Glo held her palm up for a high five.
Kimber groused at her.
"Don't leave me hanging."
"I can't high-five you over his pen-"
The bell over the door rang, cutting her sentiment short. An advertising executive dressed in a three-piece suit and red tie strolled in, adjusting his glasses on his nose. Kimber swallowed, studying the buttoned vest with unabashed approval, which basically meant she struggled not to drool on the countertop. The man was a sexy beast.
"Holy Hot Pockets," Glo muttered under her breath. She ran a hand through her sheet of silken black hair and pushed her breasts up in her low-cut top. Kimber had to bite back a smile. Because Landon had come here to see her, and that made Kimber feel sexy just the way she was.
He spotted Kimber and crossed the room casually, his long legs eating up the space between them. When he reached the counter, he sent Glo a perfunctory, polite smile and Kimber a full body graze that made her stomach tighten. She loved it when he looked at her that way.
"Welcome to Hobo Chic," Kimber said. "Everything we have is on the floor." She tamped back the smile pulling her lips as he sent a sharp, inquisitive gaze around her shop.
He gave an approving nod. "Nice place."
"She's the owner," Gloria interjected, stepping behind the counter to stand next to Kimber. "This is her baby."
She kicked her best friend, who no doubt had carefully selected the word "baby." Unless she was mistaken, Kimber didn't think Glo had figured out who he was yet.
A secret smile tickled his lips. "You don't say."
Kimber had to bite her lip to keep from grinning.
"I can't help but wonder," he told her, his eyes locked onto hers, "if more people knew about your location you'd be busier."
Fun as this was, it was about time to let Glo in on the joke. Kimber opened her mouth to introduce her best friend to her "fling," but Gloria cut her off. "I agree. She's tucked back here away from the main drag, but there is an excellent café across the street, and a jewelry maker, too. If more people knew about this neighborhood, Hobo Chic would be swamped."
He focused his attention on Glo and offered a hand. "You must be her agent."
So, he'd figured out who Gloria was right away. That sly devil. Evan must have done a good job describing her.
Gloria blushed, actually blushed, and took his hand. "I'm not her agent. But I am a literary one. Children's books."
He shrugged with his lips as if impressed and glanced at Kimber.
She rolled her eyes. Stop playing and tell her who you are. He ignored her silent suggestion.
"That's impressive," he said to Gloria. "I know a children's book artist."
"Do you?" She was still shaking his hand. "Does this artist have representation?"
A smile. "Yes. He does."
"May I ask his name?"
"Sure. My brother, Evan. Downey."
Gloria's smile slid off her face like suds from a freshly washed car. She pulled her hand away. "Jesus."
"Landon," he corrected. "You must be Gloria."
"You don't look like your brother," she commented.
He didn't. Landon was taller by a few inches, his hair lighter, his refined way of dress and speak a far cry from Evan's laid-back swagger.
"The shape of their noses, and their eyes, are the same," Kimber said.
He flicked those eyes over to her-gray today. "I called."
"I ignored it."
He pressed a hand to his chest like he was hurt. "Ignored."
"I told her to," Glo said. "I was trying to tell her a story and didn't want the interruption. I'm selfish that way. Well, I have to get back to my clients. She's all yours now." She gathered her purse from behind the counter, mouthing the words Call me on her way out of the store.
Once she'd gone, Landon faced Kimber. "Is that true?"
She smiled sheepishly. "Which part?"
"You don't want to see me any longer." It wasn't a question, but he waited for a reply all the same.
"The idea was to walk away." A clean break before she turned a spontaneous profession into a relationship doomed to fail.
"I know." He plunged his hands into his pockets and studied the battered floor. "Okay, I'll go." She thought he meant he was leaving, but then he spoke. "I like spending time with you. I'd like to take you out again." A mischievous twinkle sparked in his dark eyes. "I'd like to have you over again."
"I'd like that, too," she admitted. She'd like to laugh with him over dinner, to kiss him in the shower, to lie in bed and eat potato chips. But at what cost? "I thought, you know … we shouldn't press our luck."
"You mean because of what happened."
He meant Condompocolypse. She didn't exactly mean that, but he'd brought up a valid point. "Yes."
He walked behind the counter and invaded her space, breeching her boundaries like he belonged there. Funny thing was, he sort of felt like he did. She knew Landon on a different level now. A level where no clothes were required and hectic breathing ensued.
"What if we're extra careful?" he asked.
The in bed was implied. Like with a fortune cookie. But she was determined not to lay waste to another relationship-not to take what they'd had to its inevitable demise. No matter how she thought she felt about him.
"Maybe we should quit while we're ahead," she said.
He tipped her chin and watched her. The tingle from his touch shot all the way down to her toes. "Maybe you're right." She saw the sadness in his polite smile a second before he dropped a soft kiss on her lips. A good-bye kiss.
Then he turned and walked out of her store, leaving her to wonder if she'd cut her losses or made the biggest mistake of her life.
Landon digitally signed the approval sheet for the billboard and e-mailed it back to the designer. He smiled at the image, proud of the work. Work he'd pulled off with only Kirk and Janie assisting him.
In the weeks since he'd last seen Kimber, he'd been looking for a way to help her with Hobo Chic whether she'd asked for it or not. And he'd known she wouldn't. She was probably avoiding him-regretting her unplanned three-word admission … but he'd taken her words with a grain of salt. She'd been sated and happy followed by terrified and worried. That situation could make anyone blurt out something they didn't mean.
After that night, after he'd covered her body with kisses and they'd made love, she'd left. And she'd left him literally aching to see her again. He missed her. Not just the sex-amazing as it was-he missed talking to her, sharing a drink or a laugh. He missed her presence in his cavern-like penthouse.
Going home had become an exercise in frustration. When he and Lissa had split, he'd felt the opposite. He used to love returning to his empty, quiet home, his only mistress a glass of Macallan. He'd enjoyed his drink and the view on the balcony before turning in for a restful night's sleep.
But now … now his place was a tomb. Devoid of his nephew's laughter and clutter. Bare of Kimber's warm presence. The scotch in his glass each evening only served to remind him of the drinks he'd shared with her; the night on the balcony they'd made love under the stars.
In a word, it sucked.
But it didn't have to keep sucking. He had a plan to get her attention, to get her to come to him. The billboard he'd just signed off on ought to do it, or at least lure her into calling him.
In the hall, his secretary scuttled by with an armload of large, yellow envelopes.
"Cindy, I'm heading to lunch. Be back in an hour," he told her.
The owner of Windy City potato chips, Otto Williams, was waiting for him at Grand Pine Café. Landon agreed to meet him, despite the fact that having lunch together was a pointless waste of time. Otto had approved Windy City's designs a week ago. He'd signed off on the ads and had purchased a marketing package big enough to pad Landon's retirement. But Otto, well into his eighties, had a way of doing things. When a deal was done, he liked to drink an Old Fashioned and bond over chewy steak at Grand Pine.
So, Landon set out to accompany him in both endeavors.
He paid the cab driver and strode to the door, nodding at a few passersby weaving along the busy walkway. The sun was hot and making him sweat-late August in Chicago-and he slipped his jacket off before he went inside.
A teenager nearly mowed him over as Landon reached for the door. The boy mumbled a rushed sorry and brushed by wordlessly, earbuds in, head down. Landon sent him an irritated glare before moving aside to let the woman following-his mother, he assumed-chase after him.
"Gregory," she called, then turned to Landon, he presumed to apologize or thank him. She did neither, instead froze in place, her mouth opened in a stunned gape.
Chicago was a big city. Because of that undeniable fact, the odds of running into someone he knew were slim. Slim, but not none. Apparently, considering he now stood eye to eye with his girlfriend from college.