“So you two are talking again?”
Sophie stared blindly at the case in front of her. “Uh-huh.”
“That’s good.”
Good, except what was she supposed to do now that they’d gone from talking to making out? Eventually they’d go from making out to sex and from sex to . . . being together? The way they were going, they were moving as fast as Dev and Anna did and—
Oh god, no.
Sophie stared nervously at the sea of diamonds before her. She wasn’t ready to be here.
No, no, no. She couldn’t—They could not.
Not because she didn’t care about Wright. She did. But having sex with Wright and having a serious romantic relationship with him were two different things.
Even as friends, he didn’t know about her fears, all of her doubts. She was the master of looking like she had her shit together, even though she had nothing together.
She was held together by the grit of supporting her family and the glue of a demanding family business. Honeywilde made her whole. Without it, she was fractured pieces and ugly scars.
If she and Wright got too close, got serious, he’d find out. Her insecurity would be impossible to hide and she’d cling to him, in fear of losing him. She always did. And that’s what would drive him away.
Dev turned and went back to the counter to talk with Mr. Larkin, and she tried talking herself out of a panic attack.
She was freaking out for nothing. Some passionate kisses, even sex, did not a relationship make.
Dev was the one getting hitched, not her and Wright. Wright didn’t want to marry her. That was absurd. He’d marry a girl like Kate.
And even though it’d break Sophie’s heart, she’d let him. Because Wright deserved someone wonderful and whole. Not a scared little girl who’d need him to constantly reassure her that everything was okay. That he wouldn’t walk out the door and never come back. Or drive across town one day and die.
“You ready?” Dev passed her on the way to the door.
Sophie willed away the dark thoughts.
In the middle of a jewelry store, mourning a twenty-two-year-old loss and the loss of something she didn’t even have yet.
Yep, she was totally great relationship material.
“Soph?” Dev studied her, concern wrinkling his brow.
She forced herself to snap out of it. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
“Come on, then. It’s been a lot longer than thirty minutes. We better get back.”
They climbed into his SUV, which was parked around back, and he handed her the bag to hold. “Thank you for coming with me. I’m still nervous as hell, but not about the ring. I know you wouldn’t bullshit me, so if you think it’s perfect, I know I got the best of the best.”
Because she would never bullshit Devlin.
Out of their whole family, the two of them were always up front with each other. He’d never told her all about Anna because he didn’t have to. Sophie had figured out their secret herself.
And it would only be a matter of time before Dev figured out something was going on with her and Wright.
With her luck, it’d be the day Dev and Anna got engaged or some nightmare like that.
There’d be a huge family drama, and for what?
So she could satisfy a craving? She and Wright didn’t have any chance of growing into something sustainable, like Dev and Anna.
She didn’t have the nerve to make a relationship work with a guy who had nothing to do with her family or career, never mind a guy who was all up in the middle of both and irrefutably a part of her life. She was with Wright because it felt amazing to do so now. But what about later?
This wasn’t fair to Wright, and she couldn’t risk her family’s peace and happiness just to satisfy some teenage fantasy.
She’d find Wright and tell him they had to stop what they were doing.
They couldn’t touch. Or kiss. He couldn’t look at her that way, and she couldn’t want him.
But they could be friends.
* * *
“I don’t want to be your friend.” Wright planted his hands at his waist.
His undershirt was still damp from five plus hours in the kitchen, and it clung to his chest as he scowled down at her.
“Excuse me.” She wasn’t feeling particularly friendly either, with him in his wet T-shirt, but like hell was he going to use that tone with her.
He half-bothered to take a look around. They were in the kitchen alone and it was almost eleven, but Wright knew as well as she did, this was a conversation no one else needed to hear.
He moved closer to her and lowered his voice. “You know what I mean. I am your friend. I’ll always be your friend, but . . . I don’t want to be just friends. After last night. After today? I know you don’t want that either.”
With a step to the side, she eased away, putting some distance between her and all the gloriously frustrated manliness. “Yes, I do. We can’t keep this up.”
“Why?” He followed. “Because your brothers might find out?”
“Yes.” That was only half the reason.
“We’re back to that? They don’t have to know.”
“So I lie to my family? That’s the solution?”
“Or we tell them. I’ll tell them right now.” Wright turned to go and she went after him.
She grabbed his arm and dug her heels in. “No! You can’t tell them we’re screwing around.’
Wright turned and pinned her with a scowl. “Screwing around? Is that what you think this is?”
That wasn’t what this was, but to ponder it under any other terms put her brain on overload.
She still clung to his arm and couldn’t let go. His thick forearm filled her grip, the ripple of muscle warm in her hands. With concerted effort, she managed to meet his gaze. “I . . . I don’t know.”
Wright peeled her fingers from his arm and took her hands in his. Another quick look around and he tugged her toward the large pantry. Once inside, he faced her, still holding her hands. “Technically, we haven’t even had sex yet, but when we do, it won’t be screwing around. I want to have sex, but that’s not all I want. I want to be with you.”
“But . . .” Sophie barely shook her head. But that would never work.
Being together or dating or, heaven forbid, a relationship? She’d never been able to sustain it in the past, there were always problems, her problems, and that was the last thing she needed right now.
Even if she wanted to be Wright’s girlfriend, it was impossible, and not because of her family.
And she didn’t want to lose Wright.
Sophie shook her head, harder this time. “We can’t be together. Not like that.”
His shoulders stiffened. “You really think Dev would be that upset? I mean, yeah at first, he might be pissed, but in the long run—”
“Long run?” Her chest tightened. How could he talk about long term? They’d only made out the day before yesterday.
She pulled away. “No. Dev would forbid it.” The false words were like acid on her tongue. “This . . .” She freed one of her hands to point back and forth between them. “What happened has to stay between the two of us. And we can’t do it again.”
He blinked, his expression stricken. “You seriously want to go back to only being friends?”
She swallowed hard, a knot like wad of dry oatmeal in her throat. “Yes. Friends. We can’t do this anymore.”
One eyebrow crept up as Wright studied her, his lips pursed like he was ready to call her out on her bullshit. She knew because she’d seen that look on his face before. And he wasn’t wrong. She was full of it. Full of it and frightened.
Sophie backed away before he could challenge her claim. Paper thin and flimsy, it’d crumple under his scrutiny if she stayed.
She was a coward for running, but self-preservation won out over pride. Her hip hit the pantry’s door frame as she turned, and ran.
Chapter 10
Like hell they were goi
ng to be just friends.
Wright tossed his duffel bag across the den of his apartment. He had half a mind to boot it up and down the hall, but he really liked that bag, and kicking it wouldn’t help matters.
Sophie was scared of getting close, and too scared to admit it.
“Dammit!” he yelled at his empty apartment.
Well after midnight and here he was, alone in his sparsely furnished apartment, instead of here with Sophie in his arms, his lips on hers and her legs back around his waist.
“This. Sucks.” He jerked the refrigerator door open, rattling all the condiments in the door.
After checking to make sure the various sauces and spreads were okay, he grabbed a beer and drank half of it standing in front of the open fridge.
It wasn’t that he didn’t understand where she was coming from. He did.
He knew how Sophie could be. She backed away from every guy who ever wanted to date her more than twice.
But he’d assumed he was different. That they were different.
He wasn’t some dude bro she didn’t know.
Wright grumbled and cursed, scanning his stock. He might not have much for furniture and décor in his apartment, but by god, he had plenty of food. Cooking would help him process what Sophie said—and what he was going to do about it.
Even after being in the restaurant’s kitchen for hours, this was still the best therapy.
He grabbed the chicken breasts, mushrooms, butter, and his meat mallet. Careful not to take too much aggravation out on the food, he pounded the chicken to thin it out.
Sophie wasn’t fooling him. She couldn’t deflect his interest, and hers, with talk of how upset her brothers would be.
Yes, Dev and Roark and Trevor would take some issue with the two of them dating or sleeping together or doing anything other than being platonic buddies. They would flip out about it for a few days and be protective older brothers, but they wouldn’t oppose them to the point they’d try forbidding Sophie and Wright to be together.
They were reasonable men, who loved Sophie and liked and respected Wright.
Accepting Wright and Sophie as a couple might take time and hell of a lot of getting used to, but everyone would get there.
No, Sophie’s big issue was her.
His attraction and affection freaked her out because they were already close. He wasn’t interested in a couple of dates and some sex on the fly, and she knew it.
Wright had more than a smidge of insight into how she operated. He’d known her for double digit years now. They were in each other’s lives. If they took this thing further—no, not if, when—she couldn’t run and hide from him.
Wright grabbed his flour and spices, mixing them in a wide bowl. He put his skillet on to heat up, added a healthy dose of olive oil, and set about coating and placing his chicken.
Come to think of it, he couldn’t name one guy in Sophie’s entire adult life that she’d kept around long enough to be considered a boyfriend. Except Paul Pearson.
On the other hand, every time Wright dated someone, it lasted at least a season.
Her breakups weren’t always the guy’s fault either. Some of them? Absolutely. They were losers who didn’t deserve her. But many of them Sophie broke off with no explanation.
She’d say she wasn’t into them, which was fair enough, if that were true.
But she couldn’t make that same claim about Wright. She’d already admitted, in words and action, she was into him. So she used her brothers as the excuse.
Wright sliced his mushrooms with perfect precision.
She’d been fine at the lake, fine before their meeting with Roark. It wasn’t until later today she’d gotten skittish, and downright deer-in-headlights when he’d said her brothers would get used to them together long—
“Son of a bitch.” Wright stopped slicing.
Long term.
His words. Exactly.
“You’re a damn idiot.”
Sophie was going to pull the plug on them because he wanted more from her than a little down and dirty in the lake shed, and he’d gone and opened his big mouth with words like “long” and “term.”
Well, hell no. He was not letting her pull the plug on them.
If all she could handle right now was casual, the down and the dirty, then that’s what he’d give her. At first.
Then he could work his way toward long term from there.
Of all people, he should’ve known better than to throw a bunch of serious relationship talk at her. He’d tossed too much in the mix, but as with any recipe, he could fix the issue of adding too much sugar. All he had to do was even out the sweetness with other ingredients.
Sophie was skittish when it came to relationships outside of her brothers.
Understandable with her childhood and basically losing two sets of parents. He would simply sidestep the whole relationship and feelings ingredient for the time being. Add a little saltiness to their interactions. Not a difficult task since they’d be working on the fund-raiser together.
He added the mushrooms to his skillet, delighting in the rich brown color and mouthwatering scent.
One wrong ingredient did not a disaster make. Not in food and not in love.
All he had to do was stick to the recipe and adjust as needed. Tomorrow, that’s exactly what he was going to do.
* * *
“What if we use the patio underneath the verandah for staging the event?” Dev drummed his fingers on the arm of one of the great room’s chairs.
In lieu of an early Roark meeting, Dev was meeting with Wright, Sophie, and Trevor to discuss the Midsummer Night Gala before any guests were up.
Sophie shook her head, looking at one of the many property layouts she owned. “I think the patio for dancing and music. Save the verandah for the food and beverage.”
“Life would be easier if we keep the food up here near the kitchen.” Wright agreed.
“True, true.” Dev nodded. “I was thinking of creating the mood. Lights all above, that kind of thing.”
“We could still do the lights.” Trevor got up to refill his coffee. “I went to this party where they used streetlamps in the corners and the twinkle lights went back and forth between them. Oh hey, and if you had a centerpiece light, you could do a whole tent effect with strands of lights. A canopy of illumination.”
They all stared at him.
“What?” Trevor sat back down, smirking. “I have ideas. I know things.”
Everyone nodded in surprised agreement as they laid out the major logistics of the event. Dev would be in charge of communications and take the lead overall. Wright would head up the menu, obviously, and Sophie would work with the vendors, since that was already her wheel house. Trevor would do whatever they needed.
Once they got the basics down and everyone had enough tasks to keep them busy through the week, they were done. Different from the end of Roark’s meetings, Dev didn’t so much dismiss the group as announce he was hungry and wander off.
Trevor didn’t budge from his spot on a sofa, which left Wright and Sophie staring at each other, neither one of them jumping to be the first to speak.
“I . . .” Sophie glanced at her watch. “I should make a few calls before we get busy.”
“Yeah, I have some prep work.” Wright headed straight for the restaurant. That’s where she’d choose to make her calls.
Sure enough, she followed, settling near the hostess station to use that phone.
Normally, Wright would immediately start on breakfast, but now, with Marco to help, the prep work would already be in process. So Wright lingered.
He went behind the bar, grabbed a few lemons and oranges, taking his sweet time about it.
Sophie was on the phone all right, but her lips weren’t moving. A couple of minutes passed before she hung up, leaning on the hostess station to study him. “Shouldn’t you be starting on breakfast?”
“Shouldn’t you be on the phone?” Wright tossed an orange into the
air.
“Don’t be snide.”
“I’m not.” He made a pouch with the hem of his shirt to hold his citrus stash. “I know you have a lot going on. I’m trying to help you remember. You said you needed to make calls.”
“Now you’re being a smart-ass.”
With a genuine smile, he approached her. He’d be whatever he had to be to get her to talk to him. “Sorry. I’m not trying to be.”
“Look, I know this is weird, but I . . . I’m trying to do the right thing here. I have to consider the consequences.”
The consequences being they might be great together, and that terrified her.
“I know.” He leaned against the hostess stand too, inches from her. “I respect that. Might not agree, but I respect where you’re coming from. You think you’re doing the right thing.”
She tilted her head. “But you don’t.”
“I think we should be taking advantage of the opportunity we’ve been given. I think we should be right back in that lake shed or you should’ve been at my place last night, finishing what we started.”
“Wright—”
“Doesn’t have to be complicated. Doesn’t have to be anything we don’t want it to be. And what we do isn’t anybody’s business, especially if we keep it casual.”
She studied him, probably searching for signs he was bluffing.
She wouldn’t find any. He meant it. Right now, they could be whatever she wanted them to be, as long as it meant they were together.
“And, not for nothing, but I made a mean Marsala last night that you would’ve loved. We could’ve eaten, had some wine, enjoyed dessert. Enjoyed each other.”
The tops of her cheeks went pink.
“But if you want to cool it, we can cool it.”
She glanced away, her stern expression wavering. “I . . . I think we should.”
“Okay then. Done. I’ll leave you alone.” He made a point of casually accepting her pronouncement, even as she faltered.
As he headed to the kitchen, her gaze burned into the back of his skull.
Once in the kitchen, he slid on a clean chef’s jacket and readied his workstation.
His goal wasn’t to piss Sophie off, but to make her see she was fighting something they both wanted. If she didn’t long for him the same way he did, he really would cool it, but what sparked between them when they kissed wasn’t the kind of thing you ignored.
A Taste of Temptation Page 10