One Wild Wedding Night_ Three-Way - Leslie Kelly [4]
He’d get to that. Eventually.
“Got back a few days ago. Have a good holiday?”
She nodded slowly. “Very nice.”
“How’s the new job?” he asked, knowing she was disconcerted, waiting for some kind of emotional reaction that she had to know was coming. She’d be waiting a long time if she thought she’d see regret or loss or worse, pleading. And she’d probably never suspect what she was very soon going to get.
Not anger. Not sadness. Just pure, sensual determination.
“It’s fine.” Clearing her throat, she added, “You remember my father had a stroke last spring. It’s done him a lot of good having me back in the area.”
Justifications. He nearly tsked in disappointment. He’d expected defiance from her, not nervousness. At least, until she found out what he’d really come for.
Then, what he most wanted was excitement.
“When, exactly, did you apply for this job?” he asked as he opened her minibar and scanned its contents. Without asking, he reached in, helped himself to a small bottle of whiskey and poured it, neat, into a hotel-provided glass.
“I interviewed for it last fall. Before we met.”
“Ahh.” He sipped. “And you never thought to mention it.”
“I didn’t think I’d got the job. I hadn’t heard anything at all, not until early December. After you’d gone.”
Right. And she didn’t know how to pick up a phone and make an overseas call. Considering he’d called her three times after leaving the states, he knew she was aware they had such things as telephones in the Pacific Rim .
Looking back, he knew she’d had to have already made her decision by his third call. She must have, in order to have given her notice and moved by the twentieth when he got the disconnect message, followed by the Dear John one on his machine. Yet she’d never said a word.
“You got my message, I hope?”
Brandon ’s hand tightened around the glass. If it had been of more fragile stuff, it might have crushed beneath his fingers. How could she act so casual about it…as if her damned ninety-second voice message could possibly be enough to explain, to put an end to what they’d shared?
No, they hadn’t had sex yet. But they’d been intimate in many other ways. In the month they’d dated—before his trip—they’d seen each other four or five times a week. She’d sought him out with frequent phone calls and e-mails. She’d brightened his winter days and he’d warmed her winter nights in every way but one. And when it had come to that one thing—he had been the one who’d offered to wait until he got back.
He had not wanted to take her to bed then fly away a day or two later. Because he had the feeling that once he did get inside Mia’s beautiful body, he wouldn’t want to leave it for a very long time.
The anticipation of their first time would, she’d assured him, be the highlight of her holidays and she had promised to greet him on January 8 in the sexiest lingerie Santa Claus could buy. But on January 8, she’d been living in another state, her apartment rented to someone else, her office now being used by another lawyer.
He’d checked. Even after getting her message, he’d had to go make sure it was true—that she’d bailed with no real motivation or explanation.
“ Brandon ?”
It took a great deal of self-control to loosen his grip on the glass, but he did it, maintaining an even expression.
“Enough of this. What is it you’re really doing here?” she asked, tilting her head back and staring straight into his eyes. Her surprise and nervousness had kept her off guard for the first few moments of his visit. Now the Mia he knew—the strong, powerful woman—was returning.
“Can’t an old friend stop in for a drink?”
She glanced at the minibar, looking so longingly at it, that he raised a brow and held up a tiny bottle. When she nodded, he cracked the seal on it and poured a shot into the other clean tumbler. As he handed it to her, their fingers brushed—just a soft, quick connection—yet Mia’s hand shook and the amber liquor sloshed in the glass.
He nearly smiled at the lapse of control.
She gave a good try