Three Men and a Woman: Evangeline (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Rachel Billings

  He had her hand wrapped in both of his, pulling it—and her—close.

  “It’s good to see you.” Maybe there was something wrong with his voice. He hoped not, since he had a speech to give. But those words had come out husky and…weird.

  She smiled as though she hadn’t noticed. “You, too, Briggs. I thought I might see you here.”

  Something seemed off in her voice, too, or her tone, at least. It almost seemed like she might have been hoping to avoid him.

  “Yeah, I’m speaking. But why—”

  “I’m late, Briggs. Maybe I’ll see you after?”

  But not if she could avoid it. He was sure of the subtext that time. He was still trying to fathom it when she tugged her hand away and was gone.

  * * * *

  Being a best-selling writer who was courted equally by publishers and Hollywood producers had its advantages. One of them was sitting down to dinner at the extremely posh Wallkill Mountain Resort with a Benny Award-winning editor.

  Who didn’t want to be there. At least, not with him.

  Briggs had spent a pleasurable minute watching Evvie stride away from him. Those damn stilettos put a wicked sway into her hips. She wore a sexy little red silk thing that she probably called a suit but was way too hot for such a mundane description. And he realized it wasn’t exactly red—or those damned heels, either—but tinged with pink into one of those colors only women knew the name for. The short, tight skirt clung to her ass like, well, like his hands wanted to.

  He stood there stunned long after she was out of sight.

  She was freaking hot.

  She’d fucking brushed him off.

  Those two equally noteworthy observations tumbled around in his head. Finally, he came to his senses and reached into his jacket pocket for the day’s program.

  There it was. Writers’ Choice Editor Award: Evangeline Charles.

  WTF. This was no small thing. Editors got about zero recognition from the reading public, but all good writers knew they owed half of whatever success they’d earned to a good editor.

  Writers would kill for good editing. At the least, they vied for it, seeking publishing houses on that basis and competing for the best.

  And here was his Evvie being acknowledged for her skill by the writers themselves—a serious tribute.

  He hadn’t had a clue. She’d kept herself entirely off his radar, and he had to think that had taken some effort on her part.

  Effort that he’d ruthlessly undone by cozying up to the chief of her publishing house to have a word. How surprising it was that Evvie had never mentioned being childhood friends with Briggs Henriksen. Surely, Evvie would be delighted to have dinner with him—the chief would make certain that she’d have herself available. It would be a lovely way for her to celebrate the recognition she’d so well earned.

  And so Ev sat across from him, cautiously—suspiciously, one might even think—sipping at the champagne he’d ordered. She was at least a bit put out, but could hardly have said no to a boss who had dollar signs in his eyes and hopes that Evvie could seduce a best-selling author into a new contract.

  Briggs realized that thought made him uncomfortable—and probably her, too. So he dealt with that first.

  “Okay, I admit it was a bit of a cheat to conspire with your boss so you’d have dinner with me. I kinda got the sense you wouldn’t otherwise. So, sorry about that. And let’s just say right now that I’m entirely happy with my current house and won’t be making any changes. Though I can’t promise I won’t try to steal you away, if you’re as good as that Benny indicates you are.”

  He’d spoken quickly, over at least a couple objections she attempted to make, until she settled and let him finish. But she watched him in wry amusement until he got it all out.

  “I am that good. I was taught by the best, wasn’t I?”

  That was more like it—the fondness that he’d have expected from his friend. He grinned. “You were.”

  She grinned back. “But you’re too damn slow. How close is Book Four? I can’t believe you left us hanging, not knowing whether Aulandreo survives the firestorm on Hebredus. I wish I could trust you not to kill off my favorite characters. And can’t you write a little faster?”

  He let her words settle into his heart. He loved getting that question. And that she only asked him to write faster, not reveal his story. She was—grudgingly—willing to wait for it. “A fan. That pleases me immensely, Evvie.”

  She shrugged, likely covering for a blush. The deep vee of her little jacket—it was held closed with only one button, and he’d gotten a glimpse of nothing but a bit of lace under it—shifted and revealed a very pretty curve of breast. “Of course I’m a fan. I was your first, wasn’t I?”

  She was. His first fan. His first reader.

  “Tell me how it happened.”

  “That I got into editing? Well, it was natural, wasn’t it? After you guys got me reading, and you needed so much help with your sloppy first drafts.”

  He raised a faux-irate brow and made her laugh.

  “Yes, sloppy. I can tell you I don’t envy your editor, and, no, you won’t entice me away.”

  He chose to believe the first of that was a lie—he had to think she’d love to have first go at his work. “You’re happy where you are?”

  She shrugged again, and it took a manful effort to keep his gaze on her face. “I work from home, and I love that.”

  “Where is home? You’re not still in Cartersville.” He’d gone by the trailer court once, a couple years back, just idly curious.

  “Keuka Lake. That’s really the story of how it happened. I know you remember Miss Victory—you include her in almost every dedication.”

  He nodded. Yes, in addition to his gratitude for the way the old English teacher had taken lost little Evvie under her wing, he owed her for bringing some discipline to his wild—not to use the word sloppy—writing. He’d had little patience for diagramming sentences back in the day, but the exercise had indeed served him well. Just as the strict but indulgent teacher had predicted.

  She’d seen the talent behind his rough work and, after Evvie, was his next fan.

  Briggs waited for Evvie to go on.

  “After graduation, I went part time to Genesee Community College. I was working, and so—”

  So she couldn’t go to school full time. Her mother had beat feet out of town and so she was on her own.

  “After I saw you—” She took a deep breath.

  “After Shep’s funeral,” he put in for her.

  They exchanged a look then, remembering very much. And then were interrupted by the arrival of their meals.

  “Yes,” she said softly, eventually, looking more at her dinner than at him. “After that. I was alone. The trailer had been repossessed.”

  Briggs humphed at that. More likely, it had collapsed.

  “Miss Victory retired that year.”

  “About time. She was old as dirt.”

  Evvie shot him a look, but she smiled with it. “She took me into her home. I had no way to complete my degree. But she took me in, and I transferred to Naz and got my B.A. in literature.

  “Just after I graduated—a very proud moment for both of us—Miss Victory had a stroke. I didn’t want to leave her, after all she’d done for me.”

  And Evvie had loved the old woman, Briggs could see.

  “So I took a job that I could do from home. There’s no reason, is there, that all editing couldn’t be done from home? I think it’s a bit pretentious of the big publishing companies to require their editors to work in house.”

  Like his, she meant. It added some gravitas, he supposed, to have a big, imposing building staffed with industrious workers dedicated to the process of achieving literary glory. Still, she had a point.

  “Maybe so.” But that topic didn’t interest him. “Miss Victory died a couple years ago.”

  She nodded, and he could tell it had been a true loss. Her gaze left his for a long moment, and t
hen she recovered herself. “She left me her home.”

  There was still surprise in it, wonder, and gratitude. “It’s a sweet little Victorian with a wraparound porch. She came from vintners, and the house is the original farmhouse. We’re surrounded by vineyards and gorgeous views of mountains and the lake.”

  “We?” He’d checked her ring finger in, like, the first nanosecond he’d seen her.

  “Victory Farms. Miss Victory’s three nephews run it now. They each have wives and children and homes built on separate parcels of the property.”

  There’d been no pause as she’d answered his inquiry, but she hadn’t made eye contact, either.

  “Do you have a man, Evvie?”

  Now the pause came. “No.”

  He didn’t think she’d lie to him, but he was pretty sure she’d considered it. If the answer was no, why would she have thought about saying yes? To put him off?

  She looked like she’d eaten all of her dinner that she was going to. Her hand rested on the table, and he put his over it.

  “I’m so sorry, Evangeline, for that night.”

  She left her hand passive under his, but looked up at him. “I wasn’t sorry. It meant a lot to me. So much.”

  “I took your virginity, and I was careless about it.”

  “I wanted it to be you.”

  He shook his head, rejecting her forgiveness. “I didn’t protect you. Even worse, I never went back. I never checked to make sure you were okay.”

  “It took a long time, probably, for all of us to be okay, didn’t it? We were all so hurt to lose Shep.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  She nodded, but wasn’t looking at him again. “I was okay, Briggs. Really, okay.”

  He looked at her in inquiry and waited. He was a writer and some might call him sloppy, but he did know punctuation, and it mattered. Not the punctuation, but how she’d felt. When she didn’t meet his gaze, he had to nudge her. “I have to know if there was a comma in there. Do you mean really, truly, you were okay? Or that you were very okay?”

  It took a moment for her to look at him. He was sure he was right that she wouldn’t lie to him, and so she considered her answer. But the corner of her mouth quirked up at his question.

  “Really, truly, I was okay.” She smiled a little more. “Very okay. You didn’t have to worry or feel bad, then or now.”

  “Will you spend the night with me?”

  * * * *

  Evangeline took her hand back from under his, now that it had tightened on her skin and felt hot instead of comforting. There was heat in his gaze, too. The green of those eyes, like an Ireland spring, smoldered into dark emerald now. She’d seen it earlier when he’d first taken her hand those moments in the parking lot. There was sexual interest, and he was a sexually confident man.

  She’d steeled herself to see him. Of course she knew he would be there. Even if she hadn’t seen the program, every congratulatory word her colleagues had given her about the Benny had been tagged with the excited observation that she’d have a chance to see Briggs Henriksen, maybe even meet him. Though they hadn’t posited that she’d have a chance to sleep with him. Maybe some of the women had thought it. Or men, for that matter.

  Briggs was quite the darling of the trade. He wasn’t the hermit some writers were, disdaining any involvement at all in the industry that made them wealthy and famous. He took part in events like the one today and interacted reasonably with his fans. She knew for a fact he was flying to Scotland in the morning, keynote speaker again at an international science fiction convention.

  But he also didn’t cash in on his star status as he could, as some did. Whatever his personal life was, he kept it quiet.

  Evangeline could keep up with his writing from a professional point of view. She knew each time he changed publishing houses—not often, and not in years now. She knew his agents and his editors and that he was professional and friendly in those relationships.

  She could know all that without knowing personal details of his life. They weren’t splashed on the front of celebrity magazines or news shows. She didn’t have to know—and didn’t—if he dated actresses and super models with wild excess or if he was quietly and happily married and the father of a handful of children. She’d made it a small point not to know those things, but she hadn’t had to work hard to avoid it, either.

  The fact was, she loved Briggs. She had, from the moment seven-year-old Shepherd Posse had pulled her up into a tree house at the edge of a cornfield in Cartersville, New York. She’d loved him through those years that she’d been part of their little club, innocently resting her head on his belly, as they lay nestled reading his first works. She’d loved him those years in middle school when, without really speaking to her, he used the force of his presence to protect her from the taunting and catty snipes of the bullies and mean girls.

  She’d loved him through her years of high school, even that long senior year during which she’d never seen him. And she’d loved him on that sorrowful day they’d buried Shep, when he’d used her body to find—and give—solace.

  Without touching or even seeing him, she’d loved him every day of the eight years since that night, up to and including this day. Now, when he was a startlingly handsome man, with those amazing green eyes, the blond hair of his Swedish ancestors, and a muscular build that topped out a bit over six feet. Not the boy she’d known, but fully a man, powerful and sexual.

  “Maybe you don’t know.” He spoke quietly, drawing her gaze back to his face. It had wandered, apparently, as she’d considered his question. “I’m not married. I don’t have any kind of relationship in which expectations are involved. So—will you?”

  Evangeline sighed. Well, so. That easy reason to refuse him—a wife, a woman with rights to him—was denied her.

  Though she noted he wasn’t claiming to be a monk. That would have been a hard sell, anyway.

  It turned out that steeling herself to see him hadn’t really prepared her to deal with this particular offer. She’d intended to just avoid him. She thought she’d handled that mishap in the parking lot—when he’d quietly said her name and she couldn’t reasonably pretend she hadn’t heard or seen him—pretty successfully. She’d given him her hand, exchanged a few words, and escaped relatively intact.

  But then her boss had come to her, excitedly relaying that Briggs had requested her company for dinner. Knowing Briggs, knowing herself, she’d made an attempt to have Dennis join them. It was an effort to avoid just this situation—a failed one. If Dennis had hopes that Briggs could be seduced away, he had the sense to know that his own presence would only hamper the process.

  And the truth was, she wasn’t really unhappy to be sitting alone with Briggs, sharing a meal in this lovely, romantic setting.

  No more than she was unhappy, if she were really, truly honest with herself, to be faced with his question.

  She would never say no to him. Almost, there was nothing he could ask that she wouldn’t grant if she could.

  Would she refuse the opportunity to share his bed for a night? To learn something more about the physical act of loving than she’d gleaned during their brief encounter on that grief-filled night?

  She’d made the arrangements she needed to once she’d gotten committed to this dinner, once she knew she wouldn’t be driving home that night. But she hadn’t gone any further. She hadn’t reserved a room for herself. As though she’d already given her consent, this was exactly what she expected to happen. What she wanted to happen.

  Of course she would spend the night with him. She loved him.

  “Yes.”

  * * * *

  Briggs stifled the urge to stand up and crow while beating his fists against his chest, but it was a near thing.

  Evvie had left him hanging for just a bit too long, waiting for that answer he wanted more desperately than he cared to admit.

  It had taken some effort to absorb, to connect this sexy, bewitching woman with the sweet l
ittle Evvie girl he’d known. Looking back, he had to be a little uncomfortable with it. Evvie’s adoration of him and his buddies had been a touch pitiable. Oh, they’d relished it at the time, just a bit superior. It had felt good to play the hero. Probably only Shep had had a truly pure heart about it.

  She’d been a needy, abandoned, and unloved little girl. She’d have done anything they asked. He realized they should have taken more care.

  She’d given herself to him once, without even the small nicety of him asking.

  Today, she’d shown some mettle. She’d walked away from him, essentially dismissing him in the parking lot. He was pretty sure she wouldn’t be here with him now if he hadn’t schemed in a somewhat undignified way to make it happen.

  And he hadn’t been the least bit sure she’d agree to his fairly blunt proposition—one he realized now was totally lacking in romance and finesse.

  It would be perfectly reasonable for her to brush him off. He deserved it, and she deserved better. He’d come close to withdrawing the question, or softening it, at least. He might have just asked her to come to his room, to share the second bottle of champagne he had on ice there, to finish celebrating her award sitting with him on his terrace under the stars.

  Her answer had come just in time to save him humbling himself.

  Even so, he forced himself to stillness. He watched her silently until she read his intent.

  “Do you think I couldn’t say no to you, if I wanted to? I could.”

  He could almost believe her. He was pretty sure that poor, needy Evvie girl was still in there. But then she capped it.

  “I want to be with you. I want you to make love to me.”

  He stood, not careful about where his chair ended up behind him, or even if it was still standing. He didn’t care about the bill for their dinner. He presumed the staff would figure out to put it on his room account.

  He put out his hand and, when she placed hers ever so trustingly in it, he pulled her with him.

  The lodge was built along a rocky bluff with views of the Hudson. The upscale suites had private terraces or balconies and separate entrances. His was at the far, upper end. So he took her outside, following the lushly landscaped path up several half flights of natural stone steps. As soon as he had her inside, he closed the door and pushed her up against it.