She wanted that man to love her. And she feared a rolling stone like Keith would never be capable of that even if she gave him twenty years to get there. This was a short affair, made possible only by these special circumstances.
When Keith texted her that night, she almost didn’t go. But she’d missed him and the two brief glimpses she’d gotten of him across the property as he strode off to do some Consulting Wizard task hadn’t been enough to sate her. Plus she couldn’t quite get the hot tub off her mind. She should enjoy her fling to the fullest, right?
In the end, she threw on his shirt without any underwear because she liked the feel of it against her bare skin and wore the trench coat over it. A similar look had benefited her greatly last night. But when she got to Keith’s room and used the key he’d given her to let herself in, he was hunched over his laptop, an open longneck beer in his left hand as he pecked at the keyboard with his right.
He glanced up but didn’t otherwise move from his spot at the table, where it appeared he’d been for some time. “I’m almost finished here. Give me a minute.”
The tired smile he aimed in her direction melted the ice she’d scarcely been aware surrounded her heart.
“You look like a man in sore need of a shoulder rub,” she said instead of a flirty comment designed to get him away from the computer. Which she had no doubt would have worked but wasn’t what he needed.
“I’m in sore need of you, period,” he muttered to his laptop screen.
She stood behind him and kneaded the knots in his neck and shoulder muscles while he read a report with multicolored graphs and pie charts.
“That feels amazing.” Ditching his beer, Keith groaned and leaned into her fingers, head tipped back slightly. “I didn’t know my neck hurt so bad until you started doing that.”
His head rested between her breasts and his lashes fluttered closed, and it was so sexy she couldn’t help herself. Screw work. “Would you like me to find out what else needs attention? I’d be happy to take inventory. And yes, I mean that exactly the way it sounds,” she added in case he was too tired to connect the dots.
He chuckled and reached up to still her hands, taking them into his. Instantly, he twisted her into his lap and his mouth fused to hers before she could squeal. And then she couldn’t think over the pounding of her pulse as Keith’s mouth drained her of everything but pleasure.
Later, she lay draped across his bed, debating whether he’d fully recovered well enough to seduce him into round two, when he cleared his throat.
“You never told me your good news.”
She rolled to face him and bent up a leg casually, as if they often hung out naked and talked.
“I didn’t?” she hedged. No, she hadn’t. Because the intimacy they’d fallen into last night had been about the past. Necessary to heal, but not necessary to continue their affair. They still weren’t a couple who shared stuff.
“Tell me.” His earnest caramel gaze latched on to hers and wouldn’t let go. “Unless it makes you uncomfortable. I don’t want to push you into something you’re not ready for.”
Her heart stumbled over a beat. He didn’t want to push her?
Was it possible that she was the problem in this equation? That her confusion and refusal to trust him had somehow jeopardized whatever relationship might be possible?
No. The issues were his. He didn’t want a relationship and that made it irrelevant to him that she did.
“It’s nothing.” She shrugged, embarrassed all of a sudden to have even mentioned it, especially since it wasn’t a done deal yet. “A buyer for a small boutique in Houston contacted me about selling my dresses in their stores. It’s not set in stone. We’re in the opening stages of discussion.”
“That’s great!” His effusiveness set her back teeth on edge for some reason. “I’m proud of you. That’s an amazing offer and you should have told me earlier so I could order champagne.”
“Save the champagne for when I close the deal,” she advised and eyed him. “What’s with the overly enthusiastic support?”
“I got some good news of my own today.” His expression brightened and he propped his head up on his hand. “Regent extended my contract. It was contingent on the board’s assessment of this property and they were so pleased with what they saw today, they offered the extension on the spot. It’s two years and fifteen more Caribbean properties.”
“That’s...great,” she said in an unintentional echo of his sentiment. But her chest had slowly frozen over as his meaning sank in and she couldn’t come up with anything better.
He nodded, oblivious to her turmoil. “It’s what I’ve been working toward my entire professional life. To show I’ve made it on my own merits. This is the pinnacle.”
Two years. Fifteen properties. She didn’t have to be a math genius to put two and two together. Keith wasn’t coming back to Houston after the expo. He’d be working his magic on other Regent resorts as he’d done with Grace Bay. And she’d seen enough of his daily responsibilities to fully understand her place in his bed had come about only because of the storm. Without the lull in activity, he’d probably have continued to be too busy to make a move in her direction.
It took every ounce of her upbringing to smile and kiss his cheek. “I’m happy for you. Seems like we’re both getting what we’ve always wanted.”
It was a lie—she wanted Keith. Of course she did. All the dodging and convincing herself otherwise, all of it was a lie. And now every last shred of hope she might have gathered at the corners of her heart had been lost.
She’d tried to convince herself Cara Chandler-Harris Designs was enough. It was a business she’d built without her father’s money, without any man’s help, and it was hers. But it wasn’t a substitute for the love of a man, a life partner she could share all the ups and downs with. It wasn’t a business she’d built to get over Keith because there hadn’t been anything to get over other than disappointment that he hadn’t fallen in line with her fierce determination to get married.
And she knew for sure she hadn’t been in love with him before because she absolutely was now and there was no comparison.
She wanted Keith but he didn’t want her. There was no worse sound in Keith’s mind than the clang of wedding bells.
The ache in her heart hurt in a massively different way than it had two years ago. Because she had to let Keith go instead of holding on to him to achieve her own selfish goals.
She’d gotten her wish. This was what being in love with Keith was like and it was the harshest lesson of all—sometimes love felt an awful lot like sacrifice.
* * *
Keith cleared his dry throat. He was oversharing again. He felt it in the chaste, emotionless kiss to the cheek she’d bestowed on him, could feel it in her posture, in the atmosphere.
It had started the moment he began talking. She’d slowly withdrawn, as if she wasn’t really on board with staying overnight and wished he’d shut up so she could leave, even though she’d agreed this morning to stay.
Why had she said yes if she didn’t want to? Disappointment lodged in his esophagus and he couldn’t swallow it away. He’d been looking forward to seeing her all day. They’d have some downtime, just the two of them, when he could really savor the professional coup he’d scored today.
He’d been entertaining the notion of asking her if she’d come with him. Just to the next assignment. Just for a couple of days. A week, tops. She could sew some dresses during the day and be waiting when he returned to their room at night. No anxiety-filled, interminably long minutes as he waited for her to respond—or not—to his text message at the end of a stressful day. She’d just be there.
A sharp pull in his chest was bittersweet and he feared he’d fallen into a hole he’d never climb out of. The way he felt about Cara...it wasn’t going to go away. It wasn’t a slight sense of affection as he’d had the first time. This was something else, something powerful. It might be this elusive thing called love that neither of them could define.
Whatever it was, he was screwing it up.
Stupid to think she’d magically gotten over feeling pressured. The only way that would happen was if he stopped pressuring her.
“So why does it sound like you’re the opposite of happy?” Way to drop it, Mitchell. Obviously he couldn’t let it ride.
“I’m...tired. That’s all.”
So tired she couldn’t muster the energy to be a little more inventive with her excuses? “Is it really so difficult to spend time with me that you’d rather be anywhere else but here?”
Her gaze snapped to his. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be.”
Frustrated, he vised his pounding temples between his thumb and middle finger. There was no set procedure for this conversation, but he wanted to get the best results. So he kept trying. “Then what’s wrong? This contract is a big deal to me. I hoped you’d be a little more...congratulatory.”
“Congratulations, Keith. It’s an amazing accomplishment.” She said it so sincerely, he did a double take.