“Mine either. But here I am, doing you yet another favor. The least you can do is listen to what I have to say about the wedding services. Mary is going to make all kinds of mistakes.”
That was a different kettle of fish. If she wanted to discuss her ideas, that counted as work. “Fine. I’ll stay. But I’m not getting a manicure. I’ll be the unobtrusive one in the corner.”
“Ha. You’re as unobtrusive as an elephant in a lingerie store.”
Elisabeth, who had returned, broke in. “They’re ready for you.”
She guided Keith to a plush suede chair and settled Cara into a matching one across the aisle. Three smocked women with various instruments of torture in their hands swarmed around it, chattering to each other, to Cara, to Elisabeth, doing things to Cara’s nails and face and completely ignoring him. He was content to watch, especially when one of the ladies drew off Cara’s shoes and plunked her feet in a tub of soapy water.
After a few minutes of soaking, the technician began working her thumbs into the arch of Cara’s bare foot and Keith was mildly ashamed of how erotic his lower half seemed to find the whole scene.
“Elisabeth.” He jerked his head, indicating she should come closer. In a low voice, he said, “Tell your girl to be careful with Cara’s left ankle. She twisted it earlier today.”
“Yes, sir.” Elisabeth repeated the instructions to the technician, which Cara clearly overheard. She narrowed her eyes at Keith and stuck her tongue out.
“I thought you wanted to talk,” he called to her.
“That was before I knew your magicians were going to melt my bones.” Her eyelids drifted closed and pure bliss radiated from her body. “But I know you’re busy, so listen up.”
His own body bristled in response, and little licks of lust tormented him for the next thirty minutes while Cara outlined all the problems she’d identified with the previous wedding coordinator’s plans, which he and Elena had approved long ago. Then she launched into an impassioned explanation of ideas involving flowers, honeymoon packages and the pièce de résistance—butterflies. Despite being overly fanciful, Cara was on the mark.
He would have to take all of this into consideration, along with Mary’s report. Tomorrow.
The technicians finally put away their instruments and helped Cara from the chair. As she stood, she wobbled on unsteady legs. Any reasonable man would put an arm around her to keep her off the tile, and Keith prided himself on being reasonable.
She snugged up next to his torso, comfortably, which shouldn’t come as a shock—their bodies knew each other. Intimately. Two years hadn’t been nearly long enough to forget the curve of her waist and how beautifully it nipped in at the juncture below his palm.
Once they cleared the door of the spa, he realized how late it had gotten. The sky was in the throes of a spectacular sunset, bleeding orange, pink and yellow into the horizon in all directions. The water had darkened to deep blue and a cool breeze wafted inland across the sand.
“Nice timing, Mitchell. A girl might think you planned it this way.”
A laugh scraped his dry throat. “As much as I appreciate the compliment, even I can’t control nature.”
She stepped out of his embrace and his side cooled much too quickly. “The spa was nice. Thanks.”
“I’d like to do more.”
“I just bet you would.” She swept him once with an amused glance. “Is this when you were going to casually mention the late hour and suggest we grab a quick bite to eat?”
It was now. “You have to eat sometime.”
“Not with you I don’t.” She whirled and started hobbling off but he caught her easily, backing her up against the side of the building, scant inches separating his chest from her rapidly rising and falling breasts.
She met his gaze boldly as he braced both hands against the stucco on each side of her neck. “Going somewhere, Cara?”
His body, still galvanized from watching her enjoy ministrations at the hands of another, snarled for release to plunge in.
“I have a date.” She licked her lips and he nearly came apart. “And it’s not with you.”
A growl rumbled in his chest. “Cancel it.”
“I don’t want to.”
Stay. I want to spend time with you. Get to know the real you, the person you’ve become.
He leaned in a centimeter and her breasts quivered as she sucked in a breath. “Sure about that? You know it’s only a matter of time before I have my hands on you. Here.” He traced a line down her throat and stopped short of the luscious, mounded V of her cleavage. He’d keep going in a heartbeat if she gave the slightest sign she’d welcome it.
The past, his mistakes, the emotional responses she kept pulling from him—all of that was too complicated. But this heat between them he knew precisely how to deal with.
He pressed closer.
“Take a cold shower,” she advised with raised brows. “Feels like you could use one.”
His erection had obviously caught her notice. It would have been hard to miss. “Take one with me.”
I don’t want to be alone right now.
“Doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose?” She blinked, breaking their locked gazes. “Let’s cut to the chase. I’m not interested. I can’t begin to understand why you’d think otherwise.”
With the slightest tilt of his hips, he nudged the soft flesh of her abdomen, and those amazing rosy lips parted in a raspy exhale that he felt all the way down to his knees.
“I’m reading between the lines.”
“Keith,” she breathed and lifted her chin, bringing her face to within a millimeter of his. His lungs forgot to function and he flattened both palms against the stucco to hold himself upright. “You know what’s between the lines? Space. Same as what’s between your hands.”
She ducked under his braced arm with ease and walked away. Without limping.
Four
That night, Cara slept poorly. She’d have liked to blame it on Meredith’s vampire-like schedule, but when the sun finally rose, she didn’t have the heart to gripe about her sister’s late-night rendezvous or her 3:00 a.m. return to their room that had sounded like a gazelle learning to ride a bike.
It wasn’t Meredith’s fault Cara was restless. That award went to the master of reading between the lines, dang it. Why did Keith have to be so delicious and so hard to walk away from?
She rolled from bed and wished she’d indulged in at least one glass of wine the night before to go with the hangover quality of this morning. Two cups of coffee and a shower did not improve her mood.
“Time to get up.” Cara yanked the covers off the still-sleeping lump in her sister’s bed.
Meredith stretched like a sated cat and blinked. “Mmm. Good morning to you, too. Any coffee left?”
“You’re entirely too perky for someone who’s had five hours of sleep.”
“You’d be perky too after the night I had.” Meredith waggled her brows. “Paolo worked at a resort in Phuket and let me tell you, Thailand must be the place to learn a few tricks, if you get my drift.”
“Your drift is as subtle as a nuclear bomb,” Cara said drily. “We have a lot of work to do today, and somehow I got roped into helping he-who-must-not-be-named with the mock wedding.”
“Yeah. Somehow.” Meredith grinned and flounced to the shower, buck naked and not at all ashamed. Of course, when you looked like a centerfold, what was there to hide?
Cara sighed and got to work on the alterations she hadn’t finished yesterday thanks to the side trip to the spa. Which had been very nice indeed and had totally worked the kinks out of her ankle. She had a feeling Keith had meant the spa session as some kind of treat, despite his insistence the “services” needed testing.
So maybe both were true. It didn’t matter. She needed to stop thinking about Keith and especially stop remembering the good parts of their relationship. There was no scenario in which that would end well.
She stuck the needle through the dress’s fabric and focused on how this creation would transform one of her models into a beautiful bride. Eventually, a real bride might want this same dress and Cara would gladly restitch it to fit its future owner. These dresses weren’t one-use-only, no matter what Keith tried to claim, and regardless, Cara filled a bride’s critical need by helping her have the most memorable day possible.
Cara Chandler-Harris Designs filled a need, too—it gave her the sense of belonging she craved. One day, marriage would give her that. Until then, she’d sew.
When Keith texted her an hour later, the sight of his name on her phone’s screen put a sharp thrill in her midsection. Quickly, she squelched it. What was wrong with her?
“I’m going to meet Keith at the beach,” Cara called to Meredith casually. “You can stay here and keep working on the dresses.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Meredith stood so fast, a box of thread crashed to the floor. “I’m not missing this.”
Cara strangled over a groan. “It’s not a show. We’re just going over the basic plan for the mock wedding. The expo starts tomorrow, and these dresses are not going to alter themselves.”