“You should go,” he said, turning and grabbing his towel to wipe his face, not wanting to look into those big blue eyes and see the unasked questions in them.
“Wyatt…”
“No, really. I need to change,” he insisted. He waited, but didn’t hear anything, and finally lowered the towel and meeting her eye.
He saw a glint of naughtiness in her expression. “Don’t let me stop you.”
The woman was walking temptation at any time, but when she was being bad…oh, God, she was definitely better. “Forget it.” He grabbed his shirt.
She pursed her lips. “Scared to take your clothes off in front of little old me?”
“Stop trying to seduce me.”
“Who said anything about seduction? I just wouldn’t mind seeing you naked again.”
“Tell you what,” he said with a drawl as he pulled his shirt on, “you first.”
That wicked glint appeared again and Wyatt immediately threw his hand up, palm out, to stop her. “Forget it, I did not mean that. What happened to the Cassie who was voted ‘nicest girl’ in your snobby, high-brow high school?”
She licked her lips. “I thought you figured that out a long time ago. She secretly knew that being naughty is a lot more fun.”
He grinned, liking the way she raised a suggestive eyebrow. This playfully wicked Cassie appealed to the man Wyatt was now even more than the supposedly “nice girl” had appealed to the kid he’d been when they’d met.
Which was bad news all around.
Stiffening, he said, “Okay, tell me what you really want. And just what did you tell my sister?”
The distraction worked, as he’d expected it would. “She had no idea who I was.”
“She recognized you from People magazine.”
She crossed her arms tightly over her chest. “I mean, she has no idea you and I have a history. It’s strange to realize we never met each other’s families. Jackie…I didn’t even recognize her from her pictures.”
“She was only twelve when we met. And it wasn’t like we were together long enough to take that trip home to Montana for you to meet my folks.”
That had been the plan. Since his parents hadn’t had the money to come to Virginia for Wyatt’s college graduation, he and Cassie had talked about getting into his beat-up old truck and driving out west to visit and spring the news of their elopement on them. The marriage, however, hadn’t lasted long enough for them to do it. He’d eventually told his parents about Cassie, but they’d never talked about her after the divorce.
As if she could read his mind, she asked, “Does Jackie even know you were once…married?”
He shook his head. “No. My parents didn’t tell her when they found out, because I wanted to surprise her. Then came the divorce and, well, there was no point anymore.”
When her lashes lowered a bit over hurt-looking eyes, he almost regretted admitting that to her. It made her seem like an insignificant part of his life, when, in fact, she’d been anything but. “She wouldn’t have understood,” he admitted grudgingly. “She was just a kid.”
Her expression softened. “Of course.” Then a grin tugged at her mouth. “Your sister’s definitely grown up. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who can talk quite as much as she can.”
He groaned. “You have no idea. Ever since she moved here to go to college, I’ve been considering investing in earplugs, or a hearing aid, because I know if she sticks around for a few decades, I’m going to go deaf.”
She chuckled. Then, growing serious again, she said, “Jackie thinks you won’t take me on as a client for personal reasons and she pumped me to find out what they were.”
“Jackie is going to be dead meat for shooting off her mouth, so you really shouldn’t listen to what she has to say,” he replied, matter-of-factly.
“Is it true?”
“No, but only because there are laws against murdering your sister.”
“Wyatt!”
Rolling his eyes, he finally answered her question. “Okay, maybe it’s true. Maybe I’m still angry at you.”
She stared into his eyes, as if determining how to respond. Finally, she murmured, “Maybe I’m still angry at you, too. And maybe that’s why we need to work together.”
Twisted logic. Made about as much sense as eating a big burger two days after you’d gotten food poisoning from another burger. Some wounds were just better left alone, covered deep under an emotional Band-Aid, rather than exposed to the light of day. “I don’t think so, Cass,” he finally said. “It happened a long time ago. We should leave it in the past.”
Her sigh of frustration was audible, and the accompanying roll of her eyes almost made him laugh. Cassie didn’t like being told no. She never had.
He should have known better than to think she’d given up, however. Because before he could say sayonara and invite her to have a good life, she offered him a sunny smile. “Well, I think you’re wrong. And I guess I have to convince you of that over dinner.”
Immediately wary, he simply stared.
“That’s why I’m here. Jackie said it would be easier for me to just ride home with you, and your secretary—what a nice lady she is—you know, she’s fifty-four and doesn’t look a day over forty, which means she must use Fresh Face skin-care products. Anyway, she’s the one who told me you were in here, uh…working out.”
She was babbling, another sign of the nervousness he’d never seen in Cassie before. Meaning somewhere in that incoherent string of sentences was a piece of information she knew he wasn’t going to like. And when he thought about it, he zeroed in on exactly what it was. “Ride with me? To dinner?”
She nodded so hard her hair flopped over her brow. He had an insane urge to reach out and brush it away. Probably would be safer to stick his hand into a deep fryer; he’d have less chance of getting burned.
“Yes, we figured it’d be easier that way. My hotel is close to here, but I’d probably get lost if I tried to drive over to your place by myself in my rental car.”
Jackie, you are so in for it. “You’re not serious….”
“Oh, yes, I am. Didn’t I tell you?” she asked, her voice holding a suspicious hint of laughter. Her mischievous streak had apparently won out over her nervousness, which was too darned cute for his peace of mind.
“Tell me what?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
Cassie flashed that bright smile which, in the old days, could get him to agree to absolutely anything. “Your sister invited me over to your place for dinner tonight.”
Cassandra really liked her former sister-in-law. And not only because Jackie had provided her with the perfect opportunity to be close to Wyatt for a while longer—so she could work on him about taking her company on as a client. The young woman was also witty and exuberant, friendly and flamboyant. And the very minute her brother had stormed out of the office the previous day, she’d apparently decided to become Cassandra’s ally.
Why, Cassandra had no idea. But seeing the spark of excitement and mischief in Wyatt’s sister’s face, she’d had the feeling Jackie was doing it as much to entertain herself as to help Cassandra. Hence the dinner invitation to Wyatt’s place. The idea had doubly angered him because, as he kept muttering, Jackie didn’t even live with him.
“You couldn’t have spared us both this agony and just said no to my sister?” he asked, not for the first time as the two of them drove through the busy streets of downtown Boston, heading toward his apartment.
Agony? Oh, it was more agonizing than she’d ever imagined. If she’d realized how darned uncomfortable this drive was going to be, she might have rethought her acceptance of Jackie’s invitation. Because Wyatt drove a sleek, tiny little sports car, which currently cocooned them both in a dark, intimate bubble of intensity. Awareness. Heat.
After that intense, hot kiss they’d shared in the gym, she was having a hard time remembering that this man was no longer hers. They weren’t going to end the night in bed. He wasn’t go
ing to pull the car over into the nearest private spot and make love to her until she couldn’t remember what year it was, much less what month or day.
No. None of that is going to happen.
That wasn’t what Wyatt meant about the agony. So maybe she was the only one feeling the tension between them in the car. “Is spending a couple of hours with me really such agony? We used to enjoy spending time together, remember?”
He glanced over, then focused straight ahead again. “Yeah, I think that was around the time when I also used to enjoy cold pizza and warm beer for breakfast, too.”
“I had you on fruit and yogurt smoothies pretty fast,” she said with a smile, remembering the way she’d gotten Wyatt to start taking better care of himself.
“I hated fruit and yogurt smoothies.”
She frowned in indignation. “You absolutely did not.”
Wyatt’s lips quirked in a tiny grin. “I just didn’t want to make you feel bad. I’m lactose intolerant.”
This time, Cassie’s jaw dropped open completely. “Get out! You are not. How did you eat pizza then?”
“Pizza was worth suffering for. Yogurt was not.”
“But you still drank them for breakfast all the time….”
His eyes shifted a tiny bit and she suddenly understood. He’d done it for her.
She fell silent, not knowing what to say to that. God, they’d been such babies. Her playing housewife, trying to get him to eat healthily, and him making himself sick so she’d feel like she’d succeeded. “What business did two infants like us have getting married, anyway?” she mumbled, thinking out loud.
Wyatt tensed, his hands tightening so hard around the steering wheel they turned white. Probably because she’d used the m word. But there was no getting around it. Their marriage was a huge, vibrant presence between them, taking up every bit of air in the car, like the proverbial nine-hundred-pound gorilla in the room.
She wanted to talk about it. She had to talk about it—Wyatt had to know that they were still, technically married. Of course, she had no doubt that the minute he heard that bit of news, the high walls he kept around himself—to keep her out—would shoot up into the stratosphere. He’d sign and throw her out and there would go any chance she might have to finally both understand and get over everything that had happened.
You can’t wait too long. He needs to know the truth. You need his signature. And you need to tell him off for being such a jerk.
Right. And she would do all that. Soon. But not now. Not until they were out of this car and she didn’t smell the sultry aroma of warm man, didn’t hear his low breaths, didn’t feel the warmth of his arm just a few inches away from her own.
Didn’t keep picturing him in those flimsy gym shorts and nothing else, and remembering what that those lean hips and that thick, massive erection had felt like between her thighs.
Okay, girl, get a grip. She thrust the images out of her head, but knew better than to think they wouldn’t be taunting her later. Probably late tonight when she was lying alone in her hotel bed. Wondering.
Shifting in her seat because of her suddenly uncomfortably tight jeans, she crossed her arms and glanced out the window, wondering what they could talk about that would make her heart stop its flippity-flopping. Not sex, that was for sure. Because just thinking about it had her wondering just how much they could manage in a car this size.
Her jeans got even tighter.
It wasn’t just sex, they couldn’t talk about their past relationship at all. She needed to make sure she wasn’t too close to him when they had that conversation because she’d already realized she was still susceptible to Wyatt. Not just physically, either. Every minute she spent with him was reminding her why she’d fallen for him so hard in the first place.
So they’d need to be in less confined quarters, when she told him he’d been a fat-headed, stubborn, proud fool to throw their marriage away because she’d been scared and stupid. And then tell the fat-headed, stubborn, proud fool to sign the papers weighing down her purse like a chunk of lead.
“So tell me about this automotive firm you’re trying to land,” she said, finally coming up with a topic of conversation that might leave her breathing normally and keep her panties from getting any more moist from her overheated imaginings. “Why’d they shoot down your first presentation? I liked the concept of various men in different models of cars all stopped at the same intersection, deciding whether to turn right or turn left.”
Wyatt’s jaw dropped.
“Jackie,” she explained, almost feeling sorry for him. Couldn’t be easy to have such a chatterbox sister. Then again, any sister would be nice, as far as Cassandra was concerned. Being the only child in her family, she’d often wished for a sibling to share in the attention. And the pressure.
“The bigmouth,” he said, shaking his head in disgust.
“Okay, right, but get past that. What was the problem with the campaign? Sounds pretty cute to me. Playing on the whole ‘which road should I take’ thing, but keeping it sexy and light.”
He looked over again, though he should have had his eyes on the road. Wyatt’s gaze narrowed and he tilted his head in confusion. “How’d you grasp that so quickly?”
“Grasp what?”
“The which-way-should-I-turn moment we were going for.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just what I visualized when Jackie mentioned it.”
A horn beeped, startling them both. Wyatt quickly returned his attention to the road, giving an apologetic wave to the driver in the next lane who he’d nearly swerved in front of.
“Well, you visualized it exactly the way I visualized it,” he admitted, his words slow, as though he was surprised by the realization. “They just didn’t get it.”
“I guess the coming to the crossroads and choosing which way to go is pretty American,” she said.
“They’re selling to an American audience,” he said, his tone dry. As if he’d made the argument before.
Apparently, however, that hadn’t helped him land the difficult account. “So did you scrap it and go back to the drawing board entirely?”
Wyatt shook his head. “Not entirely. We all liked it, but I know something didn’t click. I just haven’t figured out what yet, or how we can salvage some of the overall concept.”
She tapped her index finger on her cheek, thinking about it. “How about a line of women at a stoplight, all putting on eye shadow?” she asked, not trying to hide the mischief in her voice.
“To sell imported cars?”
“Nope. Cosmetics.”
“Forget it. I’m not working for you.”
“Or,” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken, “wind blowing wildly through an open car window, but never messing up her foundation.”
“Cassie…”
“A couple lying on the hood of a sexy convertible, kissing passionately without smearing her lipstick?” That certainly put her imagination into overdrive….
“Cassandra!”
She clapped her hands together. “I’ve got it! A well-dressed woman crying to the cop who pulled her over to give her a ticket, without getting all raccoon-eyed from runny mascara.”
He groaned, deeply, helplessly. But then, as if unable to help it, Wyatt began to chuckle and shake his head. “When did you get to be such a pain in the ass?”
“When did you get to be so stubborn?”
Wyatt stopped at a stop sign and looked over at her, the soft reflection from the dashboard casting lines of light and shadow across his handsome face. His amusement gradually faded until he was staring at her, looking both intense and also perhaps a bit concerned. “Why is it so important that I work for your company? Are you in some kind of trouble, Cass?”
Trouble? Well, not the kind he meant. He was asking if Fresh Face Cosmetics was in trouble. And while they did need to diversify and open up their company with an expansion into lower-priced markets, things weren’t dire or anything.
“Everyt
hing’s fine. The company’s doing well—even if I do have to fight some of the big boys to keep my seat at the table.”
“Your cousins?”
She nodded. Obviously he remembered some of the details she’d told him about her family.
“I guess they don’t like that the little girl is now the big boss.”
“Definitely not.”
“That’s awesome,” he said, sounding pleased for her.
Of course he would be. Wyatt had always been supportive and encouraging, never seeing any limits for her, any more than he had for himself. He’d been amazing as a young man. Now as a fully grown one, he was utterly remarkable.
“So you’re really okay?”
“Yep,” she insisted, because she wasn’t truly worried about her job or her cousins.
Her personal life? Well, that was another story. But she wasn’t about to get into that with him, not yet, not here, not when they were about to spend the evening with his kid sister.
Chatty Jackie did not need to know Casandra had once been—and still was—her sister-in-law. Nobody else needed to know about Cassandra’s problems. Problems that included some seriously confused emotions. Plus her inability to get over what had been the most important relationship in her life.
Her inability to get over him.
Oh. And the fact that they were still married.
Chapter 3
Dinner was shaping up to be a complete disaster. Despite having issued the invitation, Wyatt’s sister obviously had no idea how to cook. Cassandra quickly discovered that when she walked into the large, fully equipped kitchen of Wyatt’s spacious apartment near Beacon Hill. Wyatt was getting cleaned up so Cassie had asked Jackie if she could help.
“Is there an easy way to get this stuff out of the bottom of the jar?” Jackie was shaking an open container of premade Alfredo sauce into a much-too-small saucepan. “I was going to put water in it to get the last little clumps out, like I do with tomato soup, but I was afraid it might get runny.”
Cassandra sucked her bottom lip in her mouth so Jackie wouldn’t see her amusement. The girl looked thoroughly confused, with globs of whitish-gray sauce splattered on the stove, the counter and Jackie’s face. The scene, and Jackie’s woebegone expression, emphasized her youth. Wyatt’s sister was probably only twenty or twenty-one, and in way over her head. She looked a lot like Cassandra probably had during her brief marriage.
KISS AND MAKE-UP Page 4