The part of me that had liquefied before heated again at his words, and I tried to keep my breathing even. He was obviously being a jerk, but again, my body didn’t care.
I spent the car ride back to Portland trying to dissect my attraction to him. I wasn’t even sure attraction was the right word. I wasn’t attracted to him. I was pulled to him. Drawn to him. It didn’t make any sense, not to me, anyway. He was almost the exact polar opposite of everything I’d ever told myself I wanted. Well, as far as I knew. I realized I didn’t know much about him. All I really knew was he wore that black leather jacket like a second skin, he never looked bad in a pair of jeans, and his brown eyes were mesmerizing. Oh, and my body craved the proximity of his.
We said absolutely no words all the way back into the city, and when he pulled into my driveway, I opened the door and climbed out without breaking the silence. I drew in a sharp breath when I heard his door open and his footsteps coming in my direction. I did not, however, give him the satisfaction of turning around. I continued up the path to the door, only stopping to input the code in the keypad on the door.
“Lena.” Just my name falling from his lips turned my stomach inside out. I shook it off, literally shaking my head from side to side, trying to give him a clear indication that I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. Not surprisingly, he didn’t listen. Instead, his hand wrapped around my elbow and he turned me, and then pulled me into his front, our faces only inches from one another again. One of his hands found its way to my cheek again and I resisted the urge to lean into it, to let myself feel something from a man again.
Everything I was trying to accomplish, Preston was single handedly and slowly going to ruin. I had only one goal at that moment and that was to prove my husband was a cheating, lying bastard, get what was owed to me, and move on with my life. Preston Reid was threatening to me in more ways than one.
“We need to talk,” he tried again.
“No,” I said immediately. “You need to go home and finish this job on your own. Get me my proof and then we can just go our separate ways.” I remembered that his money was on my kitchen table. “I’ll go inside and get your money. Give me one moment.”
“I don’t want your money.”
I halted at his words and turned to him, trying to be brave and act like I wasn’t affected by him.
“I hired you to do a job, so you’ll take the money. Unless you think I should hire someone else?” My eyes found his and even in the dim light from the streetlamps, I could still see the dark brown irises looking back at me. I thought, for just an instant, I saw panic flash through them, but just as quickly as the emotion flitted across them, it was gone.
“No. You don’t need to hire anyone else. I’ll get you your proof.”
“Okay,” I whispered. I opened the door and walked in, heading into the kitchen to find the envelope Sam had brought me with the two thousand dollars cash inside. I grabbed it from the counter and turned to walk back outside, only to find Preston inside my house, leaning against the doorframe of the kitchen. “Here,” I said softly as I held the envelope out toward him.
He took the few steps toward me and when his eyes met mine, I was a little surprised to see sadness there. He took the money and tucked it into his back pocket. His chin tipped up in a nod that said ‘Thanks.’ I found manners winning out and I couldn’t stop myself before I offered, “Would you like something to drink? Scotch, perhaps?”
“Neat,” was his short response, and it rolled through me like a wave, his dark voice deep and gravelly.
I nodded and said, “I’ll be right back.” When I made it to the liquor cabinet in the formal living room, I leaned against the bar, gripping the edge tightly, trying to rein in the heat coursing through my body. This was ridiculous. The very last thing I needed right then was some wild, gravitational pull to a man who wasn’t my husband. I didn’t even want my husband. But what I really didn’t need was some seriously sexy man tempting me into wagering my future life away. But I’d offered him scotch, so I’d get him scotch. Then I’d make him leave.
I set the tumbler down in front of him, noticing he’d made himself comfortable at the head of my dining room table. I sat in the chair to his right and sipped from my tumbler.
“You spend a lot of time in this big house all by yourself?” His question caught me off guard, but also offended me a little. I didn’t like him insinuating that I was often alone. I could have many friends I spent time with, or a ton of hobbies that kept me out. Zumba. Pottery. Cooking class. Then I remembered I was the jilted wife who hired him to tail her husband and his mistress. I wasn’t the poster child for happy, satisfied women.