Bunny Hills and Bikinis

by Heather Thurmeier

  Were they acting like professionals, or were they acting like a couple of lovesick teenagers? He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know but he had to find out. He had to see what they were doing with his own eyes.

  Just then, William’s hand left Amelia’s, but before Nate could breathe a sigh of relief, William’s hand found her cheek and lingered there instead.

  Is he actually stroking her cheek? What the hell is going on?

  Nate watched horrified as William’s hand stayed on Amelia’s cheek. Why wasn’t she batting it away? Why wasn’t she getting up and leaving him right now for touching her in such an intimate way?

  Holy shit, is she leaning into it?

  He couldn’t be sure, but Nate thought Amelia actually leaned into William’s hand and closed her eyes, like she really enjoyed William’s touch—like she enjoyed their dinner together an awful lot more than a regular colleague would.

  Damn it.

  They were on a date—a real date.

  There was no paperwork on the table. No briefcases leaning up against table legs or sitting in extra chairs. Not a scrap of work-related paraphernalia anywhere to be seen. If this was a work related dinner, there wasn’t a whole lot of work going on.

  I’m such an idiot.

  Amelia’s tablemates were right. William and Amelia were a couple. The idea that they were on a work-related dinner date had been Nate’s wishful thinking and nothing more.

  The ache in Nate’s chest grew and it hurt. Bad. It felt like a million needles had just been plunged into his chest and each sharp edge poked a different part of his heart. He couldn’t get his breath since suddenly a giant lump grew in his lungs, suffocating him.

  Then the pain subsided a little as the anger of betrayal set in. It burned like fire in his veins, fueling the distaste he’d had for William the entire time he’d known him. And now he felt that for Amelia too, which he wasn’t prepared for. He’d never been played for a fool like this before. How could he have let himself get caught up in Amelia’s game? But he wasn’t caught anymore.

  Seeing her and William together tonight and knowing now that she’d lied had set him free. He’d let himself be distracted from work all weekend. He’d risked his chance at a promotion for a chance to be with her. He’d risked ending up like all those other workshop guys he’d seen settle for a girl and give up their dreams. And for what?

  For a girl who used him to have a good time. A fling, nothing more. He’d let himself fall in love with her.

  Damn it. I love her. No, I can’t. I don’t want to.

  He needed to get out of here. Even though he knew he should stay and finish his dinner with the workshop people, he just couldn’t stand to be in the same room as Amelia and William any longer. This was enough of an appearance that he could claim he felt sick and bail, hopefully without risking his chance for good evaluations from them.

  He wanted the night to end now. Hell, he wanted the weekend to be over so he could go back home for a few days, recharge and forget about Amelia. Then he’d leave again for his next workshop weekend away and pretend this one never happened.

  Pulling some money from his wallet and throwing it on the table, he mumbled a few apologies about his hasty departure—he was sick, he was tired, he’d see them in the morning at brunch. Stepping away from the table, the world around him was a blur.

  Nate couldn’t bring himself to look back at Amelia and William together and risk the chance that he’d see them doing something even worse than William touching her cheek. What if William was kissing her? What if she was enjoying it?

  If he had to watch that, there was no telling what he’d do. Best not to chance it. Definitely better to walk away now without images like that in his head. Images that would haunt his dreams tonight and probably many more nights to come.

  Leaving the restaurant without a glance over his shoulder, he walked back across the lobby to the stairwell in a daze. He didn’t want to risk running into anyone who might want to chat on his lonely journey back to his room. The solitude of his room would be a welcome change to the torment he’d found here in the lodge with everyone else, with them. The further away he got, the better he hoped he’d feel.

  All he needed now was the well-stocked mini-bar in his room and the silence the night would offer. Hopefully by morning this whole messy affair would be behind him.

  He stopped on the second floor. Before he slipped into the respite waiting for him in his room, he had one last thing left to do.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Amelia sat uncomfortably across the table from William. It wasn’t just that she was with William because of blackmail. It was also the low lighting, the fireside table, the soft romantic music playing in the background—all of it. She couldn’t even fathom the difference a single twenty-four hour period could make in her life. And she had no idea how she’d allowed herself to end up here of all places.

  At this time last night, she’d been having dinner with the most unbelievable man she’d ever met. A man who made her head swim and her heart pound so fast she thought it might suddenly stop from exhaustion.

  Nate was the most amazingly gorgeous man she’d known, both on the outside and more importantly on the inside. He treated her like a princess, looked at her like a goddess, and made her feel like she was the only person in the room when he was around. In whole, he was nothing short of a fairytale. She’d always dreamed of a happily-ever-after with a guy like him, but she never really believed it would happen. Now it had, with Nate. She couldn’t imagine finding anyone else who would make her feel the way he did.

  Except it wasn’t a fairytale. In fairytales, the prince and princess always rode off into the sunset together to live happily ever after. That wasn’t going to happen for Amelia and Nate no matter how badly she wanted it to. Nope. Soon she would get on a plane and fly back home to Minneapolis with William and Nate would fly on to his next workshop.

  Not much of a fairytale ending when the prince and princess leave in separate vehicles to go home to two separate lives.

  Now, a mere day later, she sat at dinner with a man she could barely stand who had actually blackmailed her into coming to this dinner to begin with. He was crude and annoying, always said the wrong thing and thought far higher of himself than he should. Not that he wasn’t good-looking, because he was, but good looks didn’t always equate to being gorgeous. He most certainly was not gorgeous in any way to Amelia and she couldn’t wait for this wretched dinner to be over with so that she could go back to enjoying what was left of her weekend with Nate.

  She may not be going home with Nate, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy her time with him while she still had it—in Nate’s bed—for many, many long hours of pleasure-filled fun. She could already feel the sensation of his hands roaming along the contours of her body. The image made her tingle with excitement.

  She had to stop herself from thinking about him. If she continued this current line of thinking, she was bound to give William the wrong impression. Every time she thought about Nate, she couldn’t stop herself from smiling and sighing like a love-struck teenager. That was the exact opposite thing she wanted to do while sitting across the table from William. If she did, he would think it was a reflection on her state of contentment with him, which it most certainly wasn’t.

  “Thanks again for joining me tonight.” William smiled at her softly from across the table. It seemed genuine. He really seemed happy to spend time with her and she wanted to be anywhere else but here. She actually felt a touch of guilt about that. Just a touch.

  Until she remembered what he’d threatened her with to get her here. Then the guilt dissolved, replaced by disgust. How William could hope for her to fall in love with him over a blackmailed dinner was completely beyond her comprehension.

  “You’re welcome, I guess. It’s not like I had any real choice in the matter.”

  “I guess not.” Wrinkles of worry creased his forehead. “Listen, this wasn’t how I wanted to do things.
This isn’t how I imagined my first date with you would come to be. I really wanted a chance with you and I honestly couldn’t think of any other way to get you here. I don’t want to report Nate anymore than I want to report you.”

  “Well you did a great job fooling me. That threat seemed pretty real.”

  He sighed, sounding pained, if that were even possible since he’d put them in this position to begin with. “Can we try to pretend that I asked you out the normal way and that you said yes? Please? I’ve been nothing but a gentleman so far on this date and I plan to stay that way.”

  “It’s hard to forget.” What more could she say?

  “I know, but maybe we could try. I want us to have a chance, a real chance, not just you sitting in the chair eating food and going through the motions.”

  “Then you should have taken my real answer into account and waited until I said yes under my own accord,” she challenged him. She couldn’t help it. She didn’t want to be here and nothing—nothing—William said would make her feel any differently. William blackmailed her into this date. Smiling and pretending that he hadn’t wasn’t going to change anything.

  William sat quietly, staring down at his wine, swirling it around his glass with the twitch of his wrist. She could almost feel the tension between them dissolve in the silence. He seemed so sincere and genuinely distraught with the way things were. As the tension dissolved, she felt a new emotion—maybe sadness—replacing it.

  “You know,” William said, “I’ve liked you ever since the moment I walked into our department at work and you were sitting on your desk chatting with Susanne. I almost froze in mid-step at the sight of you. You were so beautiful, smiling and laughing at something Susanne had said. Your laughter was the most amazing thing I’d ever heard. It still is.”

  He paused to take a sip of his wine and she didn’t know what to say. No witty comeback she could retort to something so genuine and heartfelt. She was speechless.

  “I knew right then that you were something special,” he continued. “I knew I would never find someone else who would make me feel what you did so quickly. You were something different. Something I’d never found before and I knew, without a doubt, that one day I’d find a way to get you to notice me. I wouldn’t give up until I got a chance with you.

  “That’s why I always made all those comments and jokes. I wasn’t really trying to be a jerk and I really don’t think that highly of myself. It’s just that those first few days, when I’d tried to be myself around the office, no one seemed to notice me. Then I started cracking jokes and all of a sudden, I was noticed. You noticed. You talked to me. Sure it was to tell me off, but it was something and at that point I would take anything I could get from you.”

  He sighed and looked at her with sorrowful eyes. “I wish I’d done things differently. Then you wouldn’t have this warped impression of who I am burned into your brain. Maybe if I had, you’d know who I really am and you’d see that I can be the kind of guy you could fall in love with.”

  Amelia cringed internally. She didn’t want to feel bad for William. She wanted to continue hating him because it was so much easier, but she couldn’t. Not after a story like that. She judged him wrongly and the guilt she felt about it now was going to bother her for a while.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t realize all that stuff was just for my attention. I wish I’d gotten the chance to see the real you, not the jerky you that you forced us all to know.”

  William’s hand reached out across the table and grasped hers. He squeezed it gently and she let him. She didn’t want to hurt him more when she’d obviously hurt him so much already without even knowing.

  “Maybe if you’d kept acting like your real self I would have noticed eventually. I guess I’m a little oblivious to the things going on around me.”

  “It’s okay. I shouldn’t have changed to get you to notice me. It’s my own fault that you think of me the way you do. But if you give me a chance, you’ll start to see the real me, and I think you might even like what you find. I’m really not a bad guy. I’m a stupid guy who made stupid choices, that’s all.”

  William smirked and leaned across the table toward her like he had something very deep and meaningful to share with her that he didn’t want the other restaurant patrons to overhear. She leaned in toward him to meet him in the middle of the table over the flickering candlelight.

  “Maybe you’ll finally figure out that while I may have made a bunch of dumb jokes to get your attention, I’m not really that dumb. And I’m not really that jerky either. I’m your average sensitive hunk who loves a girl who doesn’t love him back.”

  He smiled at her and paused for a moment. “Well, that and I am a stallion in the bedroom. I know you want to come for a ride.”

  She threw her head back and laughed at the comment. It was exactly the kind of thing she’d expect him to say right when they were having a serious moment. “You say you changed for me so I’d see you, but I think you just ditched your internal censor. I think you kinda like this new cocky guy you released on the world. You’re embracing him pretty tightly.”

  She leaned forward across the table again and he met her halfway. They were so close she could see the light of the candle dancing in his eyes. It was strangely beautiful. If only it hadn’t been William’s eyes she gazed into. “I have a little confession to make,” she started, trying to sound seductive.

  “I’m all ears,” he replied eagerly.

  “I hate horses, stallions especially. I think they should all be turned into dog food.” Smiling at his expression, she sat back in her chair again and took a sip of her wine. She didn’t hate horses and she certainly didn’t think they should become puppy chow, but it was funny to see the expression on his face.

  William’s expression softened again. He must know I’m joking.

  He continued to lean across the table, the candlelight still twinkling in his eyes—eyes that stared at her intensely, almost giving her goose bumps. Then his hand reached across the table and stroked along the line of her jaw before settling onto her cheek. His hand was warm and cautious on her skin—his touch so gentle she could feel the warmth radiating from his body more than from the actual skin to skin contact.

  Without thinking, she leaned into his hand, wanting to feel the warmth of it pressing against her. His thumb stroked against her skin and to her amazement, little tingles erupted on her cheek like tiny fireworks exploding. This wasn’t what she expected to feel from his touch.

  “I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve fallen asleep thinking about a moment like this with you,” William whispered. “Imagining what it would be like to feel your soft, warm lips on mine. To taste your breath in my mouth as I kiss you the way I’ve wanted to since the second I met you. And here we are, so close and yet still so far from me fulfilling that dream in real life.”

  She closed her eyes, trying to sort through her feelings for William. She hadn’t imagined dinner would go this way. She hadn’t realized William had these kinds of deep feelings for her and she was completely unprepared to deal with them. His hand felt so good on her cheek and the words he spoke were so full of unexpected heart, she didn’t know how to respond. If it had been Nate saying these things to her, she would have been putty in his hands. But it wasn’t Nate, it was William, and she didn’t think she could ever have those feelings for him, no matter how nice his words to her were.

  She tried to imagine letting William kiss her like he’d said he wanted to. She tried to allow herself to open up to the feelings he had conveyed to her, to reciprocate them in her mind. She could almost feel his lips on hers, but when those lips touched hers, it was Nate she imagined kissing, not William.

  Now she had to break William’s heart. Maybe if this moment happened before she’d met Nate, there would have been a real chance for her and William to be together. But now that she knew Nate, it was as if her heart was forever connected to his. She just couldn’t imagine being with anyon
e else but him. Sitting here at dinner with William instantly felt wrong, dirty somehow, almost like she was cheating on Nate, even though they really hadn’t done anything more than share a meal together.

  She had to leave. She had to tell William that she was never going to have those feelings for him. She was never going to be able to reciprocate what he felt for her and it would be better if he tried to move on with his life with someone else. Someone who could appreciate him for the great guy that he could be. He had to know that she was never going to be that woman for him because she was in love with Nate.

  Oh my god, I’m in love with Nate.

  How it could be true, she had no idea. She’d only known him a few days, but she knew in her heart that what she felt was real. She was one hundred percent in love with him. It was more real than anything else she’d ever felt before. And sitting here with William instead of Nate was a mistake, no matter what the consequences of their jobs. Work was a stupid paycheck she could always earn somewhere else, doing something else. Maybe she could even earn that paycheck wherever Nate would be. Maybe they really could have the fairytale ending she dreamed of.

  Loving Nate felt like her life’s breath. It wasn’t a choice anymore. It was simply something she had to do.

  She pulled away from William’s hand and he took it back, grasping his wine glass again like he could sense her decision before she even said it.

  “I’m sorry, William. I can’t do this. I can’t pretend to be here with you in the moment when I’m not.” She wrung her hands together in her lap. She didn’t want to hurt him now that she knew how genuine his feelings were for her, but she also couldn’t go on with this dinner, leading him on to something that would never be possible. “I didn’t know you felt this way about me. Maybe if I’d known before—before I’d met Nate—maybe we could have had something together. But I can’t now.”