Her hand found his desire straining the front of his button-fly jeans. “Oh, wow, I think we need to figure that out pretty quick. Otherwise, I’m afraid we might spontaneously combust thanks to all this...restraint.”
“And how,” he said, trailing kisses between her breasts, up her neck and then finishing with a long, lingering promise of things to come on her lips.
“You’re going to be late for work if we keep this up,” he said.
“That’s why it’s good to be the boss,” she said into his ear.
“To be continued,” he said, fixing her robe, covering her up and returning her to her original unravaged state. “But in the meantime, take my truck to work and I’ll find that problem that’s setting off the sensor in your car.”
“Thanks, but don’t you have to work today?”
“I do, but we have a later call time because of how late the shoot went last night.”
Thirty minutes later, she was on her way to the office and already thinking about coming home and spending another night in Aiden’s arms. She wanted to trust him in the worst way.
She thought about what Maya had said last night about taking chances and allowing yourself to be vulnerable. She had a point—a great point—but opening herself up, leaving her heart so exposed and taking the chance of losing this man who was her best friend in the world was such a scary thought.
But then she thought about Maya coming all this way, setting up a business to be near her daughter without knowing how Bia would react, whether she would accept or reject her.
What if Maya hadn’t been open to making herself vulnerable?
They both would’ve lost out on one of the most beautiful relationships—mother and daughter.
Bia smiled at the thought.
She pulled over to the curb and took out her phone to text Maya: I put myself out there. I expect to hear that you’ve done the same with CJ.
She added a heart icon and pressed send.
The message sailed off into cyberspace, leaving Bia with a warm, giddy feeling. She had just texted her mother for the first time.
She’d spent the night with Aiden, in a manner of speaking, for the first time, texted her mother for the first time. What other firsts were coming her way? Her body responded with a longing that she felt all the way down to her toes.
All in good time. For now, she was going to let Aiden prove his point, that it wasn’t all about the thrill of the chase.
Her phone sounded the arrival of a new text. It was from Maya. Well done. I will have an update from my end later today. Stay tuned.
How fun. Having Maya in her life was better than just having a girlfriend to share her secrets with. She had a mother and a friend all in one.
She was about to text back a reply when her phone died. Huh. Last night she’d been so swept away, she’d forgotten to plug in her phone.
The memory made her tingle all over.
She could still feel Aiden’s lips on her neck this morning. That made her body sing.
Since Aiden’s truck was a newer model, she figured the charger was probably in the console or the glove box. She tried the glove box first. When she opened it, a bundle of papers fell out. They’d fallen far enough out of her reach that she had to leave them on the floor after she plugged her phone into the charger.
When she parked at work, she bent down and retrieved them. She was just about to shove them back into the glove box when something caught her eye. The document was a rider to Aiden’s homeowner’s insurance policy covering a diamond engagement ring.
A fifteen-thousand-dollar diamond engagement ring.
She glanced at the two-carat sparkler on her left ring finger. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. She feared a full-blown panic attack was setting in.
The ring was real?
She thought back to what he’d said when she’d asked him if the ring was real: “Sure, I have an extra fifteen grand lying around. I figured you were worth it.”
She felt so stupid. She really had thought it was a spectacular piece of cubic zirconia. It was so much bigger and more sparkly than the modest half-carat ring Duane had given her.
Until now, the ring Duane had given her was the nicest piece of jewelry she’d ever owned.
Fifteen thousand dollars?
The ring felt hot and heavy on her hand. Why would Aiden spend so much on it?
Unless he really was serious?
Oh, my God. Is he serious?
* * *
Bia did her best to focus on the work she had in front of her. Even though it was the start of a new weekly cycle for the paper’s publication, she couldn’t afford to get behind.
After the staff meeting where they talked about what they each had on the horizon and Bia had made various assignments of the things she knew were coming up that week, she went into her office to begin writing her editorial.
She had just pulled up the screen and poised her hands on the keyboard when her phone’s intercom buzzed.
“Excuse me, Bia,” said Candice. “Duane Beasley is here to see you.”
She blinked at the computer screen, stunned and a little shaken. Duane? What in the world?
“Thank you, Candice,” she said. “Please tell him to have a seat. I’ll be out to see him in a few minutes.”
Why? Why is Duane here? After they’d broken up, he’d taken a job in Boise, Idaho. He’d moved. Far away from her. Far away from the mess that their relationship had become. She hadn’t heard from him in two years. What was he doing here?
She opened her purse, powdered her nose and reapplied her lipstick. Not that she wanted to look good for Duane; she simply wanted to look pulled together. She wanted to radiate confidence and let him know that she hadn’t lost a single night’s sleep since she’d discovered what a cheating sleazeball he was.
And to think she’d almost married him.
But she didn’t.
He was sitting in a chair in the reception area. His dark head was bent, a sweep of hair falling across his forehead as he read the most recent edition of the Dallas Journal of Business and Development when Bia approached.
He looked up, smiled and stood.
“Duane,” Bia said. “My gosh, what are you doing here?”
“Hello, stranger,” he said, blue eyes flashing in that way she used to find so irresistible. “Long time no see.”
Dressed in khakis, a white business shirt and tie, he was still a good-looking guy; there was no doubt about it. Tall but not as thin as he used to be, when he’d played basketball in college. He was still fit, but it looked as if the less active business life was starting to catch up with him.
He walked toward her, and, for a moment, she thought he was going to hug her. So, she stuck her hand out, offering it instead. She hadn’t exactly meant it as a handshake, more as a preemptive distance maker, allowing her to keep her personal space.
Because once she got past the eyes and the great smile that used to melt her heart, she couldn’t forget that he had cheated on her.
Two nights before their wedding.
Bia’s bridesmaids had called everyone on the guest list and told them not to come. The wedding was off.
It was the most heart-wrenching, humiliating time in her life.
Worse than the XYZ ambushes.
Yes. Even worse than that.
That’s what she thought about as Duane stood there holding her hand in his. She politely pulled it away, took a step back and forced her best neutral smile. She didn’t want him to think she was happy to see him, but she didn’t want him to think she was unhappy. Neutrality was the best revenge. I don’t dislike you. That would take too much energy. I feel nothing for you.
Except the need to find out why he was here and then get back to work.
“What can I do for you, Duane?”
“Wow, so formal,” he said. “Bia, it’s me. You don’t have to be all businesslike. We’re still friends, I hope?”
Okay, there was no way they were doing this here, out in the open, with Candice watching them, in this building where even the walls, no doubt, had ears.
“Can we go for a cup of coffee?” he asked. “For old time’s sake.”
“Not for old time’s sake, but I can spare ten minutes if you want to go next door to the diner. Candice,” Bia said, “I’m going out for a few moments.”
Then she turned to Duane. “Wait here while I get my purse.”
“Bia, I can buy you a cup of coffee,” Duane said.
She waved him off as she started toward the door that separated the reception area from the newsroom. “I need to get my phone, anyway. I’ll be right back.”
When Bia turned around, she almost ran smack into Nicole.
“Oh!” Bia exclaimed, startled to see anyone standing there. But of course it would be Nicole.
Of course.
The woman stood blocking the doorway, looking back and forth between Duane and Bia.
Bia could virtually see the wheels in the woman’s reporter’s mind turning, doing the math to see if it added up to what the hunch that was probably gnawing at her gut right about now was suggesting to her. Bia knew what went on inside minds like Nicole’s. She had once been not so dissimilar from her subordinate. In fact, that same sort of take-no-prisoners gut hunch was what had led her to the stories that had eventually won her the editorship of the paper.
But it just wasn’t so comfortable when you were the victim of the hunch, Bia thought. “Excuse me, Nicole,” Bia said. “Are you coming or going?”
“I was going,” she said. “I have an interview with Brian Collins over at Collins Hardware. They’re partnering with the bank to sponsor the Taste of Celebration this year. I was just heading out.”
Bia stepped aside to let her pass. As she went through the door to the newsroom, she cast a quick glance over her shoulder and saw Nicole stop and introduce herself to Duane.
“You know what, Duane?” Bia said, interrupting the two midintroduction. “Why don’t you just come back to my office? There’s coffee in the break room. No sense in us going next door. I’m swamped today. I’m sure our business will be quick.”
Duane shrugged and walked to stand next to Bia.
“Goodbye, Nicole,” Bia said. “Have a great interview. I’ll be eager to read your Taste of Celebration piece.”
As they walked to Bia’s office, Duane said, “So, you’re in charge around here, huh?”
“I’m the editor, if that’s what you mean.”
He nodded as he looked around. Was that supposed to be approval? Irritation roiled in her gut.
“What’s up, Duane? Did you just happen to be in the neighborhood? Just passing through? Celebration isn’t exactly on your way from Idaho to much of anywhere.”
Duane’s hands were splayed on his knees. The way he was pitched forward in his seat made him look awkward. Or maybe even a little aggressive.
“I have business in Dallas,” he said. “It’s part of my territory.”
“What are you doing these days?” She asked this in the spirit of making polite conversation, not out of personal interest.
“I’m a rep for Tilton Wholesale Tractor parts. I have the southeastern division.”
Bia nodded stiffly. Her hands were folded on top of her desk, until she realized Duane was looking at her ring. She moved her hands to her lap.
“Is it true you and Aiden are engaged?”
Her thumb found the back of her ring and she traced it around to the stone in front. The real, fifteen-grand stone in the ring that Aiden had purchased and put on her finger.
“We are,” she said, taking care to inject an enthusiastic upturn into her voice. “Don’t tell me you came all this way to congratulate us.”
Duane made a noise that was somewhere between a huff and a sigh. “What are you doing, Bia?”
Her email dinged, indicating the delivery of another message. It was the fifth notification she’d heard since they’d sat down in her office.
“Right now at this moment, not what I should be doing, considering today’s long to-do list,” she said. She moved her mouse, activating her computer screen and glanced at her in-box. It wasn’t that she wasn’t glad to see him—
“I’m serious, Bia. Don’t make a joke out of this.”
She looked up from her in-box and skewered him with the most reproachful look she could conjure.
Why was she trying to be polite?
Actually, she wasn’t happy to see Duane, to have him come barging back into her life, to have him sit in her office, taking up time she should be spending on the job she needed to do.
Who did he think he was? After what he’d done, what made him think he had the right?
“Duane, as a matter of fact, Aiden and I are engaged. But, frankly, it’s none of your business. You don’t get to come in here asking these questions, wearing that face that looks like you’re about to tell me I’m making the biggest mistake of my life. I already came through the other side of the biggest mistake of my life. Been there, done that. I’d love to chat, but I have a lot to do.”
She stood, hoping he would take the cue and do the same.
But he didn’t. The big lunk sat there as if he had no intention of moving until he’d said what he came to say.
Great, this had the potential to get very uncomfortable. She regretted not going next door to the diner, where she could have walked away.
“Why would you want to marry a guy who caused your first wedding to be canceled?”
“What’s done is done. We’re not going to rehash the past because it’s not going to change anything. Aiden is a great guy. He’s always looked out for me—”
“He wasn’t looking out for you the night of my bachelor party.” Duane’s face had flushed. Bia had forgotten how that happened when he got mad.
“What he did the night of your bachelor party wasn’t what caused us to call off the wedding. You were responsible for your own actions, Duane.”
Duane stood and slammed his open palm down on Bia’s desk. “Dammit, he set me up. He got me drunk and brought that prostitute in to climb all over me. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
Bia rolled her eyes. “You see, that’s the thing about you, Duane—you’ve never been able to take responsibility for your actions. And, for the record, she wasn’t a prostitute, she was a stripper. Aiden may have paid her to take her clothes off, but he didn’t pay her to sleep with you. That was a deal you brokered all by yourself. So don’t blame somebody else.”
“He told you she was a stripper? Is that what he said? If so, your fiancé is lying through his teeth. I just thought you should know. Marrying him would be a bigger mistake than—”
“Than what, Duane? Losing you?”
Duane scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, then raked his hands through his spiky dark hair.
“The guy will stop at nothing to get what he wants. The woman was a prostitute. He got me drunk and set me up. By doing that, he set you up, too. I just thought you ought to know before you made the biggest mistake of your life by marrying him.”
Chapter Fourteen
Maya stood outside the Celebration Bed and Breakfast clutching the box of chocolates she’d finished making only an hour and a half ago.
She could’ve had one of her sales staff deliver it to Charles Jordan, but something wouldn’t let her do it. This was a task she had to do herself.
When his order had come in that morning for a dozen salted caramels, with the request for them to be delivered at six o’clock that evening, she decided she would be the one t
o bring them to him. The order, which had come in five days after her hasty retreat from the pub, felt like a sign. Well, not just the order in itself, but the fact that it coincided with her finding a suitable substitute for the orange essence that she needed for the Borgia truffles.
Borgias had been Ian’s favorites.
Maya felt like she was losing her mind, but after she had made the batch of Borgias, a strong gust of wind had blown open the kitchen door. It was a gust of wind she hadn’t witnessed since she’d been away from St. Michel.
If she didn’t know better, she might think that the winds of love had blown open her door to send a message—that she needed to open her heart and see what was standing right in front of her. Just as she had been telling her daughter to do with the man who was obviously her soul mate.
It was a lot scarier to take her own advice. Especially when she hadn’t been able to feel anything remotely like what she’d been feeling since the last time she’d kissed Ian Brannigan goodbye nearly three decades ago.
Was it such a bad thing that Charles Jordan reminded her of Ian? The resemblance in personality was only a hasty assessment. She hadn’t known the man very long. It wasn’t such a bad thing that perhaps he possessed some of the qualities that Ian had possessed.
That’s why she found herself attracted to him.
And there wasn’t a thing wrong with that. It wasn’t as if she was being disrespectful to Ian’s memory. He wouldn’t want her to spend the rest of her life mourning and longing for something that could never be.
Or at least that’s what she told herself as she pulled open the door of the bed-and-breakfast and marched up to the front desk to let him know she was there.
He was down in the lobby in less than two minutes after Maria, the front desk receptionist, called his room.
She was relieved that he hadn’t expected her to bring them up to the room. She’d already prepared an exit strategy: she would simply leave the box at the desk since he had prepaid for the candy.
Actually, it was another little test that she had tucked away in the back of her mind. If he came down to the lobby, it was a good sign and she would stay. If he asked her to bring them to the room, it was a bad sign and she would leave.
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