Back in His Bed: Boardroom Rivals, Bedroom Fireworks! / Unfinished Business with the Duke / How to Win the Dating War. Heidi Rice
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“Plus there’s the drive down, and since it would be so late I’d have to find a place to stay for the night…”
He laughed. “A place to stay? That’s a weak excuse. I own a hotel not four blocks from the concert hall.”
Brenna’s hand stopped. “Yeah.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “And there’s that.”
Understanding dawned. “Oh. I see. You didn’t want to run into me at the party.”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but, yes. I’m avoiding you.” She snorted. “Or at least I was.”
“And now that you’re not?”
“Still in the ‘not going’ camp. There’s no one there I really want to see—”
“Except me,” he teased.
Brenna pursed her lips and made a face at him. “I know you like these kinds of events, but I don’t.”
“No one likes these kinds of events. You go because you have to.”
“Really?” She pushed up onto her elbow. “You always seemed so keen on them.”
“Only in comparison to you and your absolute dread of parties.”
Brenna stuck out her tongue and lay back down on her stomach, bunching the pillow under her head.
“You should come, though,” he added. When she didn’t answer, he pulled out a bigger incentive. “For Max.”
“Don’t lay a guilt trip on me,” she mumbled into the pillow. “The event isn’t for Max. It’s for Max’s money. Max wouldn’t care either way.”
“True, but as the proprietor of Amante Verano you should be there. You are the winery now. It’s part of the gig.”
She rolled back to face him again, giving him a delicious view. “Ugh. Really?” She looked genuinely displeased at the thought.
“Really.” Stroking her stomach lightly, he added, “But you could come with me.”
Brenna’s eyes widened, and he had to bite back laughter at her horrified yet confused look. “With you?”
“Yes, with me. Do you have a dress?”
“Of course I have a dress.” She paused, face crinkling in thought. “Or Di does, at least. But it’s still…”
“Come on, Bren. It won’t be fun, but it won’t suck either.”
She flopped back onto the pillow and stared at the ceiling. “Oh, that’s the way to convince me. I’m not exactly a big symphony fan, you know.”
“Then it’s a good thing it’s not a performance. Simply a meet-and-greet.”
Brenna opened her mouth, then closed it and bit her lip. After what looked like an interesting internal conversation, she lifted her head to look at him again. “Are you asking me out? Like on a date?”
He nearly choked, but caught himself and cleared his throat while Brenna stared at him in mild shock. “Well, I am planning to ply you with alcohol and chocolate in an attempt to get you to come back to my place for the evening.”
She nodded. “I see. And then?”
The question was casual, but he didn’t want any misunderstandings between them. “What are you asking, Bren?”
“I spent years trying to forget about you. And then all the stuff with the winery happens and you’re back.” She pushed herself to a sitting position. “I find out that not only haven’t I forgotten you, I also don’t hate you as well. Now we’re back here—” she indicated the bed “—and I’m not sure which way to turn.”
She wanted an answer, but he didn’t have one to give her. “And I don’t know what to tell you, Bren. Can’t this be enough for now?”
She laughed. “Hell, I’m not sure it’s not too much already. Maybe we should just quit while we’re ahead. Before things go bad again.”
Brenna wasn’t wrong about that, but it didn’t mean he wanted to take her up on it. “That’s the second time today you’ve played that card.”
“Maybe it’s worth thinking about.”
“Are you kicking me out?”
Her half-smile gave him his answer. “This place is still half yours, you know. For the moment.”
He ran a hand down the smooth skin of her arm. “Then I think I’ll stay tonight.”
“About the symphony thing…”
He lifted a hand to stop her. “I’ll send a car. You don’t have to get in if you decide you don’t want to.”
“That sounds fair.”
“In the meantime…” He reached for her, and Brenna slid neatly into his arms, molding her body to his. He let her push him onto his back, and the curtain of her hair fell around them, seeming to block out everything else.
This wasn’t his average Saturday night. Jack leaned back in his chair at Dianne and Ted’s kitchen table and reached for his beer.
With his and Brenna’s new truce secure, he’d fully planned to spend the evening in bed, making up for lost time. Around six, though, Brenna had informed him she was due at Dianne’s for dinner, and that he was welcome to come along.
He tried to remember what had been on his calendar for tonight—before he’d cleared it to come to Amante Verano. A business dinner? Another charity event? Probably something black-tie.
Instead, he sat at an only partially refinished antique table after a simple family meal, nibbling on cashews and getting soundly beaten in Scrabble.
And, surprisingly, he was enjoying himself.
Brenna held Chloe in her lap, unsuccessfully attempting to keep the tiles out of the baby’s reach. “Where’s my E?” Brenna asked. “I know I have one. Aha!” She pried the tile out of Chloe’s chubby fist and placed it on the board.
Jack looked at what she played. “Olpe? That’s not a word.”
Brenna counted her points. “Yes, it is. An olpe is a wine pitcher or flask. Ted?”
Ted nodded. “She’s right. It’s a word.”
Brenna shot him a triumphant look. He countered the look with, “Is it English?”
Dianne returned from the kitchen at that point and leaned against the arm of Ted’s chair. “I told you not to play with them. They cheat.”
Ted pulled his wife into his lap. “We do not cheat. We just have bigger vocabularies.”
Dianne and Ted had been surprised when he’d arrived with Brenna earlier tonight, but after a few interesting looks he didn’t quite understand had passed between them and Brenna, they’d set another place at the table for dinner. The conversation had been stilted at first, but they’d warmed up and now treated him like a long-lost family member.
Which, in a way, he guessed he kind of was.
Brenna rescued another tile from Chloe’s mouth and handed her a soft toy to play with instead. “There’s no need to be a poor loser, Jack.”
He looked at the board and at his tiles. Nothing he could play now that Brenna had used the L for her non-existent word. He shook his head and passed. “I’m wondering why Dianne doesn’t get a dictionary and shut you both down.”
Her cheeky grin snared him. “Because then it wouldn’t be any fun. Would it, Chloe?” she asked the baby, burying her face in Chloe’s neck and making them both giggle.
It was a nice picture. Brenna laughing, relaxed and glowing. Not something he could say he’d seen