From This Day Forward

by Lauren Layne

  Jason had been helpless against her pull on him, and before he could register his intention to talk to her, he was standing in front of her, asking her to grab a cup of coffee.

  Coffee had led to a good-natured debate on the merits of Nikon versus Canon cameras. Which had led to lunch. Which had led to dinner.

  Which led to the hottest affair of Jason’s life.

  Nothing had burned hotter than him and Leah together.

  And nothing had been quite so cold as the year that followed, when Leah had iced him out of her life entirely.

  Until now.

  Now she would be within arm’s reach for the next three days, and for the life of him, Jason wasn’t sure what he wanted to do about that.

  Or rather, he did know, but his body and his brain had very different plans in mind. His body was demanding he take her by the hand, drag her to one of their respective rooms, and put his hands on every inch of that pale, smooth flesh.

  His brain wanted to punish her. Wanted to swipe at her the way she seemed determined to swipe at him, as though they were two enemies on the grade-school playground.

  As for his heart—fuck his heart. Damn thing had done nothing but gotten him into trouble.

  “Look, Rhodes—”

  He held up a finger to halt whatever stick-up-the-ass comment she was going to fling his way and crossed toward the small bar cart in the corner of the room. He splashed some bourbon in a glass for himself before pulling the white wine bottle out of the ice bucket and crossing back to her.

  Leah didn’t protest when he refilled her glass—she even managed a surly thank you.

  When he sat back down, he lifted his glass toward her.

  She rolled her eyes. “What do we possibly have to toast to?”

  “How about the fact that we’ve made it nearly five minutes without you losing that darling temper of yours and throwing water on my crotch?”

  Leah gave him a withering look. “That’s what you want to toast to? The fact that you have a dry crotch?”

  “Well, I’d toast to your dry crotch, but I don’t know that you have one—do you, Red?”

  “That’s lovely,” she said, taking a small sip of her wine. “I’m sure former President Preston is going to be just thrilled when he learns he hired the country’s crudest manwhore to photograph his daughter’s wedding.”

  “Is that why you accepted the job?” he asked, enjoying the way the smoky bourbon mingled with the cinnamon aftertaste of his Tic Tac. “Fame?”

  “Honestly?” Leah lifted a shoulder. “Yeah. I mean, I had a free weekend, so I likely would have jumped at any job that Alexis threw my way, but only one this high profile—and high paying—could coax me into working alongside you.”

  Jason sat back and smirked. “I love that Alexis didn’t give you any warning.”

  A little line appeared between Leah’s angular eyebrows, and he knew it pissed her off royally that she’d been blindsided at brunch last weekend, whereas he’d come in with a bit of forewarning.

  “She was trying to before someone had to go and show up early,” Leah muttered.

  “Maybe she just knows that if given the chance, you’ll avoid hard situations. You’re a runner,” he stated simply, idly spinning his glass on the table.

  She touched her fingers to her temple, eyes closing for a moment. “Can we just . . . not? Can we not do this? For the rest of the weekend can we just avoid each other as much as possible and limit our conversation to who’s going to photograph what?”

  Jason felt a stab of anger low and hot in his stomach. After a year, he should have written her off—he should have been able to put their fling behind him.

  And yet seeing her now, that familiar red ponytail that he’d used to wrap around his fist to pull her to him . . .

  He fished out another Tic Tac. Studied her.

  “I’ll leave you alone for the rest of the weekend,” he said slowly, hating the way her eyes flashed in relief at the thought of not having to deal with him. “If—”

  Just like that, her relief turned to wariness, and he felt an odd thrill, knowing that he could still do this to her. That he could still unnerve her as easily as she unnerved him just by breathing.

  “If what?” Leah asked, eyes narrowed.

  “If you’ll have dinner with me.”

  She was already shaking her head no when he reached across the table, laying his hand alongside hers so his thumb could rub along her little finger. His pulse leapt. That simple, harmless touch, and he was seconds away from being hard.

  And he knew from the way her breathing quickened that she felt it, too.

  Whatever it was.

  “Come on, Red,” he said, moving his finger just briefly so the edge of his nail nudged her knuckle. “Wedding events don’t start until the crack of dawn tomorrow. Give me tonight.”

  Leah slowly pulled her hand away from his, dropping both hands to her lap, and Jason swallowed his disappointment. It was time to get over her. Time to stop thinking that she might ever—

  “Okay.”

  His head snapped up, his eyes locking on her green eyes. “Okay?”

  She calmly lifted her wineglass, not breaking eye contact as she took a sip. “Okay, I’ll have dinner with you, but as a working dinner. Not a date. I’m convinced we can figure out how to work together in spite of our thorny past.”

  He resisted the urge to pump his fist in triumph, and Leah lifted a warning finger. “Again, dinner. I’m not sleeping with you.”

  Jason picked up his bourbon and threw it back in one swallow before standing and grabbing his bag. Before Leah had a chance to react, he’d moved toward her, shamelessly invading her personal space as he bent down and placed his lips near her ear.

  “Sweetheart, by the time I’m done with you, sleep will be the last thing on your mind. Guarantee it.”

  The first time Leah had seen Jason Rhodes, she’d lost a little part of her soul.

  Or at the very least, a little part of her dignity.

  Never in her thirty-one years had she encountered a man who’d been able to turn her on just by looking at her.

  But then she’d walked into the camera shop on a random Tuesday, and just like that, she’d become one of those women.

  The kind that wanted sex all the time, wanted it now, and wanted it with him.

  The problem was . . .

  Leah was far from the only woman who had that response to Jason Rhodes.

  The man was pure fantasy material. Tan skin, perfect white teeth that were displayed to perfection in a cocky, come-hither grin, ever-present stubble that gave him a just-crawled-out-of-bed look. He had black hair that he kept short, likely a holdover from his military days, and his eyes were the color of the richest, most decadent dark chocolate.

  Jason Rhodes had been out of her league then and now, and yet . . .

  And yet here he was, wining and dining her as though she mattered. As though he hadn’t been doing this very thing last week with some other woman, and wouldn’t be doing it next week with yet another woman.

  No, the danger in Jason wasn’t just that he was charming, although he was—hopelessly so.

  The problem was he made her feel special—wanted.

  Once upon a time, she’d loved that feeling.

  Now she knew that it was just that—a feeling, and one that wasn’t based on a scrap of fact. She wasn’t special. Not to Jason.

  She’d learned that the hard way when she’d shown up at his apartment with his favorite breakfast sandwich and her heart on her sleeve, only to realize that while she’d spent Saturday night at a rowdy wedding in Queens, shoving her way through the crowd to get the perfect shots, he’d had his own rowdy night in bed with a gorgeous brunette.

  Leah would do well to remember that moment, standing on his porch, her dignity in pieces at her
feet. She would be smart to remember the way her heart had literally hurt when she’d realized that the man she’d been falling in love with had been sleeping around on her.

  Because right now, when he was sitting across the table from her, making easy conversation, even as he occasionally reached over to scoop up a bite of her risotto as though it were his right, it was hard to remember that he was a complete pig.

  Hell, she wasn’t even sure how the heck they’d ended up there. She’d assumed dinner would be a quick bite at the hotel, but somehow she found herself in one of the trendiest restaurants in town, sharing a meal that felt very much like a date.

  “So tell me what you’ve been up to in the year you’ve been avoiding me, Red,” he said as he topped off both of their glasses with an excellent Bordeaux.

  “You mean in the year since you decided to cheat on me?” she shot back, not liking the way he continually spun their murky history to be entirely her fault.

  His brown eyes flashed anger then, but she held up a hand to stop whatever he was going to say. “I know. I know, okay? We never agreed to be exclusive. I’ve spent the past several months trying to train my brain to remember that, so let’s just . . . let it go.”

  “Leah—”

  Her stomach flipped a little. He’d only ever called her Leah in bed. Otherwise it was always Red. “Please don’t,” she whispered.

  The anger faded from his gaze, and his mouth flattened with something that looked like resignation. “Fine.”

  She swallowed. “You asked how I was.”

  He nodded slowly, and she felt a little stab of gratitude that he wasn’t going to force them down memory lane.

  “I’ve been . . . good,” she said, swirling her wine. “Really good. Busy, but then I guess that’s the perk of our line of work, right? People will never stop falling in love.”

  The corner of Jason’s mouth tilted up in amusement. “I forgot how you did that.”

  “Did what?”

  “Romanticize what we do.”

  Leah tilted her head. “Well, it is romantic. We get to watch people promise to stay together forever.”

  “Well sure, that’s what they promise.”

  “And I’d forgotten how you did that,” Leah said. “Sprinkling all your jaded skepticism on something beautiful.”

  “I deal in facts, Red. And the facts state—”

  “That fifty percent of marriages end in divorce, I know,” she said with a little sigh. “But I choose to believe that the ones I photograph last forever. Your share of the pie can be the ones that end in divorce.”

  He laughed. “And what about this one? What happens when we both work on a wedding? When all my bad vibes mingle with your Disney version?”

  Leah pursed her lips. “Happiness wins.”

  “It didn’t for us,” he said quietly.

  Leah blinked a little in surprise at the seriousness in his voice.

  For some reason she’d have thought that their brief time together would have barely registered for him.

  Jason Rhodes’s life had been a rough one—that much she knew and couldn’t deny no matter how bad he’d screwed her over. Despite the fact that they’d only been together for a couple months, she’d talked with him more than with any other boyfriend she’d ever had.

  Late into the night they’d stay cuddled in bed while he quietly told her about Afghanistan. About his friends’ deaths and the IED that had shredded his knee. He’d told her about growing up in the foster system, never at one home for more than a year before being shipped off to the next one.

  Her heart had ached for him even as she admired how the man had refused to let himself become a victim. Nobody gets to control how life happens to us, Red. Only how we react to it.

  And Leah had done some sharing of her own. About how she secretly feared her parents never loved their children as much as they loved each other. About how she’d spent most of her twenties thinking something was wrong with her because she’d wanted career success more than she’d wanted a boyfriend.

  At least until she’d met him.

  Leah glanced over at Jason, taking in the somber set of his jaw, the bleak and vaguely defeated look in his eyes.

  For the first time, she wondered if the aftermath of their relationship hadn’t played out quite the way she’d envisioned—with him smugly moving on to the next woman, while she’d subsisted on ice cream bars and watching The Way We Were on repeat for two months straight before she’d managed to throw herself back into the dating ring. Unsuccessfully so far, she might add.

  “Surely you’ve been to at least one wedding where you looked at the bride and groom and thought, ‘Them. They’re going to make it’?” Leah asked, steering conversation toward safer topics.

  “Sure,” he said, cutting off another piece of his steak. “My sister’s.”

  Leah’s hand froze in the process of dragging a piece of bread through the deliciously buttery sauce on her plate. Sister? “I thought you were . . . I thought . . .”

  “Foster kid?” he asked without emotion. “I was. Didn’t even know I had a sister until she found me a few years back. Same mom, different dads.”

  “I didn’t realize,” Leah said quietly.

  He looked uncomfortable. “I don’t . . . I don’t mention her much. It’s weird to spend your entire life thinking you’re an only child, having nobody, and then all of a sudden this sibling shows up on your doorstep, and it’s . . . You just never know how it’s going to work out, you know?”

  Jason’s voice was nonchalant, but Leah’s heart ached for him. She hurt at the realization that this man, by default, was skeptical of trusting anyone. He simply expected everyone to walk away.

  Just like she had.

  Leah pushed that last thought away. Their situation was different. She hadn’t left him so much as saved them both a whole lot of awkward when he realized that what was a fun summer fling for him had become a hell of a lot more for her.

  “Your sister’s wedding . . . Did you work it?”

  He shook his head and took a sip of wine. “I offered. I’d have done it for free, obviously. But she . . .” Jason glanced down at his plate. “She wanted me to walk her down the aisle.”

  His voice was puzzled, as though he still couldn’t quite believe it, and again Leah felt that ache in her chest.

  “I’m glad she found you,” Leah said before she could think better of it.

  His gaze locked on hers, looking very much like he wanted to say something, but instead he gave a slight shake of his head. “So what’s the plan tomorrow?”

  Leah blinked, surprised by the sudden change in conversation to work, but all too happy to go to a safer place where she wasn’t tempted to touch him. Care for him.

  She hadn’t even seen him in a year, for God’s sake.

  Leah forced her mind back to the wedding. Typically the photographer didn’t come into play until the day of the wedding, but since this was a high-profile destination wedding, all of the vendors had arrived on Thursday for a Saturday ceremony.

  Friday—tomorrow—would be all about prep and celebrating during the day, before the evening rehearsal and dinner that followed.

  Normally Leah would have been thrilled to be part of what was sure to be one of the more lavish weddings she’d ever worked.

  But right now all she could think about was that it meant more time working alongside Jason.

  And yet you agreed to go to dinner with him.

  “Well, I’ve been assuming I’ll take the whole spa-day portion,” Leah said, forcing her attention back to work. “Unless of course you’re desperate for some girl talk.”

  “Spa day’s all you. Much as I do love debating nail polish colors, early mornings aren’t my thing, and the calendar Alexis sent over said that the first mani/pedi appointments start at seven a.m., so they’ll be don
e in time for a champagne brunch. Pass.”

  Leah smirked. “Well, did you also see that the guys’ tee time is five a.m., and they want shots of the groom and former president teeing off?”

  “Shit,” he muttered. “I knew there was golf involved, I just hadn’t looked at the time yet.”

  “Good thing we’re doing an early dinner,” she said, popping a piece of bread in her mouth.

  Leah glanced up and found him watching her—or, more specifically, watching her mouth. The bread suddenly felt dry, and she took a sip of water, both to wash it down and to cool her suddenly flaming lady parts.

  What was it with her body’s reaction to this guy?

  “Red.”

  She forced herself to meet his eyes, alarmed to find that they were smoldering. As though he knew her every dirty thought and wanted to act them out in a slow, torturous pace. And then repeat.

  “What?” Damn it. Her voice came out all husky.

  “I booked the early dinner reservation on purpose. And not because of our early-morning wake-up call.”

  Leah was already shaking her head. “Don’t do that. I already told you—”

  “I know what you told me.” He leaned closer to her and lowered his voice so only she could hear. “I also know the way you’re looking at me. I know that if I took you back to my room right now and dipped my hand into your panties, I’d find you wet and silky and ready for me.”

  Leah’s fingers clenched around her wineglass.

  “Or if you weren’t wet before, I bet you are now,” he murmured. “I remember how much you like the way my fingers rub against you, Leah. Slow and teasing and—”

  “Well this is interesting,” a voice interrupted.

  Leah didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until it whooshed out in agonized relief at the interruption.

  She whipped her head around just in time to see Alexis Morgan and her assistant making their way over to their table.