Hot Texas Nights

by Janice Maynard

  * * *

  Aria had always thought of heartbreak as something that happened slowly, over the course of time. When all avenues of hope had been exhausted.

  Ethan’s unmistakable tensing shattered her euphoria in one shocking instant.

  “I can’t,” he said brusquely. “I have an early flight.”

  Her throat was scraped raw by the effort to keep emotion at bay. “Oh, right,” she said. “I forgot.”

  She rolled to her feet and reached blindly for her clothes. If he had cared about her at all, he would have stayed all night and raced for the airport at the last possible second. That’s what a romantic hero would do.

  For the second time, humiliation curdled her stomach and stole her breath. She was such a fool. Weaving a fairy tale about a handsome prince. Ethan was no hero.

  He stood as well, made a quick trip to the bathroom and returned minutes later. She couldn’t look at him. Ruthlessly, she shoved her icy feet into the bunny slippers and sifted her fingers through her rumpled hair.

  When he touched her arm, he was completely dressed, from head to toe. No more washboard abs. No gloriously naked lover.

  His gaze was guarded, his expression inscrutable. “I’m sorry I have to leave.”

  Her chin lifted. “I don’t think you are. Not really. The Ethan I remember never liked complications. Too bad I forgot that.”

  Something flared in his eyes. “We can do this again. Whenever I’m in town.”

  She hadn’t thought she could feel any worse. “Hook up, you mean? Friends with benefits. How very flattering.”

  Temper flashed across his boldly masculine face like the portent of a thunderstorm. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Her hurt and disappointment coalesced into bitter sarcasm. “Didn’t you?” She sucked in a ragged breath. “I can’t be something you pick up and put down between business trips. I won’t.”

  “Tonight was more than that.”

  Even in the midst of her own trauma, she could see that he was disturbed. Maybe even confused. Too. Damn. Bad. She stared at him with her heart and her pride in pieces at her feet. “We drank champagne. We scratched an itch. End of story. Goodbye, Ethan.”

  He took a step in her direction. “Aria, I...”

  She held up a hand, holding him off. “Do you honestly have any interest at all in a serious, long-term relationship?”

  His jaw hardened. “No.”

  Well, there it was. She bit down hard on her bottom lip. “It’s late,” she said. “I have work in the morning. Goodbye, Ethan.”

  For the briefest of moments, a tiny spark of hope flickered. On his face she saw...something. Was he regretting his words?

  Before she could say anything else, he turned on his heel and walked out the front door.

  Four

  Six weeks later

  Ethan stepped back, held his hand over his eyes to block the sun and gazed at the roof. The inspector on top gave him a thumbs-up. Thank God. After a frustrating month and a half of permit snafus, asbestos removal and various other code concerns, they were finally getting close to the official ground-breaking. Soon, major renovations would turn this aging beauty with good bones into a stunning home for the Houston branch of the prestigious Texas Cattleman’s Club.

  Though not as old as the iconic building in Royal, this new iteration would be stately and impressive, as well. The three-story building was projected to have suites on the top floor for the president and chairman of the board. The second floor would be officers’ and board members’ offices, along with conference rooms. The main level would include a large ballroom, a bar/café for club members only and a central meeting hall.

  Because of the relatively modest size of the new TCC, nearby hotels would serve as lodging for the members when they were in town. Undoubtedly, some of those hotels would also offer special amenities like health clubs.

  Ethan felt pride as he gazed at the building. He had worked his ass off for these last six weeks he had been in Houston.

  But not a single night passed that he didn’t lie in bed and think about Aria. He had screwed up badly. He owed her an apology. Given his history with her, he was ashamed of how things had ended. But she wasn’t making it easy for him to do penance.

  She wouldn’t return his calls or his texts or his emails. And Ethan didn’t have the luxury of running off to Royal to take care of personal concerns. The entire success or failure of the new Cattleman’s Club project rested squarely on his shoulders.

  The building had to be perfect. The bar was high.

  He rotated his neck, wishing he had a beer and twenty-four hours to sleep. His nights had been restless. He’d alternated between being horny and despondent.

  He’d been right to stay from Aria all the years before now. Sex had ruined everything.

  In the end, he resorted to writing her a letter...the old-fashioned way. He told her how special she was to him, but that he was a bad risk. They could be friends, but nothing more. He told her he would pretend their champagne-fueled night of celebration had never happened.

  That last part was a blatant lie. He would never forget the incredible night of sex with Aria. Not if he lived until he was a hundred. The images of their intimacy were burned into his DNA.

  Her stony silence during the intervening weeks told him how badly he had hurt her. It was time for him to go back to Royal very soon. He was determined to track her down and make her listen to his apology.

  Then perhaps, he could move on.

  * * *

  Aria sat at her desk in the Texas Cattleman’s Club and tried to concentrate on the pile of purchase orders in front of her, when all she wanted to do was think about Ethan. Most days, she loved her job. Becoming the executive administrator was a dream come true. Aside from her own personal ambition, the position had smoothed the way for her father to finally gain entrée into the organization he had aspired to for so long.

  Her parents were longtime residents of Royal, and they both came from moneyed, well-respected families. But her father had made some enemies in his hotheaded youth. Some of those men had been successful in denying him membership.

  It was only when Aria went to work for the club that she was finally able to smooth over the past discontent and bring her father on board.

  Though she still occasionally had a hand in the family business, more and more her work at the TCC was keeping her busy and fulfilled.

  Or at least it used to...

  She tried to pull a stubborn staple out of a thick stack of papers and stabbed her finger in the process. It bled as if she’d been mortally wounded. Great. Just great. Did workman’s comp cover blood loss? She knew she was in a bad mood, and she knew why. The knowledge didn’t make the ache in her heart any less painful.

  While she was reaching for a tissue, her phone dinged. The text was a familiar number. Ethan.

  We need to talk...

  She snorted, no one around to hear the derisive exclamation. No way in hell. She had ignored every one of Ethan’s attempts to communicate with her, including the surprisingly old-fashioned letter. Each text and email was more painful than the last.

  Ethan wanted absolution, but she wanted so much more.

  Impatiently, she responded.

  NO. We don’t.

  Surely that was clear enough for him.

  She tossed the phone on her desk and sucked the end of her finger. The small puncture hurt like heck. Maybe her finger had as many nerve endings as her broken heart.

  Suddenly, a male voice from the doorway interrupted her pity party. “I really think we do.”

  Ethan. Standing in her office. Damn.

  She rolled her chair backward a few inches and summoned a noncommittal expression. “I’m busy.”

  “You’ve been ignoring me.”

  The man looked even better than
she remembered, but he seemed tired. Maybe he had even lost a little weight.

  “Not at all,” she lied. “I’m sure it only seemed that way, because you’ve been so busy in Houston. I hear the project is going well.”

  He shrugged. “The usual bumps in the road. We should be able to have the ground-breaking party soon.”

  “Good.” Please go, please go, please go... She couldn’t bear this. “Why are you here?” she asked bluntly.

  “You know why.” His jaw turned to granite. “We didn’t settle things between us when I left town.”

  “Oh, yes, we did. We settled the heck out of it.”

  He scrubbed his hands over his face. His jaw was shadowed with more than a day’s growth of beard. Even still, he was the sexiest man she knew.

  Without asking, he sprawled in the small wooden chair on the opposite side of her desk. “What do you want from me?” The weary question buried her beneath a pile of guilt.

  One reason she had felt so entirely miserable since he’d left town was that most of this wasn’t Ethan’s fault. He had asked her to sit down with him at the diner. That much was true. It was Aria who had invited him home on a cold winter’s night. She had been the one to offer him champagne and then proposition him.

  She swallowed against a dry throat. “I don’t want anything at all. You made your feelings perfectly clear.”

  “You didn’t give me much wiggle room,” he grumbled. “You wanted the promise of a relationship in exchange for sex. I wasn’t prepared for that. So I bobbled the conversation.”

  “You make it sound like I was trying to manipulate you. I’m sorry if I backed you into a corner. In my defense, you’re pretty good in the sack.”

  His black frown had her moving the chair backward another six inches. “Don’t do that, Aria.”

  “Do what?”

  “Don’t try to be flip about sex. It doesn’t suit you.”

  “That’s part of the problem, isn’t it? You see me as some innocent young thing who needs to be protected.”

  “You are innocent,” he said tersely. “Trust me, I know. Most of the women I’ve slept with are—” He stopped in midsentence, clearly alarmed by how his argument was sliding off the rails. “Anyway,” he said, exhaling slowly, “it’s a moot point. I’m merely trying to make sure we can still be friends.”

  Those pesky tears burned the backs of her eyes again. “I don’t think we can. I have plenty of friends. I don’t need one more.”

  He paled. “I didn’t want to hurt you.” His visible guilt knifed her aching heart. The last thing in the world she needed was for Ethan to feel sorry for her.

  She shifted a pile of papers on her desk and glanced deliberately at the clock on the wall. “Don’t worry about me. I have plenty of men knocking on my door. You don’t even make the list.”

  Her bitter words revealed more than she intended. Ethan wasn’t fooled. When he reached for her hand, she jerked away so hard she almost overturned her chair.

  “I thought you might have had time to cool down,” he said quietly, his gaze searching hers. “But you’re still angry.”

  Angry? That was one word for it. “I accept your apology,” she said, completely ignoring the fact that he hadn’t actually said he was sorry for anything. “You’re free to get on with your life. Do me a favor and close the door on your way out.”

  He stood and shoved his hands in the pockets of his dark jeans. The cowboy boots he wore looked as if they had long since been broken in. With his broad shoulders, slim hips and drawling good-old-boy charm, he was the epitome of masculine grace.

  At the moment, though, frustration rolled off him in waves. “Our paths are going to cross,” he said gruffly. “We need to deal with this. You can’t ignore me for the rest of our lives.”

  Aria’s stomach clenched hard. He was right, damn him. The prospect was dismal and depressing. She had to end this before she made a fool of herself. Trying to breathe normally, she stood and summoned a smile, thankful for the piece of furniture between them.

  “You’re making too much of something that was a blip on my radar. And at the moment, you’re embarrassing me by bringing personal matters into my workplace. So please. Pretend we never met at the diner. Or better yet, that we never met at all.”

  His scowl might have terrified her if she hadn’t been frozen inside. “That’s really what you want from me? To treat you like a stranger?”

  “Yes,” she said firmly, her heart splintering into a million tiny pieces that could never be repaired. “That’s what I want.”

  * * *

  The rest of the day passed in a blur. Aria was thankful, for once, that her workload was heavy at the moment. It helped distract her from rehashing the painful confrontation with Ethan.

  Between her normal duties at the TCC in Royal and her involvement in several administrative functions that would overlap with the new facility in Houston, she had very little time to grieve about what she had lost. She had done something stupid, and she had paid the price.

  Now it was business as usual.

  Unfortunately, no amount of pep talks in the world was going to make her feel better anytime soon. She had known for years that Ethan was not the kind of guy who wanted to settle down. Why had she let herself do something so stupid?

  Of all the diners in all the towns in Texas, why did he have to walk into hers?

  After work that afternoon, she desperately wanted to go home, climb into bed and have a good cry. Either that, or eat a quart of her favorite ice cream and binge-watch something on TV. Instead, she had to go to her parents’ house for dinner. Which meant putting on a happy face.

  Raymond and Laura Jensen were wonderful parents. They had given Aria love and support and every financial opportunity. She owed them a great deal. Usually she looked forward to their weekly dinner date.

  But tonight, she was exhausted and dispirited. The last thing she wanted was to pretend for two hours that she was okay. She would do it, though, because she didn’t want to worry her mom. Her dad was less perceptive, though equally affectionate.

  She showed up right on time and was swept into the warm, comforting atmosphere of her childhood home. Her mother’s pork loin, roasted potatoes and Texas-style green beans were famous. Her father selected the perfect wine pairing and kept everyone’s glass full. Oddly, he seemed tense, particularly after he spilled cabernet on his wife’s pristine white linen tablecloth.

  Cleaning up after dinner would have been a nice distraction, but the Jensens employed a full-time housekeeper. After the meal was done, the three of them—mom, dad and daughter—adjourned to the formal living room. Laura Jensen believed in observing the social niceties.

  After half an hour of chitchat, Aria’s mother touched her daughter’s hand apologetically and stifled a yawn. “I didn’t sleep well last night. I think I’ll have an early night. But you and Raymond can finish that bottle of wine.”

  Aria stood and hugged her mother. “Good night, Mama.” When the other woman walked out of the room, Aria sat back down and frowned at her father. “That was odd. Is she okay?”

  Her father avoided her gaze. “I told her I needed to talk to you in private.”

  “What on earth for?” Aria couldn’t imagine a scenario where her mother shouldn’t be part of the conversation. Her heart stopped. “Are you sick, Daddy? Is it bad?”

  Five

  Raymond Jensen leaped to his feet and paced. Six years ago he had given up smoking. Aria knew it was a good bet he wished he had a cigarette now. His body language revealed that he was one huge jittery ball of nerves.

  He shot her a look over his shoulder. “My health is perfect.”

  “Then what’s the big secret?”

  He looked absolutely petrified and haunted and determined all at the same moment. “I’ve done a stupid thing.”

  Welcome to the cl
ub, Aria thought with black humor. “Go on.”

  “About eighteen months ago, I took some money from the company. For personal reasons.”

  Aria frowned. “But it’s your company, so what’s the big deal?”

  “It was a lot of money,” he said.

  “How much?”

  “Two-point-five million.” His words hung in the air. No adjectives. No explanations. Just an incredibly large number.

  She sucked in a shocked breath. “I don’t understand, Daddy. Why don’t you just put it back?” An amount like that would obviously impact the company’s cash flow. Maybe even endanger the bottom line.

  “I can’t,” he said bluntly. “I don’t have it.”

  Suddenly, everything clicked into place with an awful precision. “You gambled it away.” It wasn’t a question. She could see it in his eyes. The fear. The helplessness. The shame.

  Her father had been in counseling almost a decade for a gambling addiction. As far as Aria knew, he hadn’t been near a roulette wheel or a poker table or a casino in years.

  He nodded slowly, suddenly looking decades older. Haggard. Pitiful. “It was online,” he said. “Seemed harmless at first. Before I knew it, I had blown through God knows how much. I’ve maxed out all my lines of credit at the bank. I could lose everything, baby. This house. The business. Your mother’s safety net.”

  Aria felt sick. “Does she know?”

  He shrugged. “I told her I’d had some bad news. Maybe she reads between the lines.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  He came and kneeled at her feet, his face shining with hope and supplication. “Because you’re the only one who can save us.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Harmon Porter,” he said.

  She stared at him, confused. Harmon Porter was a ridiculously wealthy man in his midthirties. He had asked out Aria a dozen times over the years. And she had turned him down every time. Harmon was a nice guy, but he wasn’t her type.

  “You’re not making sense, Daddy.”