.

  I clutched the empty glass to my chest and opted for a quick walk around the venue. Modern Grape was its name, and a mix of art and wine were its game. The snappy little gallery was located just a block from my own shop and it was wildly popular—both for local artists looking to make a name for themselves, and for the trendy patrons who walked its halls with glasses full of the crafted-on-site Pinot Noir. For tonight, I’d called in a favor so that we could have the place to ourselves.

  It was supposed to bring an element of class to the event. But in under an hour
, Liv’s contribution to the party would supersede mine, and it would definitely take a turn for the classless. Three male strippers were slotted to begin at eight o’clock sharp. A policeman. A fireman. And a “surprise.” Lord knew what that meant. Once that particular bit of debauchery was over, we’d move upstairs for a rooftop party that would include my brother and his entourage. Which would mean more dreaded small talk.

  “T-minus thirty-eight minutes!”

  At the sound of Liv’s voice, gleeful with lascivious anticipation, I turned and rolled my eyes.

  “You are far too excited about the impending flesh storm,” I said.

  She snorted. “I’ll take my excitement over your funeral face. Are you going to join the party, or what?”

  “I’m taking a breather. I spent the last five minutes comforting some woman about her horrible ex.”

  “Oh. You mean Nancy? Yeah, doozy of a breakup.”

  “Her name is Nancy?” I frowned.

  “What’d you think it was?”

  “Not Nancy.”

  It was Liv’s turn to roll her eyes. “You cannot call having a conversation with a woman whose name you don’t know being a party animal.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” I said. “And I’m drinking.”

  “Your cup is empty. And you might be here. But everyone else is over there.” She gestured with her own full wineglass. “You might as well be wearing a don’t-kick-the-introvert sign around your neck.”

  “Ha ha.”

  Overhead, the lights dimmed abruptly, and a bass-filled beat thumped out from hidden speakers.

  Liv’s face split into a grin. “Ooh. I think the strippers are early! That means your breather is over!”

  She grabbed my arm and pulled me back to the main gallery just as the first stripper—the cop—slipped into the room and began gyrating his way over to Aysia. He slapped a pair of plastic handcuffs onto her wrists, dragged her to a chair in the center of the room, then started his striptease. He spun his shirt around over his head, then tossed it aside. When the discarded item landed on the nearby sculptures, I couldn’t help but wince on behalf of the absent artist.