All or Nothing at All(24)

After all, the truth was clearly revealed on the birth certificate.

But not now. Not with Tristan refusing to even interact with her daughter and not with the distance between them.

Her brief marriage taught her so much. Sydney had spent her entire life consistently looking to others, usually men, to fill the empty, aching void inside.

Now she knew only one person could fill it.

Herself.

She refocused on the conversation. "I guess you miss New York." Her voice sounded calm and analytical, with a touch of interest.

"Not anymore." She glanced at him, startled to find his gaze swiveled to meet hers. "I know I belong here. With my brothers. Running Pierce Brothers." His amber eyes flared with intensity. "I'm finally home."

The tension knotted a few notches tighter. She fought the urge to roll down her window for air. Instead, she reached for her coffee with trembling hands. Okay, no more questions. She didn't like playing with matches that could cause a bad fire. She still carried the scars from the last one.

"What about you? Do you regret never leaving Harrington?"

The past rose up like a tsunami, but she fought the waves and held on. "No. I never needed to leave to find myself."

"Plus you had Becca."

She froze. Her daughter's name on his lips caused a deep shudder to wrack her body. She cleared her throat. "Yes. I had Becca to think of."

"Do you ever see him?"

Her voice broke. "No."

The pause between them was rife with memory. "He never comes back to see her?"

Her head spun in sudden sickness. She put her coffee down and concentrated on breathing. She needed to pull it together. "He lives overseas now and isn't part of our lives. Becca's mine and no one else's. And I'd rather not discuss my ex-husband."

He drove in silence. This was the reason she couldn't be alone with him. The questions were too dangerous-the mess of the past better left untouched. The soothing jazz coming from the stereo mocked the seething tension between them. "Syd?"

"Yeah?"

"Have you thought about that kiss?"

Sydney sucked in her breath. Instantly, the chemistry flickered, caught, and burned hot. All of her senses were trained on him, his body heat practically pulling her in. Her nostrils flared at his scent, and her body surged to life, still conditioned to her first love, her first lover, her first heartbreak.

Yes. She wanted to scream, fight, surrender, beg. Instead, she locked her muscles and fought with everything she had left.

"No."

"You're lying."

"It doesn't matter."

"It does to me."

A cry caught in her throat. She would not do this with him. She made sure to inflect her voice with her only defense: coldness. "Then I'd suggest you get over it. Because nothing is going to happen between us again. We agreed to a working truce and no more."




 

 

"Fine."

She kept her gaze averted for the rest of the ride, counting down the miles and praying she hadn't made a huge mistake.


He shouldn't have mentioned the kiss.

Tristan drove and tried to ignore the screaming silence between them. He'd sworn to push the encounter out of his mind, chalking it up to impulse, fear, and curiosity about the past. But he'd never expected such an intense reaction, from either of them. It was as if the kiss was bigger than them, swallowing good intentions and reminding him of all the wonderful things Sydney had brought to his life. Besides the most powerful physical chemistry he'd ever experienced with a woman, there was an emotional connection bridged from their shared memories. They knew each other. Had experienced great love and great pain. She was the only one who'd stripped down all of his layers and truly seen the man he was.

And she'd loved him anyway.

Though, she ended up betraying him.

Once she'd turned nineteen, he began to lose the battle not to touch her. They worked together for almost a year while he fought his body with a crazed intention. But eventually, it was too much for either of them. She used every opportunity to get close and tortured him with sweeping generalizations about her dates with other men, hinting at physical intimacy. Her eyes told him she wanted him if only he had the balls to ask. To seduce. To take.

The lines had blurred, until he walked around with a constant erection and woke from lustful dreams of her naked in his bed. He was slowly being driven insane, until that one late night in the office pushed them both over the edge.

"I hate this software system," he grumbled, banging on the keyboard as columns of numbers flashed in front of him. "It sucks. Why did we have to upgrade?"

"Because it's better, and once we're trained, it'll be worth it."

Her calm dismissal of his grumpiness only irritated him further. Her outfit was driving him nuts. Weren't redheads supposed to stay away from pink? Well, she'd broken that damn rule. The hot-pink little suit barely covered her curves, and the conservative white blouse only emphasized the illegal length of her skirt. Her hair was loose today, and extra wild, as if teasing him to try to tame the strands.