A Taste of Sugar

by Marina Adair

  “Maybe now is the perfect time,” he offered. “We’ve been skating around things for four years, and tomorrow might be too late.”

  “I know,” she said, sounding more upset and, okay, back to looking like she was about two seconds away from tears.

  “How about just one drink,” he suggested, because suddenly he wasn’t all that far from tears himself, which made not an ounce of sense. “We drink, we talk, we try to figure things out, and when the glasses are empty you can make the call to continue talking or go to bed. No pressure.”

  “All right.” She picked up the shot. “To Peppermint Patties.” Then the woman who was notorious for leisurely sipping her Baptist cocktail with her pinkie in the air threw back the entire shot in one swallow.

  With a big gasp, she went to slam the shot down, right as he slid her second glass in front of her. She blinked, no doubt wondering if she was already seeing double. “What’s this?”

  “Plan B,” he said. “In case you tried to do, well, exactly what you did.” He took a pull of his beer. “And I’d go slow with that second one. They might be sweet, but they don’t call them dirty for fun.”

  Chapter 6

  You’re drinking too slowly,” Charlotte chastised, taking dainty sips of the coffee she’d ordered after she polished off shot number two. It wasn’t helping. Jace sat there, so close their knees brushed every time she so much as moved, looking sexier by the second while he slowly spun his glass between his oh-so-capable hands.

  “And you’re stalling. Again.”

  Charlotte raised her gaze to meet his, and what she saw there had her mouth going dry. Genuine interest. In every word she said. “At least take a sip. And stop spinning the cup, it’s driving me nuts.”

  “Deal. As long as you finish the story about your dad.”

  “That was really it,” she said. “Before we hung up I finally got him to agree to ask if moving the virtual tour would be an issue, then he never called back. My guess is it happened without me.”

  “I’m sorry that coming here put you in that position,” Jace said, and she could tell he meant it.

  “That’s okay, I think it would have happened regardless,” she admitted. “Even though I have sacrificed everything for this project, I don’t think he sees what I bring to the table.”

  “Then your dad is an idiot,” he said.

  “I don’t know,” she lied, because she did know. Her dad couldn’t see past his own ego to realize how much Charlotte had put into the hospital’s expansion. They had a long habit of him completely discounting her achievements and Charlotte smiling through the disappointment and putting the needs of the hospital above her feelings.

  In fact, defending her family was so ingrained that she found herself saying, “It was just a virtual tour, and my dad really is good at what he does. And this endowment will be huge for the hospital.”

  “You’re really good at what you do, Charlie,” he said quietly, resting his hand on hers in a show of support. “And this endowment is huge for you.”

  Panic bubbled up inside, tightening around her chest, because somehow he knew, saw what everyone else overlooked. Gaining this endowment wasn’t just huge, it was everything. Those four walls and the people inside them represented who she was and, more importantly, who she aspired to be. Most people just saw the building, patients in need, the fancy medical equipment. But someone who knew what to look for, who took the time to look deeper, would see that this center was all she had.

  Her panic must have shown because his smile softened, to the point that it was hard to breathe. “This Grow Clinic has been your dream since grad school, when you interned for the sports medicine pediatrician and helped that kid take back his life.”

  Will Harper had been eleven years old when he lost the use of his legs and with it his sense of self. Insurance covered the surgery and physical therapy, even the new wheelchair ramp to his house, but it didn’t provide any solutions for how he was supposed to fit back into a life that didn’t fit his new body. That’s when his mom brought him to the center in Atlanta, and through experimental techniques and a lot of love and support and hard work, Will finally found his place, found a way to adapt and excel and, most importantly, connect with others. The first time Charlotte saw him race in a local marathon, she knew she’d found her calling.

  That Jace remembered was touching.

  “It’s your way of giving kids the tools they need to really live life. The way they want to. Not limited by a wheelchair, or a doctor, or preconceived ideas.” Or their parents, went unsaid but hung between them, thick and real. “The center gives them the freedom to live the life they dream of and the life they deserve. But you, Charlie,” he interlaced their fingers, “with you, they gain the courage to live it. Your dad needs to stop, for just one second, and really see what you bring to the table.”

  A familiar tenderness washed through her. Jace had always been the one person Charlotte couldn’t hide from. He had this way about him, an intensity, that when focused had the ability to cut through her facade and fears and speak to what was important, her truth. He got her in a way that no one in her life ever had, and he gave her the courage to live life without apology. With Jace she had always felt as though she was wanted. As though she was enough.

  He was perfect in every way except for the one that mattered most.

  “If I bring so much to the table then why do I find myself setting it for a party of one?” the alcohol asked, because there was no way sans the shots that those words would have ever left her mouth. Oh, she thought about them every day, but never dared voice them.

  Until now.

  “I don’t know.” His hand rested on her knee, then slowly moved up, just an inch, but enough to tease under the hem of her skirt, and a deep pulsing started in her core. “Why aren’t you seeing someone?”

  There were a lot of reasons she could give, work being the most common excuse she’d used in the past. But she was tired of being bound to misery by excuses. “I don’t know, Jace, the last time I opened myself up to someone I thought really knew and loved me, he bolted.” Her stomach hurt. “Can we talk about something else?”

  “Aw, Charlie,” he whispered, and the flare of hurt in his eyes made her stomach twist.

  “Don’t Aw Charlie me with those bedroom eyes of yours. You walked out, Jace. You promised to love me forever, no matter what, and you walked out. It didn’t go how you wanted, and you just left.”

  The first time Jace had talked about leaving, she’d thought he’d just been reacting to the news that a story was going to run on him assaulting the golden boy of NASCAR. But the next morning she’d woken up alone, next to a stack of papers resting on his pillow with one little sticky note that said sorry and another pointing to where she needed to sign as though he wasn’t asking her to annul her happiness. That was it, one minute she was married to the man of her dreams, talking about kids and the future, their future. And the next she was signing on the dotted line as if her entire world wasn’t ending.

  The worst part was that it hadn’t ended. She had to pick up the pieces and move on, without Jace. With no closure. With the knowledge that no one out there loved her for exactly who she was.

  “I walked out because I knew that staying would ruin your life, too,” he admitted. “That story was going to blow up, and Dylan fucking McAdams was talking about suing, and you had worked so hard to get that job at Atlanta Memorial, I didn’t want you to lose out on it because of me.”

  “I quit that job anyway,” she reminded him, her frustration as sharp as it was four years ago. Less than a year after he left, she resigned when she realized she couldn’t stay in Atlanta.

  Giving up that job and admitting it was over, that he wasn’t coming back, had been hard. Going home and pretending as if their marriage had never happened had been harder. But she’d done it, she’d found some kind of peace in her job, and when that wasn’t enough she went after her dream, throwing her heart into the Grow Clinic.
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br />   But even though she’d accomplished what she’d set out to do, she was lonely. So lonely at night when she came home that sometimes it was easier to go to bed than listen to an empty house settle in for the night.

  “That job meant a lot to me, but you meant more,” she admitted quietly. “I would have walked away from everything if it meant you would have stayed.”

  “You hadn’t even told your family and friends about us because you were so scared of the drama it would cause,” he said, the anger in his voice clear. “How were you going to handle explaining to them or your new boss that, oh, yeah, my husband, the one I never told you about, might be sued for assault? Oh, and the prick suing is some bigwig so it’s going to be everywhere.”

  “But he didn’t sue. It was all for nothing.”

  “Only because Brett paid him off. Settled it quietly out of court.” Something that she knew bugged him. Jace was too stubborn to admit he needed help, which was the core of all of their problems. He was so set on taking care of things himself that he didn’t stop and talk things through. He just made what he considered was the right decision and went with it, never realizing that love was about partnership, facing the world together.

  “And when Brett came to the rescue, did you tell him about us?”

  “Why? So he could know that I’d lost yet another person I loved?” Jace said, removing his hand from her thigh. Then he looked down as though he hadn’t meant to say that, and Charlotte’s heart swelled from the honesty in his statement and then broke all over for him. It broke for the boy who believed he killed his parents, and for the man who didn’t believe he deserved to be loved. That he deserved her.

  Charlotte reached out and cupped his face, tipping it until there was nowhere to look but at her. “I never told my parents about you because I wanted you all to myself. For just a little while. You were my choice, Jace. The one thing in the world I wanted enough to go after on my own. And I didn’t want my parents to weigh in, not yet.”

  “And I didn’t want you to have to defend me to everyone.”

  “But that was your choice.” She wanted to make this clear. After all, he didn’t lose her, he’d left her. “You chose to handle it on your own and then made my choice for me, deciding what I could or couldn’t handle. Because I would have chosen to stay by your side. I would have chosen us.”

  Jace was quiet for a long, painful moment as his hand came up to tangle with hers. “You could still choose us.”

  Charlotte wanted to cry for all they’d lost. Because the “us” that she would have fought for, would have stood against the world to protect, was gone. “You are opening your dream garage in Atlanta, the Grow Clinic is finally happening, and come tomorrow there will be no us, Jace.”

  “Maybe.” Jace tugged her hand until she stood, then slowly drew her closer until she hit the edge of his bar stool, his legs on either side of her. “But there’s still tonight.”

  Four words, and Charlotte felt her resolve crumble, felt herself lean into his offer and taste his lips, because she knew that no matter how hard she wanted to, she couldn’t change the past. Neither of them could. But fate was giving them a second chance to do what they should have done all those years ago.

  Tonight she wanted her good-bye.

  * * *

  Jace McGraw: luckiest son of a bitch to walk the earth. That was what his next tattoo was going to read. Because never in a million years would he have imagined a reality in which Charlotte didn’t hate him. In fact, it appeared as though she still liked him—a lot.

  It took about three seconds and a shot of Naughty Girl Scout for it to register that while Jace sat there on a vinyl bar stool, beneath a blinking neon Lone Star sign, Charlotte Holden, queen of discreet, was kissing him.

  It wasn’t the casual peck or the simple brushing of lips that one might expect to see two people exchange in such a public forum. Nope, it was a hot, openmouthed, hand-in-his-hair, real fireworks and fuck-you kind of display. It was a kiss to end all kisses, a kiss that left no room or question of exactly where this would lead.

  And Jace decided right then, in that hotel bar, that when it came to this woman, she could lead him wherever the hell she wanted. No questions asked.

  All this time he’d been terrified that addressing their past would hurt too much. Convinced himself that avoiding the hard conversations, loving her from afar, was for the best. Man, was he wrong. Because nothing could be better than this.

  Well, okay, he amended as she slanted her mouth so that he could nip and tease at that lower lip of hers, there was one thing. But he was pretty sure by the way her fingers trailed down his chest to fiddle with his belt buckle that this was just the prequalifier. The real race, the one with the waving flags and exploding champagne bottles he’d been dreaming about since that last night, when he’d stayed up to watch her sleep, memorizing every detail about her, if that race happened it would be a direct result of him instigating the conversation he’d been so adamant to avoid.

  Hell, if this was the result of talking it out, Jace was going to take a class on how to converse like a pro, because this was, by far, the best conversation he’d ever had. Deep, intense, passionate, a real give-and-take kind of situation.

  There was a lot of heat—and a whole hell of a lot of emotion. Emotions that he’d worked hard to hide. And it was coming from both sides, because Charlotte was pressing closer, burrowing into him as if she, too, couldn’t stand the distance a second longer.

  He could feel her pulse pounding as he kissed down her neck, then her hands got creative, sliding down his zipper to cup him gently, then not so gently, then holy shit she took one more lap over the hard ridge, this time looking for the finish line in his pants.

  They were in a bar, a freaking public bar. Sure, there was only the bartender and a single television playing Dancing with the Stars in the background, but Charlotte had those elegant fingers of hers, the ones she used to play the piano and do all of the refined things debutantes with the last name Holden did, wrapping around him, and, mind blown, he bucked into her hand.

  One little stroke and he could see the finish line. And at the end, waving the big checkered flag, in nothing but skin and those sophisticated heels she loved, was Charlotte. Oh, not the sweet, cultured, cool-as-ice Dr. Holden, but Charlie McGraw…his wife.

  He pulled back because—hello, they were in a bar and his hands were playing with those buttons, those sexy little buttons that had been begging him all day for release, and he was about to release them, right there. One by one.

  Undoing the dress.

  His wife’s dress.

  His wife, who stood there, looking up at him with questioning eyes. And he had just the answer for her. But then she picked up his mug, downed the last little swallow, and said, “The glasses are empty. Which means this talk is over. And I want to go upstairs.”

  Jace must have been breathing too hard, because he thought that she said the talk was over. As in they were not going to rev their engines, speed down the track, or even go one lap.

  “Alone?” he asked, telling himself to let go, because that was their deal, right? Even though she’d stuck her hand down his pants and kissed him like he was her lifeline, it was her call. And she’d made it. Even if it was the wrong call.

  Then, thank you, Jesus, she smiled, sweet and a little naughty. “With you, Jace. I want to go upstairs with you.”

  Um, yes. Hell yes. This is the best day of my life yes. They were all acceptable responses, yet none of them really encompassed the sheer amount of enthusiasm, eagerness, how fast can we fucking get there? feelings he was having. He really needed to enroll in that communication class, because he took too long to respond, and that animated expression she wore vanished, leaving behind one that was full of vulnerability and uncertainty.

  And if there was one thing he wanted her to know, it was just how badly she got to him. How badly he wanted her. So he leaned in ever so slowly, keeping his eyes firmly on hers, and teased the seam of h
er lips, his hands tightening possessively on her hips, steering her into him.

  When she was good and clear on just how enthusiastic, he took her by the hand and said, “Let’s take the stairwell. It’s quicker.”

  Charlotte nodded, not saying a single word other than “hurry up” as he pulled her through the lobby, past the lady with the fire-engine red hair who had looked surprised when he asked for two rooms—she knew they wouldn’t be using that second one now—and into the stairwell.

  They lapped the first level, the second, and were going into their third flight—why the hell hadn’t he asked for a ground-level room?—when Charlotte stumbled a little in those heels.

  She fiddled with the sexy clasp at the ankle, then tried just yanking it off. Jace considered picking her up and carrying her up the rest of the stairs. But he couldn’t wait, needed one of those detours he was so adamant about avoiding, so when his wife placed those delicate hands of hers on his chest to gain her balance, he led her to the wall.

  Pressed her against it without warning, crushing his mouth to hers. He felt the surprise in her sexy little gasp turn to excitement as she rose up on her tiptoes to meet him halfway. God, she tasted incredible, like Miss America and mint chip or something. All he knew was that she tasted incredible. Better than incredible. Like she could end world hunger and create world peace with a single kiss.

  He figured this was a little pit stop, a little grope and a little loving, so that they had the motivation to get up the next three fights. But she pulled back, her face a pretty shade of pink when she asked, “You know what else I love about stairwells?”

  No, he didn’t. Jace might not be an expert communicator, but he knew when to shut up. And this, his head was telling him, was one of those times.

  Charlotte looked at his zipper, then back to his eyes, and she flushed. “They’re also less crowded,” she whispered, and he could hear the excited nerves shake in her voice. See the uncertainty in her eyes. Feel the way her heart leapt when he offered up an encouraging smile.