Hot Under Pressure. Kathleen O'Reilly
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overstuffed booths were conducive to divulging confidences to perfect strangers.
“It’s not easy, is it?” she asked, thinking of her own divorce. Two weeks of wounded pride, several weeks of sorting out the finances and understanding what was whose and five months of awkward questions and well-meaning advice from friends. But then Ashley woke up one cold December morning and she knew she would be okay. Not fine, not great, but she was going to live. It was while in that fragile state that Valerie convinced her that she should do something radical with her life, live out her dream and buy a chain of four small Chicago boutiques. Start fresh.
“Not going that well?” asked David, when she told him what she did.
“Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know. You don’t have the joie de vivre that a lot of small business owners get when things are breezing along.”
“You see a lot of small business owners?”
“Oh, yeah. From Omaha to Oahu. Kalamazoo to Klondike. I’ve seen a lot.”
“Oh.”
“Owning your own business is a lot of work. I sit on the sidelines and tell people how much their business is worth, how much it’s not worth, what they are doing wrong, and recommend whether our investors should go all in or not. My job is the easy part. After I look over the operation, talk to a few customers and suppliers, I go plug some numbers into a spreadsheet, and then I’m on to the next business, the next opportunity.”
“I used to be an insurance claims appraiser.”
His mouth quirked, amused, and she cut in.
“Don’t say it. I know. I have the insurance adjuster look.”
“Nah, not an insurance adjuster. Maybe bookstore owner or candy maker. Something more personal.”
“I think that’s a compliment.”
“It is. You’re too cute for the insurance business. So why fashion?”
Cute. He thinks you’re cute.
He’s from New York.
Who cares? Take a chance, Ash.
For a second she met his eyes—a little more bold than usual. “I want to prove something. I want to take a plant and nurture it, care for it, water it and watch it bloom.”
He snapped his fingers. “Florist. I can definitely see that in you.”
She began to laugh because if he ever saw her plant shelf, he would be rolling on the floor, too. “No florist, sorry. I wanted to do something that I could master. Something challenging. I was stuck, and I needed to prove that I could do something different.” It was nearly Valerie’s post-divorce speech verbatim, but Val had been right. Ashley had just neglected to tell her sister that last key point.
“And fashion is challenging?”
Ashley nodded. Men really had no idea. It had taken her two hours to decide on the yellow gypsy skirt, the perfect pale green cotton T-shirt and a kaleidoscopic glass-bead necklace. The outfit had vague Easter-egg overtones, but worked nicely with her hair, and best of all…no wrinkles when traveling.
“Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
He sat back from the table, his eyes tracking to the bank of departure monitors nearby. “We better go back to the tarmac of terror.”
“You’re anxious to get out of here?” she asked, noticing the slight jaw-clench again. That, and the disappearing smile.
“No. It’s fine.”
Yeah, she’d seen that movie, too. Knew the ending. “Denial, much? Don’t worry. It’ll get better.”
His gaze met hers, and the warm green was analytical hazel once again. “Has yours?”
“Oh, yeah,” she lied. It hadn’t gotten worse, but it hadn’t gotten better. Instead she was stuck in this post-divorce limbo where she had no knowledge of how to proceed, and no inclination to leave the comfort of her own solitude.
“So when’s the last time you went out?”
“Not too long ago.”
“How long?” he probed, and she didn’t like the awareness in his eyes. It was that same probing look that her sister got before she would launch into a lecture. Ashley shifted in her seat.
“I don’t know,” she answered vaguely. The divorce had been three years and eight months ago, but she didn’t like the idea of dating again. It felt too wrong. She was a thirty-two-year-old woman, not a twentysomething college kid. She couldn’t go sit in a bar. If she signed up for a matchmaking service, she was afraid no one would pick her. And most of the blind dates she’d had had been with total losers. People had good intentions, but their judgment left a lot to be desired.
“Has it been longer than a year?”
“Maybe. But I’ve been busy,” she said, dodging the question.
He stayed silent for a second before nodding. “Understand that. I’m not one of those men who has to be married. I cook. I do my own laundry. There’s a whole group of guys who get together to watch the games in a bar. I’m independent. I like my independence.” It was the battle cry for the walking wounded. Ashley knew it well.
“Then it sounds like you’re in a good place.” She gave him the fake smile. The one that says, “whatever you say is fine.”
“I think I am. You?”
“Oh, yeah.” Abruptly, she decided to stop the charade. Here was a comrade in arms. Someone who knew exactly how it felt. Why not tell the truth? She missed cooking for two. She missed waking up on a Sunday morning and not having to plan out the day. She missed being able to come home from work and laugh about her coworkers—not all of them, but there were a few who were laugh-worthy. Ashley and Jacob had been married for seven years, and it was never the world’s greatest marriage, but still…“Sometimes it is, but sometimes it’s not. Well, you know, there are things I miss.”
“Gawd, yes.”
“At night. It’s lonely.”
“Exactly.”
“I mean, I know I can get Valerie to watch…” He shot her a shocked look and then recovered quickly, but not before she noticed. Oh, man, he thought she was talking about sex, which she wasn’t, but now, okay, her mind was going there, she was thinking the sex thoughts…No, don’t think about it, Ash. Quickly she fumbled back into the conversation. “I like watching horror movies at night and my sister is a total wimp. All we get are historical dramas. Television is something best done with another person.” Okay, Ashley, got over that one. Not too shabby.
David, however, still looked mildly shell-shocked. “Totally,” he answered in a tight voice.
“You like horror movies, too?” she asked, getting a little cocky and daring to tease.
“We should get back to the plane,” he answered, not taking the whole teasing thing well. She knew that men got a lot more wired than women about sex, but he seemed more laid-back than that. Wrong, Ashley. Quickly she changed to a safer topic.
“Get back to Junior? You’re as sadistic as Valerie.”
“Maybe he’s asleep.”
THEY HAD NO SUCH luck once they got back on board. Junior was riding a sugar high, judging by the chocolate smeared across his face and the way he kept bouncing on his seat. But at least all weapons were out of his possession.
David watched as Ashley changed shoes again, noticing how nice her feet were. Smooth, compact, lots of well-turned curves. His cock stirred and he turned away. Turned on by a foot? Weak…very, very weak. It’d been a long time since he had spent