by Ann Collins
Anders began at the beginning, with the storm and the wrecked car and the woman in the rain. By the time he got to the confession about sex in his storage room, Dallas had abandoned her drink and was staring at him with eyes wide as saucers.
“Wow.”
Anders chuckled. “That’s it?”
“That’s for starters. I’m still wrapping my mind around it.”
“Me too.”
“So this girl obviously likes you,” said Dallas.
“Bullshit.”
“She came back for more, didn’t she?”
“Yes, but…”
Dallas cut him off with a wave of her hand. “And you like her something fierce. So what is the problem here?”
“She’s got a boyfriend.”
Dallas laughed. “She’s got someone who will soon be an ex.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because she’s got a thing for you. The boyfriend won’t last.”
“Yeah, well it’s not that simple.”
Anders went on to tell her about Scott and his not-so-veiled threat to bring Anders’ business down.
“Oh boy, that is so low. He wouldn’t do it, would he?”
“Hard to tell. But there’s something snake-like about him. I don’t know that I want to put him to the test.”
“This doesn’t sound like you, Anders. I don’t think I can remember you ever taking a threat lying down. And I’ve seen you lying down a lot!”
She was right. And it may be the business that his father built up, but there was something else about his father – he never backed down to anybody. Never accepted threats. He was always his own man.
“What else does your crystal ball say?”
She swirled the ice in her glass. “It says you’re scared to death.”
Now it was his turn to laugh. “Scared of what?”
“Of actually feeling something. In fact, I reckon you kinda like the boyfriend complication – it gives you an excuse.”
Anders was silent. Dallas stared at him as she took another sip.
“I don’t want to feel anything for her,” he admitted.
“Now we’re getting somewhere!”
“No, we aren’t,” he insisted. “I like my life just fine. I’m happy with how things are. I don’t need to mess it up with emotions, especially for a woman who sees me as a quick fling and will cast me aside when she’s done with me.”
“You really think that’s what she’s going to do?”
Anders shrugged. He didn’t realize how cynical it all sounded until he put it into words. “She’s from money.”
“So?”
Anders blinked. “Don’t you think that’s a problem?”
Dallas gave him a knowing smile. “I think you are making it much more of a problem than she ever could.
What do you think, sport?”
Anders nodded to the almost empty pitcher. “I think it’s time to get out of here.”
Dallas pushed back from the table and gave him a serious look. “I’m not going to bed with you, Anders.”
He might have been able to shrug off everything she had said about Kara, but this announcement was something he couldn’t even try to ignore. “What did you say?”
“You heard me.” She reached over the table and put her hand on his. “Right now I would be a way to drown out everything for a while, just like getting drunk might work. But then tomorrow morning comes, and you start thinking about her again. Sex is just a temporary fix, don’t you see? And you know what?”
“What?”
“I’m thinking that maybe…if we did go back to your bed and had some raunchy sex, you might actually feel a little guilty.”
Anders stared at her for a long moment. “Shit.”
“Uh-huh.”
Anders dropped his head to the table. Dallas gently patted his hair. “You’re already in too deep with this woman,” she said. “You are going to have to figure all of that out before you can do anything else.”
Anders wanted to argue. He wanted to tell her that she knew nothing about what was going on in his heart. The problem was that she had known him long enough, and she had been intimate with him in so many ways, that she could read him like a book. She was only saying what he had been afraid to admit.
“Jesus Christ, Dallas. What am I going to do about her?”
“A proper date would be a good start,” she said, and leaned down to plant a kiss on his forehead.
Chapter Eight
It had been three days.
Three days since Kara had gone to the mechanic’s shop to look at her car and wound up fucking the owner of the place against the wall. Three days since she had been unfaithful – again – to the man who believed that nothing in their life together would ever jump the rails. Three days since she had driven away determined to never do anything like this again. Three days since she had gone home, gotten in the shower and washed away the wetness that he had left there…three days since she had vowed it would never happen again.
And for the last three days, Kara had thought of nothing but Anders.
It had gotten so bad that she had begged off on spending the night at Scott’s house, saying that she had too much work to do – she was far behind after being so distracted by the accident. Part of that was actually true – nightmares had awoken her up a few times. And the work had been rolling in fast this time of year.
But the other truth was that she just wasn’t ready. She had slept with someone else, repeatedly, and then gone back for more. She still had the vivid memory of his wetness between her thighs, his hands on her body, his kisses on her lips. She wasn’t sure she could invite Scott back into her bed without bursting into tears and telling him everything.
She certainly didn’t do guilt very well.
She needed some time and space to figure everything out.
She was swiveling back and forth on her chair, chewing on a pencil and thinking about how to banish the guilt, not to mention the lust, and move on with her life, when the last person she expected showed up at her doorway.
There was no announcement, no voice that said he was there. The only introduction was the bouquet of flowers. It was massive, filled with black-eyed Susan and daisies and snapdragons and Queen Anne’s lace. It was so big that it covered the person who was holding it. Not that there could be any doubt about who it was. That cacophony of blooms, that riot of color, was nothing that would have come from a florist, nothing that Scott would have summoned with a click of his fingers and the swipe of a credit card. It was a natural bouquet that had likely been plucked from a roadside, placed in a blue mason jar, the very essence of all things nature.
She didn’t think; she just reacted. A squeal of delight bubbled up, and she quickly put her hands to her mouth to muffle it.
“I’m glad you like it,” he said, and then he was coming closer, stepping right up to her desk, peeking around the bouquet to ensure the coast was clear before he sat it down on the polished surface. The daisies bobbed as if saying hello.
“Anders, what…what are you doing here? Are you out of your mind?”
“What, you don’t like it?”
She smiled despite her shock. “I love it. It’s just gorgeous!” But then reality hit her. “Look, you can’t stay – this is madness.”
He gave a shrug and made to take the flowers.
“Okay, look, sit down.”
He did so, glancing again at the flowers as he did so. Today he was wearing a button-down shirt, something the color of spice or pumpkins. It made his skin look a little darker and made his eyes even richer. That shirt was tucked into his usual jeans. A pair of sunglasses had been pushed to the top of his head. He was freshly shaved, and she noted with some surprise that while she liked it, she already preferred his stubbly look. He brought a woodsy fragrance with him, one that was just barely noticeable under the heady scent of the flowers.
He was handsome enough to take her breath away.
“I brought those flowers t
o mark a new beginning,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
She watched as he picked at a spot on his jeans. He was blushing, and it seemed out of character, yet quite charming indeed. “The first time we met was rather…well, it turned out differently than either of us expected, didn’t it? The second time was much the same way. But as they say, the third time’s the charm.”
Is he saying what I think he’s saying?
“So I thought that this time, I would do things in a much more proper fashion.”
It was time to tell him no. To call off this folly and end it once and for all. It couldn’t happen, they couldn’t happen. But before she could get any of this out, the situation overtook her.
“Kara?”
Her focus snapped to the doorway, where Scott stood looking in at her. He looked just this side of furious, and she realized he had taken it all in – the blush on her face, the comfortable way Anders spoke to her, and most of all, the bouquet of flowers bigger than a man’s head that was sitting on the corner of her desk. His face was a careful mask of what would look like mere concern to others, but she recognized that mask of carefully controlled fury. The fact that he had taken in the situation in one quick glance said that maybe she hadn’t hidden things as well as she thought, after all.
But he would never broach any untoward subject right now, while there was someone sitting there in her office. Scott would never do anything that might compromise the appearances he liked to keep up. He had more nuanced ways of operating.
“Yes, Scott?”
He paused, now unsure of what to say, and she felt a quick stab of pleasure at the fact that he was tongue-tied in front of Anders.
“I need to speak with you a moment.”
“I can be out in ten minutes,” she said. Scott was the kind of person she had to constantly maintain her personal boundaries over. If only she was like this with her father…
“This really can’t wait.” His eyes flickered to the man in the chair.
“Five minutes,” she said calmly.
Scott’s eyes grew wide and his jaw tightened. It was a moment, just a small one, and then he recovered smoothly. “I’ll come back later.”
“Please do,” she said, her voice just as cool as his.
He gave her a nod that was almost a glare. A sudden rush of annoyance gripped her. If he was so worried about this man, why didn’t he just barge into the room and tell him to leave? If he were so concerned, why didn’t he step up and be a man and protect what was his? But she knew the answer to that. Scott was political. He didn’t tend to deal with situations head on – he liked to plot and find ways round.
“Would you mind closing the door?” she asked.
That gave him even more pause. His eyes flickered to the flowers again, and then to the man in the chair, the one who hadn’t bothered to turn around.
“Have it your way,” he said, in a way that suggested she wouldn’t.
Scott closed the door just a bit more firmly than necessary. Kara let out the breath she didn’t realize she had been holding.
Anders chuckled. “He doesn’t like me one bit. I can’t say I blame him, though.”
Seeing Scott had brought Kara to her senses. She looked at Anders with what she hoped was an all-business gaze. “You were saying?”
“I want to take you to dinner,” he said.
Kara had sensed this was coming. She had felt it from the moment he appeared at her door, before she even saw his face behind that jumble of flowers. She looked at the bouquet now, struggling for what to say in the wake of his announcement. The flowers were placed carefully in the jar, but they seemed to cascade in every direction, just as wild here in her office as they were outside in nature. They looked entirely out of place in her neat, orderly and polished life.
So did the man in front of her. But she found that she liked the flowers – and the man – far more than she wanted to admit.
“I can’t go out to dinner with you,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because I have a boyfriend,” she said.
“I know that.”
“Because we agreed that it would just be a one-time thing…”
“I’m not asking you to bed,” he pointed out. “Just to dinner.”
“That would be…”
“Fun?”
“Awkward.”
Anders laughed. “We’ve already gotten past the awkward part, don’t you think?”
Her phone beeped, the soft sound of the internal intercom. She looked down and saw a little green button flashing next to her father’s extension. No doubt Scott had made his way into her father’s office with dire warnings about the man who had come to assault her with flowers. She felt a surge of defiance rise up, one that was only just kept under control by her sense of reason.
“I can’t.”
“You sure?”
“Yes,” she said, unconvincingly. “No.” She settled on a third option. “Maybe.”
He smirked and raised an eyebrow.
“Look, there’s too much at stake here,” she said finally, still completely conflicted.
Anders stood and reached across the desk. He picked her hand up in his rough one, lifted it, and bent down just enough. He stared into her eyes as he kissed the back of her hand, something a true gentleman would do, and Kara’s heart pounded so hard she was sure he could hear it. His lips lingered there for a long moment, until her phone beeped one more time, an insistent sound that broke the spell.
She was breathing hard when Anders stood up to his full height and nodded. “See you at seven?”
This had to stop. Not only was her relationship with Scott at risk, but the whole family business, and her relationship with her father too. Even her career at the bank was in jeopardy - if things went awry between her and Scott, things could become very difficult. It’s not like they could just magically get rid of him. He’d still be there every day.
“I’m sorry Anders…”
He gave a nod then slowly headed for the door. He hid his disappointment well, she thought.
“Thank you for the flowers,” she said, concerned she might not get the chance again.
He stopped, turned and looked her in the eye, his mouth edging ever so slightly upwards at the corners. They just stood like that for some moments, the air between them sizzling. Finally he broke the gaze and reached for the handle.
As the door widened, Scott was clearly visible on the other side. He said something to Anders, they exchanged a fiery look of a different kind, and the mechanic continued on his way.
The phone beeped again, and at the same moment Scott arrived at her desk, looking at her with controlled fury.
But that was okay with her. Something had snapped in her as she looked at those flowers. What a beautiful cacophony of blooms, hand-chosen by a man wandering through a neighbor’s garden, or even on the side of a road somewhere, the scent of passing diesel fumes mingling with the crisp green of the cut stems.
She pointed to the chair. “Close the door and sit down,” she ordered. She picked up the handset and punched the intercom number on her phone. “Scott is in here, Daddy. Do you need something urgent?”
There was a moment of silence. “It can wait.”
She hung up without another word.
She looked at Scott. There were several things she didn’t appreciate today, and passive-aggressive bullshit was at the very top of her list.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked, cutting directly to the chase. That was unusual. He was one for finesse and dancing around the issue, not one to move right into confrontation. But today, this new attitude was just fine with her.
“We need to talk,” she said.
And then she didn’t know what else to say. The bravado suddenly drained out of her like pulling the plug in a bathtub full of water. She felt it swirling away, this feeling of control over her own life, over this conversation, and the loss of it made her breath catch in her throat.
Over the last several days she had beaten herself up for what she had done, but the truth is, she had gone back to see Anders because she knew her decision was already made. She just needed some way to push herself over the edge of no return, someone who would make her see that she was doing the right thing by breaking ties – even if she was going about it in an entirely underhanded manner.
And now she was there, on the precipice, while this man who loved her stared her down from the fine chair in her fine office, expecting her to apologize. Expecting her to do what she should. Expecting her to fit back into her neat little box, the one that was designed just for her.
“I need some space,” she said.
And there it was. The first step into the abyss.
Scott snorted something like disbelieving laughter. “Are you crazy?”
Kara thought later that things might have gone differently. If Scott had been upset or worried, she might have been more likely to stay with him. If he had been sad or confused, she would have tried to explain things to him in a way that made sense to both of them. If he had broken down and cried, she might have given the flowers to the ladies at the teller window. If he had done something, anything, other than make fun of her, their relationship might have gone in an entirely different direction.
But as it was, he didn’t.
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“What the hell has gotten into you?” he asked, his voice condescending, as though she were a child who just needed a good spanking. The fact that he was so openly hostile made the situation much easier than it would have been otherwise – but regardless, her stomach was already in knots.
“I’m not happy,” she said, her voice level even as her hands were shaking and her heart pounding even harder than it had been when Anders gave her that gentlemanly kiss in parting. “I haven’t been happy for a long time. I’m not sure why, Scott, but I need the time to figure that out. That’s why I need some space.”
“And presumably, the man with the flowers is a coincidence.”
“I need to figure some things out.”
“You didn’t need to figure out a single damn thing until that man showed up. Now you need to find yourself. What is he, some cheap charlatan looking for his meal ticket? Or are you deliberately trying to get one over on me?”