“You left without saying a word to me. I had to hear the news from your boys after I went to your grandmother’s house looking for you,” Jorie said, the second the server had taken their order and walked away. “I went home and sat by the phone for hours that night and then woke up early the next morning and kept right on sitting there, waiting. I faked sick that Sunday so I wouldn’t have to go to church, carrying that phone from one room to the next throughout the house. Even into the bathroom because I didn’t want to miss your call. But you never called.”
Dom sat back against the red leather seat of the booth inside the pizza spot and let his arms rest on the table. If she were inclined to admit it, he looked sorry as hell right now. His shoulders had slumped a little, his eyes were filled with what she thought might be regret or remorse and his lips were set in a firm line. “Nah, I didn’t call.”
“You didn’t write. Even though I knew letters weren’t your style, I still raced home from school every day to go through the stack of mail just in case. I checked my email vigilantly, hoping you’d reach out that way.” She shrugged. “But you didn’t.”
He huffed. “I wanted to hear your voice so bad, Jorie. I needed to hear you say everything was going to be alright—”
“I would’ve,” she interrupted. “I would’ve told you to come back and we’d get through anything together.” Because that was what she’d always believed.
“And you would’ve been wrong.”
Her chest ached at his words. How in the hell could there be pain after all this time? “Tell me why.” It was a little disappointing that after twenty years, she still needed to know.
“Because I couldn’t give you what you wanted.” He lifted his hands from the table, shrugged and let them fall flat again. “I wasn’t going to be a good husband and father, and that’s what you wanted. It’s what you always talked about. How you weren’t going to be a single parent like your mother, how you’d prove her and all her man-bashing wrong by being in a loving and secure relationship and building a family. That was your dream. I was only going to hold you back.”
Her eyes narrowed as he talked because she’d never heard him speak this way. “You wanted a family too—you told me so. You wanted to give your grandmother great-grandchildren and to have them grow up learning from all the family history she taught you. It was important to you to keep your mother’s bloodline going.”
“Unfortunately, there was too much of my father’s blood running through my veins. You know he wasn’t shit, and neither was his father before him. There was no guarantee I wasn’t going to be more like him.” He sighed. “In fact, I did turn out just like the other Hughes men.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I have a son.”
Now the pain spread from her chest to fill her gut and her limbs. She trembled and forced herself not to look away. “You have a son.” Why she thought repeating his words would make them go away, she had no clue.
She watched him take a deep breath, his shoulders rising, chest expanding, eyes intent on her. When he released the breath, his lips parted slightly, and her gaze slipped momentarily to them, but nothing, not even the memory of those thick lips on her naked body, could hold her attention after what he’d just said.
“His name is Aiden,” he continued. “He’s nine and he lives with his mother in Beacon Creek.”
The newest townhouse development by Jansen Development. She knew the company and their homes well because she’d designed two of the model homes at other locations throughout Maryland. It had been her goal to obtain an exclusive contract with them, but that hadn’t happened yet.
“Wait a minute.” She slapped her palms on the table and then yanked her hands back as his gaze fell to them. “You returned to Newton long enough to get some woman pregnant but never had a moment to call or write to me?” The words stung the back of her throat, and fury began to bubble around the hurt. What had she done to make him want to get away from her so fast and so completely?
“Hold on, just breathe and let me finish.” He waited to see if she was going to do that or get up and walk out. Because he knew her very well—walking out was an option she was entertaining. Sitting across from him was becoming too damn hard.
Why had she thought she could have this conversation about him leaving when it’d been the most painful experience of her life? Who’d said it was the mature and professional thing to do, to clear the air between them so they could proceed with a job that was the biggest priority in her life right now? She’d said it. The slow sigh that came next was an act of resolution. After seeing him last week, she’d spent the entire weekend thinking about how they were going to make this work, and the bottom line was they needed to talk this through. That was why she’d agreed so quickly when he’d suggested dinner tonight. She wouldn’t second-guess herself now.
“Rasheda and I ran into each other in Vegas. It was a weekend thing.”
“A weekend thing that led to a nine-months-and-forever-responsibility thing.” She sat back and shook her head. “Wait, Rasheda? Are you talking about Ra-Ra Kinley who used to be the captain of the cheer squad?” When he nodded, she couldn’t help but chuckle. “So the star running back for the football team ended up with a cheerleader after all. How cliché.”
“That’s not how it—”
She held up a hand. “Oh please, don’t tell me that’s not how it happened. Because that’s precisely what went down. You left me without blinking an eye, then later just miraculously hooked up with the girl who’d been chasing you all of our high school years. Then you have a family with her. The family you said you wanted with me. The family you just tried to tell me you didn’t think you could have.”
The server arrived with their pizza, setting it down on the table between them. They’d both ordered beers and the server delivered those, too, but Jorie picked up the glass of water that had come earlier and drank from that instead.
She took a gulp. “Okay.” The server asked if they needed anything else, and she shook her head.
Dom thanked her and the woman walked away, looking slightly confused. Jorie didn’t give a damn.
“So, here’s how we’re going to work together. You do your job, and I’ll do mine. If I could find another contractor on such short notice who came as highly recommended as you, believe me, I would. But I need this to go well. My company needs this exposure to move up in the industry. I gave you my heart once, but I’ll be damned if I give you my future.” She raised her hand to signal the server again. “Can you bring me a box?”
“You’re doing too much,” Dom started.
“Don’t you dare tell me what I’m doing after all you did to me. I waited for you, Dom. For a whole fuckin’ year, I waited for you to come back to me, and you didn’t!”
“Then you ran off to college and married the first guy you met,” he said through clenched teeth. “So don’t sit there and play the martyr role, Jorie. You didn’t sit around waiting twenty years for me, and I didn’t want you to.” He sighed heavily. “All I ever wanted was for you to be happy. Even if that meant without me. Leaving hurt me too.”
“Not nearly enough,” she stood, “and you have no idea what I’ve gone through in the last twenty years. While you were off having babies with Ra-Ra, I was—”
She was being emotionally abused by that trash-ass husband of hers, and the one thing she’d wanted from the marriage had never come to fruition. To say she was pissed and jealous of Dom at the same time would’ve been an understatement, but he had a son to love and cherish, while all she’d been left with was a twice-broken heart and a career goal to keep her company every night.
Jorie didn’t say any of those things to him. Instead, when the server arrived with the box, she took three slices of pizza and put them inside before closing it. She reached across the seat and grabbed her purse, pushing it up on her shoulder before picking up the box. “This conversation is over. I’ll see you at the worksite tomorrow and we’ll get this flip done as quickly as possible. After that, I don’t ever want to see you again.”
Walking away may have seemed childish to some, but to Jorie it was liberating. She was the one leaving him this time. If when she made it to her car, she set that pizza on the passenger seat and let her head fall back against the headrest, feeling weary as hell, then so be it.
Dom should’ve let her go.
He couldn’t. Not again, and not with the way she’d looked at him.
He left cash on the table and walked out of the restaurant, hurrying around the corner to the parking lot, where they’d both left their vehicles. Her car was still there, right beside his truck, and he jogged up to the driver’s side window to lightly tap on it.
She startled and lifted her head slowly until she could stare at him through the window. Several seconds ticked by with her neither rolling down the window or opening the door while he stood there, wondering how long this standoff would last.
“I’m sorry, Jorie.” He’d said those three words so many times over the last years. To himself as he lay in bed after dreaming about her. In a text message he was never going to send because before last week, he hadn’t known her cell number. To the mirror whenever he stared at his reflection and called himself ten times a fool for leaving the only woman he’d ever loved. “I can stand here all night and tell you that over and over again if that’ll make you feel better.”
It wouldn’t. Dom knew that as surely as he was standing there. Nothing he said was going to take away the hurt she’d felt when he left—he knew that. Had dreaded it all these years.
“Or you can let me in and we can finish talking, or at least share one of your slices of pizza, since I didn’t have the good sense to get a carryout box.”
She looked over at the passenger seat, where the box of food sat, and then back to him before shaking her head. The window moved down just a couple of inches. “You wasted your money on a pizza you didn’t even get to eat. Poor Dom.” Sarcasm was Jorie’s second language. But at least she was being sarcastic instead of hurt and angry, as she’d been when she’d left the restaurant. “I don’t owe you anything,” she continued. “Not the opportunity to explain further or a slice of pizza.”
He shrugged. “You’re right.”
“We can talk about the budget. We’ll keep this about business as I said before.”
“We can do that.”
“Fine.”
He heard the sound of the locks on the car disengaging and saw her remove the pizza box from the passenger seat and slide it onto the dashboard. Dom walked around the car, opened the passenger-side door and slid onto the seat. He closed the door and sat there for a few moments, thinking of what he wanted to say next.
“The budget,” she said again.
Clearing his throat, he ran his palms down his thighs. “Right. The budget.”
The numbers rolled around in his mind. He should start with the kitchen, since that was going to be one of the biggest expenses and was the most important upgrade in a home. The only real surprise numbers were some plumbing work and the extensive landscaping to the front of the house that was a direct result of the plumbing work. That pizza smelled good as hell.
And Jorie was sitting too damn close to him. In this small-ass car she had, there was no console between them, just her purse and the gear shift. They were practically touching, at least if not physically, then mentally, because he could swear he knew what she was thinking.
Her hands had clamped on the steering wheel, her chest heaving like maybe she’d run to the car too, or maybe she was having the same physical reaction to him that Dom had been having since day one.
“I want to talk about the budget.” He cleared his throat again. It was starting to feel scratchy, he’d done that so much tonight. “Or we can talk about how badly I want to kiss you right now.” She turned her head quickly to stare and him, and he looked at her earnestly. “I know it’s not right. I did you wrong. You’re still pissed about it and you’ve been clear in telling me so. Business, that’s all we have going for us right now. I’m in no position to be thinking about kissing a woman when Rasheda’s trying to take my son away from me.” He stopped babbling, hating the sound, and let out a big sigh. “But I can’t help it, Jorie. I remember how sweet your kisses were, how I looked forward to them every day, and I just want to do it again. I just want to—”
He’d never known she could move so fast or that his heart could pound with so much pressure in his chest, but when Jorie released her hold on the steering wheel and moved to clap her hands on each side of his face, Dom was stunned. Her lips crashed over his, fast, hot, explosive, and he was lost.
There was an instant, just a flicker of time, when he didn’t know what to do with his hands. Shock, combined with the powerful bolt of desire that soared through his body the moment her tongue brushed against his, had his mind temporarily going blank. But the second he regained the feeling in his toes, Dom’s fingers were in her hair, blunt-tipped nails scraping along her scalp as he held her in place and took the kiss deeper.
She was like fire and honey all rolled into one. The way her hands hungrily gripped the front of his shirt, daring him to try and move. Not that going anywhere was a consideration. All he wanted in this moment was right here. Tilting his head, he took more, sucking her tongue deep, swallowing the quiet moans that escaped her throat. Memories of her in his arms bombarded him, the energy of youth and a love so fresh and powerful it threatened to smother them both. They clashed with the new bold and confident woman now pouring years of pain, fury and banked desire into a kiss that was rocking his foundation. His hands trembled as his grip on her head loosened and it was his turn to moan into the kiss.
When she pulled away gasping for air, he did the same, sucking in the breath he’d lost with her quick decision to give him the kiss he’d said he needed. For endless seconds they stared at each other, only the glow from a nearby streetlight illuminating the interior of the car.
“There, that’s what you’ve been missing for the last twenty years.” She dropped back into her seat. “That’s what you could’ve had if you weren’t such a coward. Now, back to work.”
Dom could only blink. His dick was so hard, any thoughts beyond the immediate lust that pounded in his head and every other sensible part of his body were lost. He could hear her taking steadying breaths but hadn’t chanced turning to look at her yet.
“My total investment is two hundred thousand. The purchase price was one-oh-five, leaving ninety-five thousand for the renovation. I have a budget that was worked up with the previous contractor. I can email that to you. I should’ve done that already, so my bad, but I’ll get it to you when I get home.”
“Stop,” he said, pissed that his breathing still wasn’t steady. Nor was his dick going down, but he could at least produce coherent thoughts now. “What just happened?”
“I gave you what you wanted,” she said, and he looked over in time to see her dropping her hands to her thighs.
Really nice, thick thighs that he recalled were soft as they’d wrapped around his waist on so many occasions. Her nails were short but still manicured and painted white. There were no rings on her fingers, something he probably should’ve paid attention to before he’d told her he wanted to kiss her.
“Yeah, you did,” he continued. “But, um, what are we doing now?”
“We’re going over the budget. That’s the other thing we were supposed to talk about tonight.”
“We weren’t supposed to kiss, though.” He was sensing the vibe behind the cool façade she now had going.
“No. And we won’t again.”
He only stared at her then, and she met his gaze with a look of indifference that did nothing to hide her smeared lipstick and tousled hair. “Because that’s over.” Finishing her thoughts was familiar, just like everything about her seemed to be, and yet, Dom was certain he didn’t know this new Jorie.
The woman who’d given him all the fury and distress she’d felt about him in the restaurant and had kissed him like she’d wanted to get fucked in the front seat of her car only seconds ago wasn’t the girl he’d fallen in love with. She wasn’t, and then she was; it was confusing and eye-opening all at the same time.
“Exactly,” she replied.
Dragging his hands down his face, he vowed to think this over slowly and carefully, and with a glass of bourbon as soon as he got home. For now, he knew how to accept that no meant no. “The estimate for the roof is twenty-seven hundred. They’ll do a patch job in that corner, since the rest of the roof was confirmed as stable. Plumbing and landscaping are gonna chew up quite a bit of the budget. What are you thinking for finishes in the kitchen and the two bathrooms? Because we might be able to shave off some of the costs there.”
“No. Definitely not sacrificing the design. To win this competition, we have to bring a fresh, modern look into this two-hundred-year-old neighborhood while preserving some of its natural beauty. I’ve got drawings on my pad.” She looked contemplative. “Team Thomas has investors in their corner—that means their budget is bigger. I have a better feeling for the citizens of this community because I am one, and they’re all pulling for me to win this so our neighborhood can be known for something more than its crime statistics and declining property value.”
So this wasn’t only about gaining exposure for her company. It went deeper, and Dom couldn’t have admired her more.
She moved again, this time turning so she could reach back and under her seat for a large leather tote bag packed with things he couldn’t see, until she pulled her pad out of it.
Dom told himself not to look at the cute curve of her ass or concern himself with the way she’d come up on her knees on the seat. Swallowing hard, he turned to stare out the window, willing his erection and all lustful thoughts about Jorie to disappear. They weren’t going anywhere. She’d said no, and he had no problem hearing her loud and clear.
After sitting in her car and going over numbers for another forty-five minutes before finally arriving at his house, he poured himself that drink and sank down onto the couch.
“Yeah, I heard what you said, Jorie.” He spoke into the quiet of the room. “But I also felt what I didn’t dare think could be again.”
Now the question was, what to do about those feelings that still lived between them.