If distance was what caused uncertainty, there was no hope for a long-distance relationship.
So yeah, she did kind of feel that she needed to figure out all the answers now.
When she got home, she found Tyler sitting on her front step.
‘I didn’t mean right now. Like at this moment,’ she muttered under her breath as she got out of the car. ‘What are you doing here? No—wait,’ she said as she stopped in front of him. ‘That was rude. Hello, Tyler. What brings you here?’
He gave her a half-smile she didn’t feel was completely sincere.
‘Was that better?’ she asked.
‘Six out of ten.’
‘A pass.’ She wanted to smile at him, but his expression didn’t encourage that. ‘So, are you going to tell me?’
‘I... Do you mind if we go somewhere?’
‘Somewhere?’
‘There’s a vineyard a little way from here.’
‘Wine? Are you trying to soften me up?’
‘Would it work if I was?’
He was teasing, but something in his voice made him sound serious. And curious.
She angled her head. ‘Yeah. Sure. Should I drive with you? Or...?’
‘You can drive with me.’
‘Lead the way.’
He did. And, after the slightest moment of hesitation, she followed.
* * *
Tyler knew she was picking up on how strangely he was acting. He wasn’t particularly proud of it, but a sense of inevitability had woven a spell over him. A dark, disruptive spell that wouldn’t allow him to continue his life without having this conversation with her.
He’d spent a week going over it in his head. Did he tell her the truth? That they’d met before or shortly after her husband’s death? It would be a hell of a thing for her to find out, and that was part of why he needed to figure out whether he should tell her. How would she respond? Would it bring anything good?
But he couldn’t sit on the information. The only reason he had before was because he’d thought she had chosen not to acknowledge their shared past. Hell, at this point, he didn’t even know if he could call it ‘shared.’ Could he still think that it happened to both of them if she didn’t remember it? And what did he tell her about it?
It had been a week of dinners and friendship, including going to the vineyard he was taking her to now—a sneaky attempt at jogging her memory, especially because he knew it was pointless.
If she was going to remember their time together, it would have happened already. He didn’t understand the science behind memory loss, despite the hours of research he’d done, but from what Brooke had told him it was her trauma. Which meant it was designed to protect her. Not much could change that. He didn’t want anything to change that.
So maybe the reason he was taking her to this place was more for him. To assure himself that something had happened between them.
It was all so messy.
‘What’s wrong?’ Brooke asked as he took the curved road leading to the vineyard.
It was one of many vineyards in the area, with fields of green and gold stretching out for metres and metres around them. On another day, he would have taken the time to enjoy the view. The way the sun hit the leaves, casting light, making the colours seem as if they were glowing. The mountains in the distance, all curves and angles of darkness balancing the expanse of green.
It was one of his favourite drives, especially as they got closer to the vineyard, when trees reached over the road, shadowing the cars beneath them. When a burst of sun trickled through the gaps of the leaves, or through the stretches without trees, or when the fields and mountains were once again unobscured.
But he couldn’t enjoy it today. Only he didn’t want her to know that.
‘Why would you think anything’s wrong?’ he asked.
He glanced over to see her arch her brow, as if to say, Which example would you like? The one where you show up at my house unannounced after a week of no communication? Or the one where you ask to take me to a vineyard without telling me why? Or your general current broodiness?
As a gift to both of them, she merely said, ‘You were shaking your head.’
‘I was...thinking.’ He stuck his tongue into his cheek, ashamed of how inadequate that was.
‘Okay.’
He looked at her again, but she was looking out of the window, so he couldn’t see her expression. He didn’t need to see it to know she was giving him an out. She had been since the moment she’d got home. She hadn’t questioned him too much, wasn’t pushing him when it was clear that he didn’t want to talk about something.
It wouldn’t last, so for now, he enjoyed it. Or, since enjoyment wasn’t something he could feel at this moment, with tension skittering over his skin like a ghost, he accepted it.
The rest of the drive was quiet, and when he pulled into the car park he got out, waited for her to join him, and then took the short stone path to the front of the restaurant. He helped her up the steps.
When she gasped, he gave her some space to enjoy the view. He hadn’t intended for it to be this way, but the sun was lowering beneath the fields in the distance, and the patio they were standing on allowed them a perfect view of it.
It was breathtaking, truly, but his attention was on Brooke. The sun made her look like an ethereal being who had come down from heaven to give him an impossible task. He would have readily accepted it, he knew.
How could he resist that golden-brown skin, shimmering like the grains of sand at a beach? Or the pink of her cheeks, her lips, a hue he had only ever seen on the most tempting of fruit? Or her eyes, the brown lighter than ever under the sun, that looked as though she were ready to give away every secret? Or perhaps as though she could keep such secrets. The deepest, darkest kind. The sweetest kind.
He didn’t realise he was closing the distance between them until he had. When he was there, his hand lifted. She shifted just as a breeze floated over them, mingling her scent with the spicy sweet smell of the wine, with the grounded smell of the earth around them. Her shift wasn’t to move away. Even though her eyes traced the movement of his hand as he tucked some strands of her hair behind her ear, she didn’t move away.
She leaned in.
It undid him in ways he couldn’t explain, hadn’t expected, and his head was dipping to hers before he could talk himself out of it. She met him halfway, her lips soft and ready, as though made for his kiss.
The kiss was neither firm nor gentle; not intense nor easy. It was simply a kiss. An acknowledgement of their attraction and of the more that haunted each of them.
He cupped her face. Opened his mouth. Swept his tongue inside to taste her. It was a taste that would mark him for ever. An exaggeration, perhaps, though his senses didn’t seem to think so. It reminded him of the sun during early spring, of cold water after a hot summer’s day, of a fire during the frigid cold.
Her touch was both foreign and familiar. Even now, with her fingers hesitantly touching his torso. And seconds later, when they curled into his shirt, bringing him closer to her with a strength he didn’t resist.
His body was aware of her every motion, as if she were tracing his skin with a block of ice. Desire sent pulses to every pleasure-point in his body, and he shifted, sliding his arms around her waist, pulling her closer so that when they parted, no one would see the evidence of what she did to him.
Then he realised that he was allowing her to feel what she did to him. He angled himself, trying to give her space. His body complained. So did she. And with that came another shift of her body, moving the softness of her against the hardness of him.
He was terribly aware of her breasts pressing against his chest. His fingers ached to trace them. His eyes wanted to feast on them. To memorise their colour and shape and curve, every mark on her skin. And when he was done looking he
wanted to taste. Run his tongue over every point. Lick the marks to celebrate their uniqueness.
And when he was done there he would move on to the rest of her body. To her waist that sloped over hips that were plush and ready for lifting. She would wrap her legs around him and give him better access to her heat. He would finally give the hardness between his legs what it was asking for. What it was demanding.
‘Whoa,’ she breathed as she pulled away.
For a second he wondered if she had some idea of what he’d been thinking. If she was scandalised or agreeing to what he wanted to do to her.
Then she said, ‘That was a...a hell of a kiss.’
She exhaled, the air rushing through her lips and touching his face. It did nothing to ease his arousal. Only heightened it, reminding him of what she tasted like.
He took his own steadying breath. A couple more. Eventually, he said, ‘Yeah.’
Her tongue slid to the corner of her mouth. There was an amused look on her face. ‘I’ve rendered you speechless. I quite like that power.’
‘By now you should already know you have it.’
‘No,’ she disagreed. ‘By now I know that no matter what I say, you’ll always have the perfect response. It’ll be charming and very annoying and I’ll still feel a part of me...’ She trailed off, the teasing tone of her voice disappearing. ‘Soften,’ she finished.
If his body had been all in with that kiss, now it was his heart’s chance. Her words sank into it like rain into fertile soil. It was too early to tell what would grow from that soil, if anything. Because the moment he told her the truth, it would yank out the root, and any hope that something beautiful and full of life would come from it would be gone.
‘I have to tell you something,’ he said, stepping away from her. Leaving the heat and the desire in that little space where they’d kissed.
Her eyes became unreadable, and she stepped out of the space, too. He spent a moment too long staring at it, wondering if what they’d left there was simpler or more complicated than what they were about to enter into.
‘What?’ she asked carefully.
With a fortifying breath, he said, ‘We’ve met before.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BROOKE COULD TELL by the tone of his voice that he wasn’t talking about a random meeting. She couldn’t remember it. And, although it was true she didn’t remember many men from the time when she was with Kian, she was certain she would have remembered Tyler. He was striking to look at, and she would have at least made that distant connection, even when she was in a relationship.
A ripple of unease went through her body, rolling over her skin much as the breeze did.
‘Okay, so, you’ve brought me to a vineyard with a beautiful view and a stunning restaurant—’ she assumed it was stunning since she hadn’t really taken a good look inside the building and doubted she would now ‘—to tell me...what? We’ve met once before?’
‘It wasn’t just once.’
She felt the impact of those words physically.
‘We know—knew—one another.’
‘I... I don’t understand.’ He opened his mouth to explain, but she held up a hand. ‘And if I’m going to understand, I think I’m going to need wine. Which, I assume, is at least part of why you brought me here?’
His expression was sombre as he nodded, gesturing for her to walk in front of him.
It was hard for her to imagine that this was the same man who’d kissed her so thoroughly only a few minutes ago. She had thrown caution to the wind—hell, she’d been swept away by that wind—and kissed him in public because the look he had given her had been so damn intimate. And trusting. She couldn’t forget that. It had triggered something inside her. He trusted her and, yes, she trusted him.
So, she’d kissed him. Let him touch her soul with the lick of his tongue and the caress of his fingers.
Now she felt as though she were about to lose it all.
The thought distracted her from really noticing the restaurant, though she knew it was gorgeous. The wall facing the vineyard was made from glass and metal panels, the space above it decorated in an intricate white pattern. But all she could do when they were seated in a secluded section of the room was stare at the menu.
She chose a wine with a high alcohol content. Didn’t speak until that wine was brought for her approval. In truth, she didn’t taste it. But she pretended to, so that the waiter would leave.
When he was gone, she drank the entire glass. With a nod, she told Tyler, ‘I’m ready.’
He had been silent since they’d left the balcony. The crinkle around his eyes, the purse of his lips, told her it was nerves. An echo of the same thing danced in her chest, her stomach. She soothed it with deep breaths, in and out, and tried to focus on that and not on the signs of Tyler’s nerves.
It was about fifty per cent effective, and then, when he began to talk, it stopped working entirely.
‘We met on the tenth of July five years ago. I was at the hospital to see my sister. She had just given birth to her son. And I needed...’ He shook his head. ‘Well, I found you in the coffee shop around the corner when I went to get something to drink.’
The tenth of July... That was the day she’d signed Kian’s DNR. She knew that. The accident had happened on the evening of the second, Kian had been in the hospital until he’d died on the tenth, the funeral had been on the seventeenth.
Her first real memories of that time started at some point after that.
Tyler was waiting, as if he’d known that she would need time to get it all straight in her head. The fact that he had given her dates supported that.
Nausea welled, and suddenly she wished she hadn’t drunk the wine at all.
‘What...what happened?’ she asked hoarsely.
‘You looked like you’d had a rough evening. I thought I could help with that.’ He shrugged, as if the logic of that seemed shaky to him now. ‘I asked you if you wanted to have your coffee at my table and you agreed.’
‘We had coffee?’
‘Yes.’
‘The night Kian died I had coffee with a stranger?’
Again, it felt as if the news had physically hit her.
She sat back, tried to remember what Dom had told her about that night. He’d wanted to take her home, but she hadn’t been ready to leave. She’d insisted on staying. She’d wanted space. And because her family was so supportive, so understanding, they’d given it to her.
She had always assumed she had gone home. Mourned and grieved like everyone had expected her to. But no. Apparently, she had gone out for coffee.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Tyler.
Her eyes flickered up. ‘You didn’t know about any of it.’
‘You believe me?’
‘Why would you lie about this, Tyler?’ She asked the question with a hopeless kind of despair. It would have troubled her at another time, but for the moment it was appropriate. ‘Apart from the fairly obvious fact that we’ve known one another for over a month now and you haven’t mentioned any of this before.’
He winced. ‘I thought you weren’t mentioning it intentionally. I was about to work for you. You seemed to be all about boundaries, so I was, too. I didn’t want to push for the sake of Tia’s job, but also because I thought—’ He broke off with a sharp exhalation. ‘I thought wrong, clearly.’
‘Knowing what you know about me now,’ she said slowly, ‘like the fact that I can’t keep a secret to save my life, you thought I wouldn’t mention going out for coffee with you?’ She snorted, though she knew it was an ugly thing to do. ‘Did we not have a good time? Did I give you some kind of sign that I’d pretend it had never happened if we ever met again?’
Colour entered his face. It was a charming red, something that belonged among fields of flowers, and she would have found it charming if it hadn’t been so al
arming. It was an indication that she was missing something—which, yes, obviously—and something significant.
‘What?’ She almost hissed. ‘What happened? Oh, no, ’ she said, rearing back. ‘Did I...? Did we...?’
‘No! Well, we didn’t... We didn’t sleep together.’
‘But something else happened?’
A curt nod. ‘We kissed.’
Good heavens.
She reached for her wine glass before realising it hadn’t been refilled. Desperately, she looked around for the server. Didn’t see him. Unhelpfully, her mind told her that she had just regretted drinking the first glass of wine. A second would likely have similar consequences. And yet she still desperately wanted to drink. To fill the sudden void that came with the knowledge that she had kissed someone the night her husband had died.
What kind of person did that make her? Certainly not the one she had always thought she was. Not the woman who had, for the last five years, been living a pious life of offering to her deceased husband.
She hadn’t thought about it that way, of course. But now it seemed obvious that she had been. Only she hadn’t realised it was in atonement for her sins.
‘Right,’ she said after a moment, taking a deep breath. ‘You and I kissed. Okay. Sure. That’s fine. I mean, I’d only been single—and I use that term really lightly, because wow it messes with my brain—for literal hours.’
Again, colour appeared on his skin. It wasn’t embarrassment though. She knew it deep in her gut—a feeling that had nebulous implications now she knew they had some sort of history together. No, it was distress. He didn’t want to tell her any of this.
If she hadn’t trusted him, she would have thought that was why he’d waited so long before he’d said anything. But there was still something inside her that did trust him, despite this earthquake to the foundations she’d thought they’d built. And the same gut feeling told her that the distress wasn’t for himself either, but for her. He didn’t want to upset her.
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