KISS AND MAKE-UP

by Kelly, Leslie

  Much of Cassie’s waist-length, straight hair was gone, the strawberry tresses now framing her faces in long layers. Though sun-kissed, her skin lacked the deep tan of a Florida spring, and he’d bet there were no tiny freckles dotting her nose like there had been that first day they’d met near the pier.

  He didn’t intend to find out. Self-preservation demanded that he remain five feet away from this woman at all times. This was as close as he ever wanted to get—and it was much closer than he’d ever expected to be considering they hadn’t set eyes on each other since the day he’d moved out of their tiny apartment.

  So why couldn’t he tear his eyes away from the soft neckline of her blouse and stop remembering the way the skin just below her collarbone had tasted?

  Swallowing hard, he muttered, “What do you want, Cassie?”

  She frowned. “Don’t call me Cassie.”

  Like he needed a formal reminder of the difference in their social stature? That she’d been the rich blue-blooded golden child and he’d been the dirt-poor blue-collar kid from Indiana? The jab stung. It didn’t bother Wyatt personally—he’d never given a damn about the society set, beyond landing the accounts of companies that sold them their Rolexes. But he hated that Cassie could have changed so much. She might have been rich, but she’d never been a snob.

  Still, he supposed the way their marriage had ended should have burned the truth into him forever: she cared a lot more about money than he’d ever have expected.

  Careful to maintain his five-foot distance, he moved around to the other side of his desk and sat down. “What is it you want, Ms. Devane?”

  She frowned slightly, looking confused. “I didn’t mean that. I meant…call me Cassandra. Everybody does,” she said.

  He’d rather call her gone, but said nothing. Still, he relaxed a little, glad his warm beach angel hadn’t turned into a total corporate ice queen. “Fine.” Leaning forward, he dropped his forearms onto his desk. “So why are you here, Cassandra?”

  Years of dealing with people had taught him how to figure out what it was someone wanted by the way they moved, the clench of a hand, the shift of the eyes, the tightening of a mouth. Right now, Cassie was doing all of the above, meaning she was bothered about something. It could be that she was as disturbed about seeing him as he was her, but he doubted it.

  “May I sit down?”

  He couldn’t very well say no, so he merely shrugged.

  Cassie took a seat on one of the chairs across from him, leaning slightly forward, with her knees together and her ankles crossed. Ladylike. Prim. Well-bred. She didn’t look much like the rich wild-child the press liked to make her out to be. “Great view,” she commented, gazing at the window. She quirked a brow. “I’m surprised your window actually opens. In New York, you never see that because of the leapers.”

  He had to chuckle. “This is Boston. Much more genteel.”

  “Right. Red Sox fans were the height of gentility in ’04.”

  He and Cassie used to have regular weekend dates in front of their tiny TV—which had had lousy reception barely boosted by rabbit ears—whenever the Red Sox or the Yankees were playing. Funny, since the divorce, he hadn’t been able to sit down and watch an entire baseball game.

  “At least they had something to celebrate.”

  “I suppose you’re entitled to one win every millennium.”

  Unable to defend himself against her smile or her laughter, Wyatt shook his head. “So are we done talking about my window?”

  “Nope. I wasn’t finished. With this view, I imagine this is some pricey real estate. Business must be good.”

  “Business is phenomenal,” he told her, not trying to keep the self-satisfaction out of his tone.

  He didn’t elaborate, though he could have said a lot. After all, hadn’t his lack of financial prospects been a big part of what had destroyed the remnants of their marriage? A marriage that had already been incredibly shaky near the end of their first year.

  “You always knew you would succeed.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “That self-confidence was so unique in a guy your age.”

  If only she’d shared that confidence.

  At age twenty-three, a young husband, a recent graduate, he’d been incredibly confident about his prospects and his financial future. He’d known from age six that he was a natural-born salesman. Advertising had been his career goal from the first time he’d heard everyone he knew humming that dumb Baby Bottle Pop jingle and had realized its power.

  He’d thought Cassie had understood and supported that.

  He’d been wrong.

  When things hadn’t happened quickly enough to suit her, Cassie had gone behind his back to her rich parents for help. Before that point, they had been so disapproving of their marriage that they’d refused even to meet him, and had cut her off completely.

  He could have predicted what would happen if she’d told him what she’d planned to do. Once she’d proved to them that they had her back where they wanted her—under their financial thumb—her parents had told her they would help, but only if Wyatt gave up his dreams and came to work for them, living on their money. They’d tried to buy him.

  Wyatt had been shocked, and not just that Cassie would have gone to her family so furtively. He’d also been dismayed that she hadn’t had enough faith in him to know he could make it without anyone’s help.

  Her actions had done one more thing. They had proved that, despite what she said, his wife had not been able to break herself of her need to have her parents’ approval. Marrying him was the first rebellious thing she’d ever done in her life. She’d promised him that she wouldn’t let family drama pull them apart.

  That vow had lasted less than a year. She’d gone asking them for money, but, in truth, was begging for them to approve and validate the choice she’d made. She’d needed that…more than she’d needed him. So Wyatt had walked out.

  “Can we cut to the chase?” he asked, glancing at his watch, wishing he had an appointment.

  “Wyatt,” she said with a sigh, “can’t I even comment on your company? Your business is doing really well, isn’t it?”

  Cassie’s expression told him she was glad of that. Happy for him. And for the first time since he’d walked into his office and found her there, he relaxed—just a bit. “Yeah, I guess so. I’m sure Reston Promotions isn’t quite as big as Fresh Face Cosmetics, but we’re doing okay.”

  “You really did it,” she murmured with a smile.

  “I really did it,” he said. He wasn’t surprised by her visible happiness for him, because he knew—if he’d never known anything else about the real Cassandra Devane—that she’d truly wanted him to succeed. That had been part of the problem, after all. Her wanting him to succeed, no matter what it cost.

  Like his pride and independence.

  Their eyes met and held for a heavy moment, during which a number of questions were silently asked, questions neither one of them would ever voice aloud. How are you, really? Are you happy? Is there someone else?

  Most importantly: Why did we let things fall apart?

  But the time for asking questions was long past. Maybe if he’d been more mature rather than just a dumb twenty-three-year-old newlywed, he would have handled things differently all those years ago. He might have stuck around to talk things out, to try to make her understand how deeply her actions had wounded him. To let her know that he really was worried about the differences in their backgrounds, wondering if he’d ever be able to afford to keep up with her family.

  It was too late, though. Much too late. Whether she’d moved on or not, he had.

  If only he could make himself really believe that.

  “Okay, Cassandra,” he said, forcing the thought away and sitting straighter in his chair. “Time to fess up. What is it you want?”

  What was it she wanted? Well, that was the question of the hour, wasn’t it? Maybe even the question of her life.

  When she’d
walked in here a while ago, Cassandra had been sure she knew what she wanted. Two things: Closure. And a divorce. No matter what her grandmother said, there was no way in hell she was going to ask Wyatt to play along at being her happy hubby so she could get the vultures off her back and hold onto her CEO seat.

  Still, though she’d refused that possibility out of hand, she hadn’t been able to resist coming here to see him for herself. Her plan was to tell him they were still legally married, and get their divorce rolling again. Oh, and tell him he’d been a jerk. She’d be taking care of unfinished business, the legal kind and the emotional kind.

  But deep inside her, she had to admit the truth: She’d wanted to see him, one more time. Now that she’d let herself think about Wyatt, about their crazily-wonderful-but-heartbreaking relationship, she’d begun to question a lot of things. Was the reason she’d never gotten into a serious relationship with another man because she’d never completely ended things with him? She’d signed documents that were supposed to take care of it, but she’d never told him exactly what she thought, what she felt.

  Hence her trip to Boston. She wanted to tell him off for breaking her heart, get him to sign the papers, and then walk out the door, ready to march into her new, bright and shiny future. Maybe without that weight on her, without that uncertainty holding her back from ever really letting herself care for anyone else, she actually could find the kind of mature, committed relationship everyone from her parents, to her grandmother, to her stockholders, seemed to want from her.

  She’d even admitted—at least to herself—that she was also looking for reassurance that whatever feelings she’d had for Wyatt had been fully extinguished by time and maturity.

  But they hadn’t been. As soon as she’d turned around and seen him, Cassandra had known she was in trouble. Deep trouble.

  Because her heart sang at the sight of him.

  It was a silly expression, one she’d normally scoff at, but it was true. Seeing Wyatt was like seeing her very best friend again, after a long separation, which seemed to fall away the minute their eyes met. Every memory of every moment they’d spent together leapt to the forefront of her mind.

  Good memories, great moments. Like the way they’d slept wrapped around one another, wanting, even in their sleep, to be touching from head to toe. The trips to the beach where they’d glide through the waves for hours. Going through every aisle of the grocery store creating imaginary menus for the dinner parties they’d host when they were rich and successful. The time they’d painted their tiny kitchen yellow, panicking as they realized they couldn’t leave the windows open to air out the smell of paint for fear the landlord would find out what they’d done, so they’d tried to dry the walls with a hair dryer.

  Stupid stuff. Young kid stuff. Wonderful stuff.

  The year they’d been together had been the happiest of her entire life. She’d been madly, deeply, irrevocably in love with him. Right up until the day he’d broken her heart.

  “You must have come here for a reason,” he prodded.

  She tried to stall for time, wondering if her face betrayed her jumbled feelings. “I was in Boston.”

  “On business?”

  Somehow remaining calm, she replied, “Sure. Yes. Business.”

  She didn’t know what else to say, how to go on. Lord, she hadn’t expected this mix of emotions that made it difficult to know what to say. Emotions, yes, she would have expected that. But if she’d been a betting woman, she would have wagered on anger or indignation. Not this strange, anxious sort of longing. Not tenderness. Yet that’s exactly what she was feeling, just looking at his still-so-handsome face, his sexy mouth and his dark, stormy eyes. Eyes that were narrowed now, as he tried to figure out exactly what she wanted.

  “I travel a lot with my job. In fact, I just got back from a Texas,” she said quickly.

  His mouth quirked up in a tiny grin. “Texas, huh? I thought you were scared of horses.”

  Her jaw dropped. “I am not.”

  “Cass, you were terrified of my roommate’s dog,” he pointed out, daring her to deny it.

  “Horses don’t drool as much as Great Danes,” she replied with a lofty lift of her chin.

  His grin widened into a broad smile. “True. And I don’t suppose while you were horseback riding in Texas you wore a pretty white dress that attracts animal hair like a magnet.”

  Remembering the day when she’d first gone to his Virginia apartment and met his roommate—and the infamous dog—she had to laugh. “I wonder what the Elvis impersonator thought about me vowing to make a fur coat out of a Great Dane as I plucked black dog hair off my wedding dress. It’s a wonder he didn’t call me Cruella.”

  Wedding dress. Oh, she shouldn’t have mentioned that. Shouldn’t have let her thoughts travel down that road—or invited him to take that trip with her. Because they were both picturing it. The whirlwind romance in Florida. The drive back to Virginia, where they attended different colleges. The visit to her place for a white dress, and to his for a suit, and then the quick flight to Vegas for their secret elopement. The discussion over whether they’d wanted to be married by the fat Elvis in the white jumpsuit or the thin one in the tight black pants and Hawaiian shirt.

  It was as fresh in her mind as if it had happened days ago, instead of eight years ago. Which was funny considering she hadn’t allowed herself to think about Wyatt or her marriage for a long time.

  Wyatt’s smile had faded. Not wanting to give him a chance to go all dark and morose on her again, Cassandra quickly brought them back to the subject at hand. “Well, I didn’t ride any horses in Texas, but it wasn’t because I’m afraid of them. I was busy with meetings.”

  He looked relieved that she’d steered them away from dangerous topics, like their wedding day. Which could only lead to thoughts of their brief—but intensely passionate—marriage. And their sad, angry divorce.

  He grabbed a pen and started tapping it on the wooden surface of his desk. “I can’t picture you in a cowboy hat.”

  “Well, I never pictured you with your hair so short.”

  He grinned, that breath-stealing grin that had always turned her legs into jelly. “I have my barber on speed-dial.”

  Wyatt as a young man had been lean and wiry, with a thick head of jet-black hair that defied any attempts to tame it, particularly after a day of sand and saltwater at the beach. Time hadn’t thinned out those sinfully dark locks. They were now, however, short and smoothed down, no longer curling wildly at the back of his neck. Cassandra’s fingers itched to tunnel through the professional style and see the windswept guy she’d known.

  His hair wasn’t the only thing that had changed. Wyatt’s body was also different. He was thicker, filling out his suit exactly the way a perfectly formed man should full out a well-cut suit. Broad-shouldered, lean-hipped, exuding strength and power.

  Oh, yes, the cute college guy had turned into one amazingly sexy man. And all her softest parts couldn’t help but noticing.

  “So, you’re here on business and you stopped in to see me…for old times’ sake?”

  Old times’ sake? Or new times? Was she here to lay to rest the past? Or perhaps to open a door to the future? Or maybe just grab one more wild, hot memory for posterity?

  That sounded like a halfway decent idea right about now. Even more decent than getting his signature on the fresh divorce papers.

  She just didn’t know what she wanted. Particularly because in the few minutes they’d been sitting here talking, she’d remembered there was so much more than his amazing looks, brains and charm that had attracted her to this man.

  They’d had a lot in common, and they’d had conversations that had gone on for hours. Wyatt had somehow understood her the way no one else ever had in Cassandra’s life. He’d encouraged both her quiet, brainy side—and her wickedly naughty one.

  “This is just hard to explain,” she said. Not to mention complicated. She’d come in here with a simple plan, and now she had no idea
what to do. Slap him or embrace him. Tell him off or strip and drop to the floor. Leave him…or take him.

  One thing was certain, she needed time to determine how she felt and what she wanted and where Wyatt fit into that picture.

  “I’m not here for a social visit,” she finally said, looking around the office to stall for time. Her business training kicked in. She could hear her grandmother’s advice to always have a plan of attack. But she needed time to formulate that plan.

  “Well, what do you want?”

  She blinked. “What do I want?”

  “Yes,” he said, his eyes narrowing as he stared at her, obviously trying to figure out why she was parroting his words like some kind of trained bird.

  Good luck with that. Cassandra couldn’t even figure herself out! One thing she did know, however: She wasn’t ready to deal with this right now. All her carefully prepared words, her well-thought-out speech and her righteous indignation had sailed out the window and she had no idea what she wanted to say.

  Luckily, before she had to say anything, the door to his office flew open and a woman burst in on a wave of energy that was almost palpable. “Wyatt, I have an awesome idea…”

  The tall, dark-haired young woman’s words trailed off as she saw Cassandra sitting across from Wyatt at the desk. She looked back and forth between the two of them, visibly curious. “I didn’t see an appointment on your calendar,” she said.

  Cassandra couldn’t help wondering who the girl was. Her first thought was coworker, but the jeans and funky tie-dyed halter top suited a social call, not a business meeting.

  This slender, very attractive brunette—who looked no more than twenty—was visiting Wyatt socially.

  She had absolutely no right to be jealous. The man was no longer her husband. Well, okay, he was, but he didn’t know that. And she hadn’t either, until a few days ago. So it was none of her business who he was involved with.

  But, oh, it hurt to think he had some young, fresh-faced girl sharing his life. A girl like she’d once been.