Not to mention, somewhere in the back of his mind, Sean had always assumed Kristine would come back and they would resume their relationship because he hadn’t done anything wrong. She hadn’t done anything wrong. They’d had essentially a juvenile fight that had exploded beyond all comprehension, and surely that couldn’t be the end of their relationship.
Yet, ten years had managed to slide by, one day at a time while he had been building his business from the ground up and pretending he wasn’t lonely. He had no idea what Kristine had been doing.
Sean hadn’t known she was back in town until divorce papers had arrived at his office three hours ago, and it had given him a hell of a jolt. Most days, the past was relegated to the past, and he didn’t give much thought to Kristine, so to have her suddenly thrust into his day had been very distracting. It surprised him that she had the callousness to serve him papers without at least a phone call. So much time had passed—she couldn’t possibly think he was still angry over the way their relationship had ended. They had just been kids. Then again, maybe it was so long ago, she didn’t think it was important enough to let him know she was finally requesting a divorce, which, frankly, should have happened years ago.
Maybe it was just something on her To Do list that she’d finally gotten around to. Divorce Sean Finally. Check.
While he had been mulling over all of that, and the fact her address listed on the divorce papers was one in Minneapolis, not that far from his own condo, he had seen her name on the contract for the gallery event as he’d gone through the paperwork with Michigan.
Those three pieces of information had created more awareness of Kristine than he’d had in years, and before he’d given much thought to it, he’d decided he wanted to—no, had to—see her.
So here he was, agitated and not entirely sure why, his tie feeling too tight, hand in his pocket to hide the way his thumb drummed on his thigh. He didn’t like feeling out of control. At all. And the way he dealt with feeling out of control was to wrest it back by throwing other people off their guard. It was how he had built a successful business. It was what he was doing here now, watching catering professionals in the back of the gallery bustle about setting up tables, with crisp white linens and champagne flutes turned upside down on their rims.
But he was determined not to let Kristine see how unnerved he was. That was the rule in business. You kept your hand close to your chest and you charmed, with a casual attitude, as if the outcome of the deal didn’t matter to you one bit.
He wasn’t even sure why this outcome did matter. But before he signed those divorce papers, he wanted to look Kristine in the eye, see the woman she had become. Call him nostalgic. Call him a masochist. Call him simply curious.
Michigan was scrolling through his phone. “I’ll go ask the staff where the event coordinator is so you can speak to her. What’s her name again?”
For a second Sean didn’t answer, because the door to the back room had opened and Kristine had emerged from it, a sign in her hand almost as big as she was, shielding her beautiful and curvaceous body from his view. But he could see her face, and it punched him in the gut to see the harried smile she gave a staff member, her fiery-red hair piled on her head, tendrils falling down the back of her neck as she turned and pointed to something on the table.
She looked more mature, her style more refined, the angles of her face sharper, her narrow skirt emphasizing her hourglass figure. It was hard to believe, but she was even more beautiful now than at nineteen.
It didn’t surprise him that, in addition to the powerful wave of confusion he felt, there was an instant desire for her, making his mouth hot and his dick hard. Even from across the room, his body responded to her, and he flashed back to all those nights where she had snuggled up against him in bed in their lousy studio apartment, her bright smile taking the edge off whatever dilemmas had come his way during the day. Kristine was not pencil-thin, but sported some serious curves, which, when she turned sideways for a minute, were perfectly displayed for him. Curves that she seemed to have learned to show to advantage in the tight knee-length skirt she wore and the floral button-up sweater. There were hips and breasts and a whole lot of mouthwatering backside.
She had been a pretty and sparkling young woman when he had married her, but damn, she had grown into an absolute bombshell. Sean itched to touch her. Everywhere.
“Her name is Kristine Zimmerman Maddock,” he told Michigan. “My wife.”
“Excuse me?” Michigan asked, sounding very confused. “You’re married?”
Yes. And no.
But Sean didn’t answer him, because at that moment, Kristine glanced toward the front of the gallery and spotted him. Even from twenty feet away, he saw her start, her hands slipping on the sign and almost dropping it. A man in the black-and-white waiter uniform moved to help her, but she waved him off, her eyes still on Sean.
He smiled and raised his eyebrows and nodded to her in acknowledgment. “Michigan, you can go back to the office. I’ll be there in a bit.”
“You want me to leave?” Michigan sounded nervous.
Sean didn’t need to look at him to know he would be pushing his glasses up on his nose. It was a nervous tic he had when he wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. Normally, Sean was patient with him, and encouraging, because he thought Michigan showed a lot of potential as a businessman, but right now, he couldn’t be bothered. All he could think about was Kristine. Standing in front of him for the first time in ten years.
Without responding, Sean strode forward.
Kristine darted a glance left and right, as if she was looking for an exit route. Her cheeks were flushed pink. For a second, he was distracted by the sign, which announced the exhibit with a photograph of a group of people naked in a tree. The woman straddling that tree trunk did not look comfortable at all. But Sean shoved that thought aside as he approached the woman he had loved, and promptly invaded her personal space.
“Hello, Kristine.”
Copyright © 2014 by Erin McCarthy
ISBN-13: 9781460340370
SOME LIKE IT HOTTER
Copyright © 2014 by Muna Shehadi Sill
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