“Well, we might with what I’ve found in the fridge.” Bree turned back to the drawer and opened another. “Oh. Here’s a bag of mini candy bars in this one.”
“Bring them. We can use candy bars instead of money for the game. It will make things more interesting.”
“What?” Bree’s nose was wrinkled in confusion, an expression that he’d always found undeniably cute and, at the same time, sexy.
Back in school, he would kiss the tip of her nose when she made that face. Now, he turned away and started unpacking the pieces of the game instead. They were far from that level of intimacy, despite having slept together.
“Each piece of candy can have a dollar value. Plain chocolate is worth five dollars. If it has peanuts, it’s a twenty-dollar bill. Crispy pieces are a fifty. Dark chocolate is a hundred. And the five-hundred is...one of the full-size bars. How’s that?”
“Gambling with chocolate. I like it. I get to be the banker.” Bree came into the room with her arms full of candy. “You’ll steal from the bank.”
Ian frowned. “What if I get hungry?”
“It will cost you some of your winnings.”
He loudly groaned in complaint but happily continued setting out the cards. “I’ll manage the properties, then.” He started laying them out on the coffee table by color. “Do we want to play the quick version?”
Bree looked up at him with an arched brow. “Why? What else do we have to do?”
A sly smile curled Ian’s lips. He could think of quite a few things they could do, none of which involved dice and paper money, but Bree had wanted to play a game.
She noted his devious expression and shook her head. “I hate to break it to you, but we are not going to lie around and do nothing but have sex until the snow melts.”
Ian knew that much. Despite how easily Bree had fallen into his arms today, she’d practically launched right out of them when it was over. He’d fallen asleep spooning her, the drama of the morning feeling as though it were a million miles away. Then he awoke a short time later to an empty space beside him in bed. By the time he stumbled back out into the living room, Bree was showered, dressed and suggesting they play a game. Like their encounter had never even happened.
He decided to go along with it. For now. He wasn’t entirely sure where they should go from here. He’d simply acted on instinct, claiming what he’d desired. There hadn’t been much thought or discussion put into the decision. All he knew was that he was aching to touch her again. He didn’t know if voicing that need would send Bree running into his arms or out into the snow.
“It’s either marathon sex or I’ll get back on my laptop,” he threatened. It was a hollow threat, however. Ian didn’t really want to get onto his computer. He would never admit to anyone, especially Bree, that he was enjoying his time away from technology. His calls were forwarded to his assistant. His out-of-office message directed people to contact Keith in his absence. General business operations at the studio were under control. That only left his personal accounts. Considering everything going on, he had zero interest in wading into those waters.
Before he’d shut everything off, he’d texted his mother and told her he would be out of touch for a few days and not to worry. No one else mattered.
That left nothing but a rowdy board game to distract him from his thoughts about Bree. And that worked for a while. An hour passed quickly as they collected real estate. It was something easy and fun to do. Ian couldn’t even remember the last time he did something as simple as play a game. It was nicer than he expected it to be, almost like stopping and taking a deep breath after running a marathon. And he had been running a marathon since he was nineteen.
Bree rolled the dice, then moved her piece to one of his green properties with a hotel. She groaned. “What’s the damage?”
Ian picked up his card. “That will be fourteen hundred dollars. Or, if you prefer, your Snickers, your Butterfinger and four of the mini special dark bars.”
“You’ve nearly bankrupted me.” Bree handed over the candy with a frown. “All I’ve got left is this crispy rice bar. And you know what?” She looked up at him and popped it into her mouth. “I’m hungry. Game over. You win.”
“Good. I’m hungry, too.” Ian unwrapped a piece of candy and ate it. The day had passed in a blur of drama, snow shoveling, lovemaking and board games, but now it was time for dinner. “Let’s see what we can come up with tonight.”
He climbed to his feet with his winnings and dumped them back into the kitchen drawer to eat later. He opened the pantry door and looked inside. He didn’t typically keep much there, but nonperishables would carry over from trip to trip, and as he’d mentioned, Patty sometimes went off script.
“Check the freezer,” he said.
Bree opened the door. “Hmm. Popsicles, a bag of frozen biscuit dough and...” She stopped to reach inside and pull out something. “Two rib eye steaks. They look pretty new. There’s no freezer burn.”
Ian took the package from her. It was definitely only a few days frozen with a packaged date stamp of the previous Tuesday. “God bless Patty.” A wire basket on the counter held a mix of potatoes and onions, and she’d bought some fresh vegetables. Together, they could manage an excellent meal. “Tonight, we eat like kings.”
Neither of them were experts in the kitchen, but things worked out pretty well. They thawed the steaks in the microwave while the potatoes baked in the oven. While they grilled the steaks, they steamed delicate haricot vert. An hour later, they had dinner on the table, complete with a bottle of merlot from his stash.
The logs in the fireplace were crackling beside them as a fire warmed the dining room. The food was good and so was the company. Ian had hoped for a romantic weekend, but this wasn’t what he’d had in mind. It was even better.
“I feel so guilty,” Bree said after a few moments eating quietly.
“Why?”
“It’s Friday night and I’m in the mountains eating a nice steak and drinking wine that didn’t come out of a box.”
At that, Ian had to laugh. “What’s so wrong with that?”
“I haven’t had a Friday night off in six years. Friday night is rehearsal dinner night. As we speak, the soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs. Conner are just wrapping up their rehearsal at our facility. In a few minutes, they’ll be loading into a limo and heading downtown to have their rehearsal dinner at a fondue restaurant. I should be there for all of it.”
“Who’s taking pictures instead? Is the caterer pinch hitting?”
Bree laughed. “No. Amelia is doing prep work for tomorrow and finishing up the wedding cake. Natalie and Gretchen are decorating and coordinating with contractors like the florist and the DJ. We have a contract photographer we call for larger weddings or emergencies, like today. Willie is covering the rehearsal dinner and, thankfully, the ceremony tomorrow.”
“So when was the last time you had a whole weekend off?” he asked.
“Uh...” She hesitated, looking up at the ceiling as she tried to calculate it. “Not since college, I’d guess. I might’ve gotten a weekend over Christmas when people don’t want to get married, but that’s about it. The first few years after we opened, we worked nearly every day. Now, I get Tuesdays and Wednesdays off. That’s my weekend.”
Ian understood how it went. Starting from nothing took years of hard work, jumping in the ring to do anything and everything that needed to be done. “Considering all the grief you’ve given me about working too hard over the years, it sounds like the pot is calling the kettle black.”
Bree avoided immediately responding to his observation by taking a large sip of her wine. “Perhaps,” she said at last, “but I love what I do. When you love what you do, you don’t work a single day, right?”
He nodded. That was the difference, he supposed. Ian was working himself into an early grave be
cause he had nothing else to do. He didn’t have a passion for record producing urging him on. “What about your personal life? Do you leave yourself time for relationships?”
“If you’re asking if I’m seeing anyone, no, I’m not.” She gave him a crooked smile. “A question that might’ve been better asked this afternoon before...” Her voice trailed off, her cheeks flushing red. “But no,” she said, clearing her throat. “I haven’t had a serious relationship in several years.”
Ian was relieved to hear that. He wanted Bree, but he didn’t want either of them to feel guilty about what they did. Especially because he wanted to do it again. “Me, neither. I mean, the Missy thing aside. Before everything happened with her, I hadn’t dated anyone for more than a few months at a time. And I wouldn’t have bothered dating her if she hadn’t dangled herself right in front of me where it was easy to grab.”
“Well, you know what they say about low-hanging fruit. It isn’t nearly as good or sweet as the fruit up high. You just have to be willing to work to reach it.”
Ian chuckled. “Yeah, I’ve certainly been going for the low-hanging fruit. I haven’t had time to work any harder at a relationship. It’s a shame, though. If I got one thing out of this whole mess with Missy, it was that the idea of starting a family really appealed to me. I just didn’t want to start it with her.”
“I don’t blame you.”
Ian sighed and sat back from his plate. Despite their discussion, he’d managed to demolish everything they’d cooked and still had a hankering for something sweet. He might have to go claim some of his Monopoly winnings before too long.
He looked up and watched Bree as she chewed her food and looked out the window. She was as beautiful as always, but their conversation seemed to have brought her energy down a little. He couldn’t tell if she was overworked, or if the lack of love life was bothering her.
“It sounds like we could both use a vacation,” he noted, trying to perk up the discussion.
The sadness slipped away from her expression, her thoughts returning to the present. Bree smiled and looked around at the cabin. “What would you call all this?”
This might be the closest thing he’d had to a vacation in a very long time, but that didn’t mean it qualified. It just proved to him that it took a blizzard to get him to relax. “I call it captivity. When I say the word vacation, I mean beaches, warm breezes and suntan lotion.” He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Bikinis. Frothy drinks. Skinny dipping in a private splash pool at midnight.”
Bree’s eyes grew wider as he spoke until they were like giant blue marbles watching him. Her cheeks were tinged pink, her lips moist and open slightly. He could tell her mind had followed him to a tropical location with the two of them mostly nude. Then, in an instant, she stiffened up and regained her composure. “That sounds like a nice idea. You should go when you find a new lady friend.”
“What if I’ve already found a new lady friend?” he asked boldly.
Bree took a deep breath, her shoulders shrugging slightly. “I think we need to survive this trip before we start worrying about another one.”
* * *
“May I take your picture?”
Ian looked up at Bree with a frown. They’d loaded the dishwasher and cleaned up together, then he’d carried his glass of wine into the living room to relax. Bree had picked her camera up off the coffee table and started tinkering with it. Their dinnertime conversation had sent her brain spinning. A vacation? Together? Yes, they’d had sex, but she knew this wasn’t going to go anywhere. Did he? It didn’t sound like it.
When life got problematic, Bree preferred the buffer of her camera between her and the world. Because there was only so far she could go from the temptation and complication of Ian, the camera was her best bet.
Judging by the look on his face, he wasn’t expecting Bree to spring this on him. Especially after she’d awkwardly rebuffed his offer of a holiday in the Caribbean. “Why would you want to take my picture?”
She shrugged. She couldn’t exactly tell him her initial motivation. At the same time, as big a mess as this weekend was, she wanted the photos to commemorate it. “It’s what I do.” Bree reached for her nearby camera bag and pulled out a different lens filter. She held the camera up to look at him through the lens, snapping a quick photo to test the light in the room.
Looking at the shot, she was reminded how photogenic Ian was. He was a handsome man in person, with penetrating green eyes and a square jaw covered in evening stubble. His features were masculine but refined. His dark hair was thick and wavy, yet kept short enough to stay under control. Photographing him, however, brought out an aura of confidence and power. There was an edgy male energy in his photo. And if she looked closely...signs of long-term exhaustion and stress. She recognized that look from her father. It was the kind of bone-weariness that came from weeks and months of working at an insane pace. Success at all costs.
And that was why she couldn’t go to the beach with him. Once they got out of here, things would be just like they were before and she’d be pushed aside for his work again. If she was going to make time in her own schedule for a relationship, she wanted it to be with someone who was willing to do the same.
“Do you want me just sitting here like I am? Or would you prefer me nude?” he added with a wicked grin.
Bree sighed. Of course he would turn her request into a sexual innuendo. He might be nearly thirty now, but she was coming to learn that most men’s sense of humor stopped developing around fourteen. At least it got her mind off her worries for a while. “Clothes on, please. I haven’t taken nude portraits since my college project on the human form. It’s not really my thing.”
“I mean, I don’t mind,” he continued, ignoring her protests. “I couldn’t help but notice you admiring my stunning male form earlier today. If you want to blow up a photo of me and hang it over your fireplace or something, I totally get it.”
“No nudes. And no huge egos, either. I need to be able to get your whole, inflated head in the frame.” At that, she hesitated. What she would really like was a shot of him with his guitar. In her old scrapbooks, Bree had pages of photographs with Ian playing. At the coffee shops. On a park bench. In his dorm room. Even on stage during one of his only school performances before he’d quit. She’d really loved photographing him while he worked, and adding another picture to the collection seemed appropriate. “I would really like to take your picture while you play, actually.”
At her suggestion, Ian frowned, just as she’d expected him to. “Last night was a one-night limited engagement. I don’t intend to do it again.”
Bree dropped the camera to her lap, a pout threatening to force out her bottom lip. She tried to hold it in. “Please, Ian. You can play whatever you want. Just let me take a few pictures.”
He sighed, then leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and look at her. “Bree, I know that you still think of me as the Ian you knew in school. I do the same thing. I see you and think about spotting you in the crowd at the coffee shop or when you helped me study for my algebra finals. But we’re not those people anymore. It’s been a long time and we’ve both grown up. That person you remember—the charming musician with the guitar—is long gone.”
“But last night...”
“Last night,” he interrupted, “was just for old time’s sake. Nothing has changed. I’m not suddenly going to grab that guitar and pick up my music career where I left off nine years ago. Those were just the dreams of a teenaged kid who didn’t know any better.”
And those were the words of a grown man made bitter by having those same dreams crushed. It made her sad to think that one person had the power to make him throw everything away. He’d disengaged himself so much from his music that he wouldn’t even pick up a guitar. Certainly he could at least play for fun without thinking he was going to be a rock star one
day. Bree enjoyed her photography and had moderate success, but she never expected to shoot for Vanity Fair. She did it because she liked to do it. Wasn’t that enough?
“Will you answer me one question, then, Ian?”
She could tell he didn’t want to, but he would for fear she might not let the subject drop. “One question. And then we let the subject go and you will photograph me nude.”
Bree twisted her lips, holding back her irritation. “Why does having a successful record label keep you from playing guitar? Why can’t you have both?”
His dark green gaze narrowed at her. “That was two questions,” he noted, dodging them both.
“Damn it, Ian. Come on. I know you still love to play.”
“Of course I still love to play. Picking up that guitar last night was like being reunited with a long-lost brother. Like coming home. If you have music in your soul, you can’t just lock the door and throw away the key. It’s always going to be there. I try to channel it into my artists, but it never really goes away.”
“Then why do you torture yourself? Why don’t you play if you want to?”
“Because it still hurts, Bree!” He shouted the answer, almost as though he might not get the words out if he didn’t. His face contorted with surprise and irritation before he shook his head and wiped his palm over his face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. I just... It’s easier for me not to play at all. If I don’t play, I can try to forget about all the plans I had that never came to fruition. I can tell myself it was just a phase I grew out of. That I wasn’t that good so I didn’t lose out on my big chance. That no amount of practicing—” his voice trailed off “—would’ve kept me from losing the most important person in my life.”
Bree opened her mouth to argue with him, but then she stopped. Her eyes met his and there was no doubt in her mind that he was talking about her. She swallowed hard, trying to choose her words wisely. “You didn’t lose me because I thought you weren’t a good musician, Ian. I thought you were a great musician.”
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