“Haley.” He gripped the railing tighter, his fingernails digging into the wood. “I wish things were different. But we can’t do this.”
“Why not?” she asked calmly.
When he’d had these talks with other women, some had yelled, some had cried, and a few even had thrown things, but never once had one sat calmly and asked him why. Of course, in all of those circumstances, he’d slept with the women he’d been engaged in this talk with. But somehow this conversation felt more personal, more intimate.
Her voice steady and smooth, she continued. “You said you want me. You think about me. You like me. What’s the problem?”
Eddie knew that she might not like or understand his reasoning, but she deserved an answer. “It’s not about just you and me. I have to think about Em—”
She flinched at his words and was up on her feet in a flash. “I love Emily.”
Eddie quickly jumped in. “I know. And she loves you. If we did this and things didn’t work out, she would be the one who got hurt. Who suffered.”
That wasn’t completely true. He had a feeling that if he ever let himself touch Haley, kiss Haley, make love to Haley, he’d never get enough of it. And if—or should he say when—it ended, he would be miserable.
“My relationship with Emily has nothing to do with my relationship with you.” Her baby blue eyes desperately searched his as she asked, “Do you honestly think that there would be anything you could do to me that would make me stop wanting to be a part of her life?”
Eddie knew that Haley meant the words that she was saying. But he also knew that, as sincere as she was, things happened. People with the best intentions hurt people they loved. He was proof of that. He’d wanted the best for Lacey. For Emily. A lot of good that had done. Lacey was God knows where doing God knows what. And Em was growing up motherless.
Taking a deep breath, he raked his hands through his hair, trying to stay calm. “Like I said, I wish things were different.”
So many different emotions were playing on Haley’s beautiful face. Confusion. Hurt. Anger. Where he couldn’t read a single thought or feeling just a few moments ago, now his gut clenched at the real, raw emotion he saw there.
“So if nothing can happen between us, why bring it up? Why say anything about it at all?” Her hands flew up animatedly and her voice rose as she spoke.
“You asked,” he barked. He hadn’t meant to. She didn’t deserve it, but he was tired of always being the bad guy. If she hadn’t pushed to find out what was bothering him, he might not have said anything. Or maybe he would have. He had no idea.
“Oh,” she said quietly, brushing a strand of her silky golden hair that had fallen in her face behind her ear and nodding. “Right. I did.”
Eddie waited for more. Waited for her to yell again. Waited for her to tell him why that didn’t matter and she was still right and he was still wrong.
That never happened.
Instead, she took two steps forward, stopping directly in front of him, closing the distance between them.
When she tilted her head up, her sea blue eyes peered up at him through long dark lashes. She softly said, “I know that Emily is the most important thing in your life. She is everything to you and that’s exactly how it should be.”
He gripped the wood railing tighter in an attempt to anchor his hands and not reach up and cup her face as her perfect lips turned up in a whisper of a smile.
“The man you are as a father is what I love most about you. I’m not a parent, so I have no idea what the responsibility of having every decision, every action that you make, not just affect but actually mold another person’s life, is like. You have to do what you feel is right when it comes to her and you. I just want you to know that, no matter what happens or doesn’t happen between us, I will always be there for that little girl.”
As she lifted up on her tiptoes, her pillow-soft full lips brushed a feather-light kiss against his mouth and he felt his head spin, dizzy with arousal. He didn’t react other than to close his eyes and feel. Eddie forced himself to remain perfectly still. Going against every instinct, every desire, every need he had raging inside of himself like a fiery inferno, he didn’t kiss her back. It was a cruel, self-inflicted torture, but he knew that, if he moved even the slightest bit, he’d have her stripped out of those sweats and be buried deep inside of her within seconds.
“Goodnight,” she finally whispered against his mouth.
He opened his eyes in time to see her disappear inside his house as she slid the screen door closed, shutting it behind her. She didn’t look back.
His ears were ringing. The only sound he could decipher was his own labored breathing. After several moments of temporary emotional, physical, and mental paralysis, his head began clearing. He pushed off the railing and moved quickly through the house, opening his front door just in time to see Haley’s long blond hair and perfect backside step onto her porch and make it safely inside her house. Once she shut her front door, he stepped back in and did the same.
Closing his eyes, he leaned back against its solidness. He could still feel the heat of her breath as it fanned his face, the heavenly soft perfection of her lips as they touched him in the sweetest, most innocent kiss he’d ever experienced.
His hands fisted at his sides as he fought the urge to pick up the phone and ask her, beg her, to come back over so that he could finish that kiss she’d started, this time as a full participant. It would not be sweet or innocent. His kiss would be hot and demanding. Taking and giving pleasure with his mouth.
Pushing off the door, he took the stairs upstairs two at a time. Knowing that kissing Haley senseless was not an option, he decided to take a cold shower. It wasn’t what he wanted, but at this point, it was the best he had.
Chapter Ten
Haley balanced the tray of iced coffees in her right hand as she pulled her keys, held between her lips, with her left. Just as she slipped the key inside the lock, the door opened and Amber stood in front of her.
“Whoa.” Her light eyes widened. “Ever hear of making two trips?” she asked as she relieved Haley of the large bag of samples she was holding under her arm.
“Thanks.” Haley set the other bags down on the break table along with a box of donuts. “I’m not a two-trip kind of girl.”
“Obviously,” Amber smiled as she grabbed her cup of cold joe and opened the pink cardboard box filled with sinfully delicious donuts. Pulling a maple bar with custard filling out, she moaned as she took her first bite.
Haley grinned to herself. Amber was so put together, classy, stylish, and thin. She looked like the kind of girl who would be expected to eat a salad at every meal. But she loved food. The unhealthier, the better. Pizza, ice cream, donuts, hamburgers. She ate almost as much as Haley’s cousins did and they were all males over six feet tall.
“We gotta go. Just got a call from Heather. A new space has just become available. She’s there now,” Amber said as she wiped her mouth with a napkin and grabbed her purse.
“You’re only going to have one?” Haley asked in surprise.
“No,” Amber answered, looking at Haley like she was out of her mind. “I’m taking one with me.” And with that, she wrapped a glazed donut in two napkins and started moving towards the door.
That sounded more like it.
“So where is this one?” Haley asked, not getting her hopes up as they stepped outside and Amber locked the door behind them.
Over the past couple of weeks, they’d seen over a dozen spaces and none of them were right. Too small. Too big. No parking. No foot traffic. Going into this, Haley had had no idea all that went into choosing the right retail space.
She had never once regretted her decision to go with the partnership deal instead of the investment option Amber had given her. Amber was a smart, savvy, successful businesswoman. Haley hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d said she felt like she’d been handed a winning lottery ticket, because that was exactly what going into busine
ss with Amber felt like—like winning the lottery.
“Riverwalk East. I’ll drive,” Amber offered.
Haley followed behind her. It was a quiet morning in Harper’s Crossing. The only sounds Haley could hear were the birds chirping and the click-clacking of Amber’s high heels as they walked the short distance to her car.
“Have you seen any pictures of it?” Haley only asked because after the last property they’d seen they decided it would be best if they screen them first so they didn’t waste their or their realtor Heather’s time.
“I did.” Amber pressed the unlock button on her fob. “Everything looks good, but we’ll see.”
Haley slid into the passenger side of the car just as she heard Amber’s phone ring. Starting the engine, she pressed the answer button. “Hey, babe. You’re on speaker. Hales is in the car with me. We’re headed over to see a space.”
The other end of the line was quiet for a moment, and Haley wasn’t sure if the call was still connected until she heard her cousin’s baritone voice come through the speakers.
“So I shouldn’t talk about our shower this morning.”
Amber laughed and Haley shook her head and looked out the window as they passed the rolling green hills that bordered the city. She tuned out her cousin and Amber’s conversation as she watched the few hot air balloons that sprinkled the vista. The bright, vibrantly colored patterns that decorated the balloons looked so beautiful against the backdrop of the clear blue sky, dotted with white puffy clouds.
Haley loved the hot air balloon season. When she was a kid, she’d go for a ride in a hot air balloon every year. She hadn’t been since returning from college four years ago, but she made up her mind in that moment that this year she was going to change that.
After several rounds of ‘I love you’ with Seth and disconnecting the call, Amber asked, “So, Hales, did you do anything fun this weekend?”
Sure, she’d had an unbelievable, revealing conversation with Eddie where she’d found out that he was definitely attracted to her and also that she had no chance with him. Oh, and she’d also declared her love for him.
Then she’d spent the entire day at Bella yesterday wishing she would have said something different, done something different, basically…handled the entire thing differently. Not the part where she’d said, “I love you.” She wouldn’t change that for the world. She was glad that fact was out in the open. But the rest—the pushing him to talk, the weak-ass kiss, the leaving when she was sure he might have had more to say? None of those things were sitting so great with her.
So she’d guessed it was more of a mixed bag.
Instead of going into it, because there was no point, Haley went with, “Yep. I went and saw Em in Annie. She was amazing!”
“Oh that’s right. I’m so bummed I missed it.”
Amber turned the car onto Riverwalk East, and even though Haley was determined not to get her hopes up, she did feel a little excitement bubbling up inside of her. They had only seen one other space actually on the Riverwalk. It had been on Riverwalk West. The space had been way too small. There would not have been room for dressing rooms, but Haley had been tempted to snatch it up in spite of that for its location alone. Luckily, she had an amazing business partner who had assured her that they would find the perfect space.
“How did things go in Texas?” Haley asked. Amber and Seth had spent the weekend visiting Amber’s mom in Austin.
Amber’s brother had been killed in combat almost a decade ago, and in trying to deal with the loss, Susan, Amber’s mom, had become an addict. She had been in and out of recovery facilities over the last several years. Amber had told Haley before, that emotionally, she couldn’t allow herself to be too optimistic, but, she would never give up hope that she would one day have the mother who had raised her and her brother back.
“Good. My mom’s in a sober-living house. It’s the first time she’s opted for anything like that after treatment, so that’s encouraging.”
Haley wondered if her ‘opting’ had had anything to do with the fact that last year her mom’s then boyfriend broke into Bella, Amber’s car, and Amber’s house and then attacked Amber in a parking lot. All to try and get his hands on some big nest egg her mom had bragged about. Haley thought to herself that if putting your daughter through all that wasn’t rock bottom, she wasn’t sure what was.
They pulled into one of the four open spaces in front of one of the many brick buildings that lined Riverwalk East. Haley noticed the large glass window to their left with a for-lease sign sitting in it. Amber reached down and grabbed her purse.
“But we’ll see. She’s just taking it day-by-day and that’s all we can do too.”
As they stepped out of the car, their realtor Heather met them on the curb. “Good morning, ladies. Thanks so much for meeting me so quickly. I wanted you to see this and I’m not sure how long it will last.”
She turned the key in the glass door and pushed it open. Both Heather and Amber entered the space as Heather talked about the square footage and other details.
Haley didn’t move. She needed to take a moment before walking inside. Call it intuition, a sixth sense, or something else. She wasn’t sure what to name the phenomenon she was experiencing, but she just knew that this would be it. The one.
Turning her head, she surveyed the street and saw beautiful green trees that were sprouting up along the sidewalk. On one side of the space they were looking at, there was a yoga studio that must have been fairly new because Haley had never seen or heard of it before. To the left of the space, there was definitely something going on inside, but it didn’t look like it was open yet. Beside the yoga place was an art studio.
The east side of the Riverwalk was being gentrified. The opposite side had new buildings which had been built around a staple in Harper’s Crossing and also one of Haley’s favorite places to eat, The Grill. Even though it had that going for it, Haley liked this side so much more. It was more her style. She would have been happy with either, but in her heart, this was the side she felt Tempting by Bella belonged on.
“You coming, Hales?” Amber’s voice called out from inside.
Taking a deep breath, Haley walked through the door and her mouth dropped open as chills ran up her arm. It was exactly what she’d always envisioned when she’d dreamed of having her own shop. The space included high ceilings with exposed support beams and vents. The back wall had huge picture windows overlooking the river rushing by. There was a loft to the right side corner that would be perfect for displaying a line of body care she wanted to carry, with plenty of room underneath to install dressing rooms with a seating area.
Spinning around, Haley took it all in. It was big enough without being too big. It had personality without being so overpowering that she couldn’t make the space hers. There was adequate parking and the foot traffic was going to keep increasing as more and more businesses opened in the newly renovated buildings.
Heather looked between Amber and Haley. “What do you ladies think?”
Without missing a beat, they both said in unison, “It’s perfect.”
* * *
Eddie turned the wheel, his headlights shining on the chain-link fence as he pulled into the gravel lot. Parking his truck, he grabbed his to-go cup of coffee out of the cup holder and picked up his hard hat. He yawned as he made his way up the steel steps to the trailer.
He hadn’t slept much the past couple nights. After Haley had left on Saturday, he’d spent the entire night tossing and turning. A cold shower had not done the trick. Not even close. Every time he’d closed his eyes, he’d felt her lips pressed against his, smelled her sweet breath, and tasted the caramel from her banana split.
Even when his eyes had been wide open, he’d been having a difficult time concentrating on anything else. Flashes of Haley kept popping into his mind. Haley in the white towel. Haley’s toned, tan legs as she crossed them while they were seated in the auditorium. Haley snuggled up on his couch in her sweat
s and a tank top while they watched the performance. His mind was all Haley, all the time.
Luckily, Emily had opted for a ‘chill’ day, as she called it, on Sunday. Eddie figured she must have been tired from all the excitement of the play. So they’d watched movies, including an encore of the taped Annie performance, and ordered pizza.
Which was great. Except the entire time he had been wondering what Haley was doing. Thinking about how much fun it had been the night before when the three of them had gone to Tasty Treats and had ice cream and then all changed into “comfy clothes,” as Haley called it, and watched the show on the big screen.
But more than anything else, what had been keeping him up, what his brain had been obsessing about, were those three little words she’d spoken. “I love you.” He still couldn’t quite believe it. Sure, he’d had other women tell him that they loved him. But he’d never felt that love before. With Haley, he realized that, as shocked as he was at her admission, he’d felt her love long before she’d uttered the words.
It was seriously messing with his head.
Opening the heavy door, he was stopped short when he saw Jason already seated at his desk. He looked to be poring over paperwork. Eddie got an uneasy feeling. It was unusual for Eddie not to be the first one in. Jason hadn’t shown up this early to a jobsite since he’d taken over the reins at Sloan Construction.
The door shut loudly behind Eddie and Jason lifted his head. When he saw Eddie, he nodded his head. “Hey.”
“Morning.” Eddie pulled out the folding chair that sat behind his desk. “You’re here early.”
“Yeah, I got your e-mail last night and wanted to take a look for myself before I headed out to the Tanner site.”
Eddie didn’t take offense to the fact that Jason wanted to come see things in black and white for himself. That made perfect sense. If it were Eddie’s company, he would do the same. Eddie had emailed Jason last night to let him know that they would be finishing up three days early and about ten thousand under budget on this project. That was pretty unheard of in their field.
Tempting Love - Haley & Eddie Page 10