Bedroom Diplomacy(14)
*
“Okay, what’s going on?”
Rowena looked up to find Tricia leaning in her office doorway. “What do you mean?”
“You haven’t stopped smiling all day.”
“I haven’t?”
She shook her head.
She tried to wipe the smile from her face, but she couldn’t do it. The corners of her mouth refused to drop.
“And it’s a sappy, lovesick kind of smile,” Tricia said. “There’s obviously something you aren’t telling me.”
If she couldn’t trust her best friend, who could she trust? “Close the door.”
Tricia closed the door and sat expectantly on the edge of Rowena’s desk. “Well?”
“You can’t tell anyone about this.”
“I won’t, I swear. Did you meet someone?” She lowered her voice and in a raspy whisper asked, “Did you get laid?”
“Better,” Rowena said. “I got kissed.”
And kissed, and kissed, until she and Colin had both lost track of how many times. Until it hadn’t even mattered anymore.
“Just a kiss?” Tricia said, looking disappointed.
“Yep.”
“You didn’t do anything else?”
“Nope. We just kissed. But it wasn’t just kissing. It was like…high school. That perfect first kiss in the backseat of a car, the kind where you’re so into each other that everything around you just…goes away. You lose track of time, of where you are and who you are. It was…perfect.”
“Wow,” Tricia said, a dreamy look on her face. “I want a kiss like that.”
“It was a slice of heaven.”
“You have to tell me who it is and how you met him. Did you meet him on the internet? People do that a lot now.”
Rowena laughed. “Nope. Not the internet.”
“Then who—”
A knock cut her short. Tricia pulled the door open and Rowena was stunned to see Colin standing on the other side. He wore jogging pants and a sweat-soaked jersey, and boy, did he wear them well. Her heart skipped a beat and her face went hot.
“Colin…hi,” she said, wondering what he was doing there, and even more importantly, why he would risk getting caught.
“Have you got a minute?” he asked.
“Um, yeah, sure. Tricia, would you excuse us?”
Tricia looked from Colin to her, and that was all she needed to make the connection.
“Sure.” Colin stepped into the room and Tricia stepped out, and when his back was to her, she mouthed the words, oh, my God, and fanned her face.
When the door latched, Rowena asked him, “What are you doing here? What if someone saw you?”
“Your father had a late lunch meeting, and I decided to go jogging. If anyone asks, I’ll say I stopped in for a glass of water.”
“Wooter?” she teased. “I’m not sure if we have any of that.”
His brow lifted, lips curled into a grin. “Making fun of my accent, are we?”
Honestly, every time he talked, it gave her warm shivers. She could listen to him for hours and never get bored. But that was beside the point. “Colin, you can’t be here. We said it was just going to be that one time.”
“And I haven’t stopped thinking about you since then.”
“Please don’t say things like that.” It made her go all gooey inside. Like last night, when she had to go, and he kept saying, No, not yet, just one more kiss.
Who could say no to that? But this time she had to. “You only want me because you can’t have me.”
“That’s not true,” he said, and she raised her brows at him. “Okay, it’s a little true. What can I say? I’m a thrill seeker. I like to live dangerously. I crave adventure.”
“Colin, if I said yes and we were caught—”
“We won’t be.”
“But if we were I would feel awful.”
“Rowena—”
Another knock cut him off, but this was louder and more urgent. “It’s me, Row,” Tricia called. “We need you.”
“So open the door.”
Tricia opened it, peeking in like she expected them to be half naked. “There was an incident on the playground.”
Rowena was instantly up and out of her chair, brushing past Colin to get to the door.
“Now don’t freak out,” the woman said. “There was a minor accident.”
“Who?”
“It’s nothing too serious. Maybe he’ll need a few stitches—”
“Tricia, who?”
“Dylan, but—”
Rowena was already out the door, and Colin could swear as she ran, her feet never once touched the ground.
Colin followed them. Having been trained as a combat medic, he could potentially be of help.