Chapter Two

Family loyalty was a very ugly thing. Especially when one was hung over, running on very little sleep and zero breakfast. Andrea leaned her head back against the wall and parted her lips in a silent groan. This day promised to be one of the longest in her life.

The dress shop smelled of dust and a cloying rose perfume. The place was tiny, bursting at the seams with rack after rack of wedding and special occasion dresses in all colors and sizes. Classical music played softly from hidden speakers, and Andrea was thankful it wasn’t country music blaring through the room like the shop they’d visited a few weeks earlier.

Today, Lena had told them at the start of the morning, they would have to help her settle on the “right” dress for her attendants to wear walking down the aisle. Carson, Vermont was a small city surrounded by even smaller towns. In the past two months, the three Ray sisters had exhausted the area dress shops looking for what Lena described as the perfect dress. The shop she’d dragged them to today was the last one left.

Andrea and Claire had found a couple of chairs tucked into a quiet corner of the shop, planted their butts there, and hadn’t moved in at least twenty minutes while Lena swept the racks, seeming to pick out dresses at random. One of these times, she might actually choose a decent one, but the odds were just as great that the wedding party would be marching down the aisle in glorified circus tents. Lena’s taste seemed to have evaporated, along with her common sense, when Jerry had slipped the ring on her finger.

Andrea shot a glance at Claire, who was picking at the hem of her skirt. She nudged her older sister’s arm. “Why are we doing this again?” she asked in a whisper.

“Because Lena is our sister and we owe it to her. Besides, she would do the same thing for us.” Claire’s robotic explanation was almost verbatim what their mother had been pounding into their heads for the three months since Lena had gotten engaged and subsequently lost every shred of her sanity. Andrea had heard of the Bridezilla phenomenon, but had never seen it in action until now. Before, she’d laughed it off, thinking the brides must have been spoiled twits in the first place. Now she could just sit by and wonder what the aliens had done with her baby sister, and who was this possessed woman they’d left in her place?

“Yeah, I’ve heard that about a thousand times, too. It doesn’t really help when we’re being blasted out for not knowing the difference between tulle and chiffon. So what’s the real reason?”

Claire giggled. “The guilt trips we’ll get if we don’t help Lena.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” Their mother’s specialty. She’d practically raised her four children on a diet of them, and somehow she’d managed to use one to rope Andrea into taking over planning the wedding.

Andrea shook her head. As if she knew any more about planning a wedding than her mother did. At least their mother had had one before. Andrea had probably only been to two in her entire life. But she was the most organized, or so her mother had said, and she’d be the perfect person to take care of all the minute details.

Too bad Lena didn’t agree. Lena’s new favorite pastime seemed to be picking arguments.

“How is the menu planning coming, by the way?” Claire asked, referring to the task Andrea had been trying to deal with for the past two weeks.

“It would be better, if the bride from hell would nail down a caterer. We met with three last week, and she tore apart every item they served her. The chicken was dry, the beef too rare, and the fish, of all things, had the nerve to taste like fish. Jerry said he’s never coming to a catering appointment again, and he couldn’t care less if we served bread and water at the ceremony.”

Claire’s eyebrows shot up. She burst out laughing. “Lena’s lucky he loves her. A weaker man would have hightailed it out of town a long time ago.”

“Yeah. I tried telling her that. She accused me of attempting to break up her engagement. Then she asked me if I was sleeping with Jerry. We really should get him to take her to the doctor. There has to be a medication for this. I don’t think any of us are going to be alive by the time the wedding comes around.”

Just then Lena marched around the dress racks, brightly-colored dresses piled high in her arms. She stomped her foot on the ground and fixed Claire and Andrea with a glare. “There you two are. I’ve been looking all over for you.”

Andrea bit back a laugh. “The store is twenty by twenty. You couldn’t have been looking that hard.”

Lena ignored her mumbled comment. “You promised you would help me pick out the dresses you have to wear down the aisle, and I find you hiding behind the racks. Do you really care so little about helping your sister plan the perfect wedding she’s been dreaming about for all her life?”

“Now she’s referring to herself in the third person? What are we, four?” Andrea whispered to Claire. Part of her knew it wasn’t right to give Lena a hard time, but the woman had been so over the top for three months it was starting to drive the whole family nuts. Reasoning with her had only pissed her off, so they had to resort to jokes to hang onto their sanity.

Claire pressed her fingers to her lips as if she was trying to hide a smile. “We weren’t hiding. Honest, sweetie. We just don’t want to get in your way.”

“Right.” Lena gave them a look that let them know exactly what she thought of their evasive tactics. “And Andrea, take off the sunglasses. I don’t care how hung over you are—and don’t tell me you aren’t because I know. It’s just plain rude. Plus, you can’t see the dress colors properly like that. Your opinion will be jaded.”

Did it really matter that she couldn’t see the dress colors? From the way the shopping had been going so far, no matter what Lena picked they were going to look like they belonged either in a three-ring circus or on a Southern plantation. In the 1800s. Andrea rolled her eyes before she took off the offending shades and slipped them into her purse. She almost groaned when the light pouring in from the huge plate-glass windows hit her eyes full-force. This was going to be the most miserable day of her life.

Lena was lucky she was family. Andrea wouldn’t waste an entire Saturday dealing with this kind of attitude from anyone else. Not even Brian.

Brian. She let out a little sigh at the thought of the man who used to be her best friend. Now she didn’t know what to call him. Her heart ached at what had been left unsaid between them, and anxiety kicked up inside her at the idea of the discussion she’d told him they would have. If either of them thought they could slip right back into friendship after what they’d done, they had another think coming. It wouldn’t be that simple.

Already she missed him, but she couldn’t face him every day, couldn’t confess any more dreams and secrets after she’d all but begged him to stay at her place. He’d wanted to leave. Had nearly bolted out the door. Instead of letting him go, she’d embarrassed herself by draping all over him and unbuttoning his shirt. Had she forced him into something he hadn’t wanted?

The thought made her sick. This was all her fault. She was the one who’d lost her inhibitions. Though he hadn’t been very inhibited last night. He’d been incredible. Better than she’d known sex could be. Damn it, she wanted more. A lot more. Months and months of it.

And there was her problem. She couldn’t want him for good. A steady relationship didn’t fit into her life plan. At least not yet. She had no intention of getting married for at least five years, probably closer to ten. At twenty-eight, she still had plenty of time before she needed to think about settling down. The infamous ticking biological clock wasn’t something she’d ever really worried about. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to have kids in the first place.

Claire cleared her throat, dragging Andrea out of her uncomfortable thoughts. “What’s going on? Something is bugging you. It isn’t like you to drink. I think the last time you had a hangover was in high school, after Tony Callahan’s party. Remember, the one when his parents were out of town?”

Andrea groaned with the memory. That night, after spending hours worshipping the porcelain god, she’d sworn to herself she’d never get drunk again. Until last night, she’d stuck by that promise. But work had been miserable this past week and Brian had been trying to help her relax by offering to take her out to dinner. She should have said no to the first bottle of wine, let alone the second, but she’d been so wrapped up in the conversation that she hadn’t realized how hard the alcohol had hit her until they were in the cab back to her apartment. “Don’t remind me.”

“So what happened?”

Lena stomped her foot on the ground again, this time hard enough to shake the trinkets lining the shelves above the windows. She dropped the dresses onto a nearby chair. “Excuse me. This day is not about Andrea and her lapse in judgment. It’s all. About. Me. You know, the bride? Since you both say I have terrible taste in dresses, I won’t even ask you anymore to pretend you like what I’ve chosen. You two look at these and decide which ones you can live with. I’m going in search of some more. Be ready to start trying things on, though. I need to see what they look like on an actual person before I make any firm decisions.”

Mini-tirade finished for the moment, she swept her hair over her shoulder, spun on her heel and marched away.

Once she was out of earshot, Claire turned an expectant gaze on Andrea. “So? Tell me. What made you decide to go out and get drunk last night? I mean, you at least should have waited until this morning when an inebriated state would have come in handy.”

Andrea laughed, then regretted it when her head started to pound again. If she sat still and kept her eyes closed, she didn’t feel too bad. “I don’t know what happened. Brian took me out for dinner last night. He says I’ve been working too hard again and needed to take a break.”

Claire patted Andrea’s knee. “I agree with him. Again. Big shocker there. Go on.”

“We split a bottle of wine, then for some reason I agreed to share another. I must have been out of my mind. We were both pretty giddy when we took a cab back to my place. The next thing I knew, we were in my bedroom and I was asking him to unzip my dress.” She snapped her mouth shut, though she’d already said enough. The look in Claire’s eyes told her as much.

“Hold on a second. Did you do what I think you did?”

Did I seduce my best friend then kick him out in the morning? Of course I did. Because drinking that much hadn’t been stupid enough all on its own. “That depends. What do you think I did?”

“Andrea, please. I’ve seen the guy. He’s freakin’ hot. Tall, dark, and sexy to the max. And a sweetheart to boot. If I were you, I would have jumped him a long time ago. Hell, I would have done it without the alcohol.”

A long time ago, Andrea hadn’t even known she was interested. She’d been too busy trying to get ahead at work to notice much of anything. Fate had apparently decided it was time to shake up her boring life a little. Now, whenever she thought of Brian, she didn’t think of him as a friend. She thought of him as a lover.

She wanted to tell Claire nothing had happened, but at the same time, knew she had to tell somebody. This wasn’t a secret she could keep all to herself, and Claire would figure it out, anyway. She’d always been intuitive. “Don’t say anything to Lena. She’ll think I’m trying to overshadow her on her big day. I sort of slept with Brian.”

Claire let out a squeal that had the few dress shop employees, as well as an irate-looking Lena, glancing their way. “Was he good? Please tell me he was good. No, wait. Don’t. Tell me he was great. Amazing, even. It would ruin all my fantasies if you said he sucked. Because a guy who looks like that, well, there’s no way in hell he could ever suck, right?”

Andrea had to laugh. Leave it to Claire to get straight to the point. “Yes, he was good. Now that’s all I’m going to say about it.”

She stood, then walked toward the chair where the dresses lay, intent on finding some sort of distraction. She started rifling through them, trying to pick out one or two of the least offensive ones.

Claire grabbed her arm. “No way are you going to leave it at that. I need more details, Andrea. Lots more. After we’re done dealing with the bride from hell for the day, you and I are going out for coffee. You owe me a decent story. I always tell you about my dates.”

And there had been lots of them. Lots. Claire, the free spirit of the family, had a different boyfriend every week. Most of the time, the stories fell into the realm of too much information. Once in a while, they were a little disturbing. Claire was a whole lot more adventurous than Andrea could ever dream to be.

“I can’t. I have to be someplace.”

Claire waggled her eyebrows. “I don’t think so. No chickening out, little sister. I want to hear all about it. I want to know if he lives up to my dreams about him.”

Andrea narrowed her eyes. A sliver of jealousy wedged itself in her gut. She didn’t like the fact that her sister was having dreams about Brian, but she didn’t have time to analyze the new emotion. Lena came around the corner with another stack of dresses and piled them on top of the first.

“So which ones did you guys choose?” she asked, a bright smile on her face and a serene look in her brown eyes. The maelstrom seemed to have passed, at least for now, but Andrea had seen enough of the new facets to Lena’s personality to keep her guard up. One wrong word would set her off again and they’d be right back where they started.

“Talk about bipolar,” Claire whispered in Andrea’s ear. With a shake of her head, she returned her attention to Lena. “We like them all, sweetie. The important thing here is which one you like the best. It’s your day, after all, and you want everything to be perfect.”

Lena seemed to think about Claire’s words for a minute before she nodded, the smile growing. She ran her finger along the lacy fabric of one of the uglier gowns. “I guess you’re right. I was thinking the bright orange one. It’d be perfect for a fall wedding, don’t you think?”

While Claire nodded, Andrea shrank down in her seat. If Lena would just elope, it would make life so much easier for the whole family. She’d have to see if she could talk Jerry into kidnapping his bride and dragging her to Vegas.

Two grueling hours later, Andrea sat across from Claire at one of the local mom and pop coffee shops, cradling a chipped blue stoneware mug between her palms. The headache had finally started to abate, and once the second dose of aspirin she’d popped kicked in, she was hoping she’d feel almost back to normal. The place smelled of grease and coffee, and it had taken Andrea a few minutes of deep breathing to get used to it. Her stomach still threatened to rebel.

Claire munched on a plate of greasy fries, and every time Andrea glanced down at the table, the sight of them made her gut churn. Though she hadn’t eaten all day, the thought of food didn’t settle right.

“How are you holding up?” Claire asked with a giggle in her voice.

In the process of taking a sip of her coffee, Andrea glared at her sister over the rim of her mug. “You’re not very funny. You know what they say about payback.”

“Oh, I think I’m hilarious. And as for revenge, that’s not really a threat. Remember all those times you harassed me for being hung over when I was in college? This is payback, honey.”

“Save it. I’m not that hung over anymore.” She took another sip of the coffee in her mug and winced at the acidic taste. Even loaded with cream and sugar, the stuff was still bitter. No wonder she’d never really gotten into drinking it. “Do you know how many calories are in that plate of food? That’s probably your whole daily intake right there.”

Claire shrugged before stuffing another fry into her mouth. She chewed before answering Andrea. “I have a high metabolism and a gym membership. And I’m only thirty-three. Maybe you should try to lighten up and enjoy yourself once in a while.”

“Dad died when he was ten years older than you. Heart attack, remember?” The thought of their father should have made Andrea sad, but she couldn’t quite muster the emotion. So much time had passed, and Anthony Ray had never really been close to his children. The one thing he’d done right was to instill them with a good work ethic. Other than showing them how important a person’s career was, he’d pretty much left them alone. Their mother had raised them, though all four of them would likely admit she hadn’t done the best job. The nannies and day-care providers had been more loving than her. Even now, she still couldn’t manage to be more than lukewarm to her children.

“Dad had other problems besides a plate of French fries every once in a while, and the doctors told Mom it was the stress that killed him.” Claire shot Andrea a pointed glare.

“What?”

“You and Todd both followed in Dad’s footsteps. You work too much, and don’t have nearly enough downtime. I already lost my father too young. I don’t want to lose my brother and sister, too.”

Andrea sighed. Talk about blowing things out of proportion. “I had downtime last night.”

“I’ll say. When you decide to let your hair down, you go all out.”

Andrea’s face flamed. She took a big gulp of her drink while she tried to think of something to say in response. Claire’s gaze locked with hers and stuck while Andrea set the mug back on the table. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

“Is that all you have to say about it? Come on. Can’t you give me any details?”

Andrea laughed. “No. And I can’t sleep with him again. It’s against company policy.”

“If you’re quiet about it, no one in the company will find out.”

“Claire!” Andrea kicked her sister’s shin with the rounded toe of her shoe. “This is serious. As much as I enjoyed it, I can’t let him back into my bed. It would be wrong on so many levels.”

“Oh, please.” Claire kicked back, shaking her head. “It was only a matter of time before this happened. You couldn’t have gone on forever pretending there was nothing between you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Men and women can’t be that close without eventually hitting the sack.”

Andrea silently fumed, but she didn’t understand why. She had no argument against what Claire said. It had taken them five years, but she and Brian had ended up right where Claire said they would.

“You never mentioned that theory before.”

“Because I knew you’d refute it. Now you can’t.”

Andrea picked up her spoon and turned it over and over in her fingers. No, she couldn’t refute it, but she didn’t have to accept it, either. Men and women could be friends. She and Brian had managed it for years before the little mishap. “What happened was a fluke. If we hadn’t been drunk, we never would have gone to bed together.”

“Sweetie, you’re lying to yourself if you think that. It would have happened. Eventually. He’s a sexy guy and you’re a gorgeous woman, though it’s hard to tell with the way you’ve let your appearance go. If he never made a pass at you before, it’s because you always dress so…boring. No offense, but there are other colors out there besides gray and black. And why have all that long hair if you’re going to tie it back in a knot every day?”

Andrea glanced down at her black T-shirt paired with jeans and old, comfortable sandals—her standard weekend wear. “What’s wrong with the way I dress? I’m not trying to impress anyone.”

Claire patted her hand. “You’re not in any danger of doing that.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You know what I mean. I understand, Andrea. Your life is all about your career. You want to make it big, and I don’t blame you. Hell, I applaud you for it. I’m just saying it wouldn’t hurt to liven things up a little, and to learn to have a little fun.”

“I do know how to have fun.” Unfortunately, most of the fun she’d had lately had been with Brian. Movies on Saturday night, bowling or hitting the batting cages on Sundays. Runs in the park near work on weeknights. That was sure to change now, since things were so awkward between them. All her free time—not that she’d had much—had been spent with him. “I’m a regular barrel of laughs.”

“Okay, okay. Relax. I’m not trying to insult you. In fact, I think you’re a goddess. You slept with Brian Storm. Remember the cookout I had last summer? You brought him with you and all my friends went crazy over him.”

Andrea groaned. Why did Claire keep fixating on Andrea’s huge mistake? She remembered the cookout. Brian had gotten a couple of dates out of it. With Claire’s wild friends. At the time, she hadn’t thought anything of it. Now the idea of him with any of them made her blood boil. She clenched her hands into fists on the table.

“Are you really that upset about sleeping with him?” Claire asked.

“Of course I am. I’ve probably lost my best friend.”

“Maybe he wants more from you than friendship.”

Even if he did, she didn’t. Couldn’t. A romantic relationship between them would never work. They were in different places in their lives. “I doubt it. I’m not Brian’s type.”

“And what would that be?”

She wrinkled her nose. “A woman who wants to be a stay-at-home mom. He’s old fashioned like that. The type who likes being the provider. He wants a house and a marriage and a big family. Probably a bunch of dogs and cats, too. I don’t want any of that. At least not for a while.”

“How do you know he hasn’t changed his mind?”

“Please. I’ve known him for a long time. He doesn’t change. Period. Actually, he resists it big time.”

“Kind of like you?”

“No. Worse.” And that was why she was so shocked he hadn’t tried to pretend their night in bed had never happened. Usually when something bothered him and was out of his control, he acted like it didn’t exist. “He thrives on stability in every aspect of his life.”

“There’s nothing wrong with stability.”

“No, but he’s almost compulsive about it.” It was one of the few traits about him that bugged her. Claire didn’t realize it, but Andrea wasn’t the only one in need of lightening up. Brian was so stuck in his routine that he even wanted to eat at the same restaurants every week. She had to be sneaky about getting him to try new places.

“I think you’re trying to change the subject. Would it really be so bad to actually end up in a relationship with that impossibly sexy man?”

“Oh, okay. I see what this is about.” Andrea shook her head. Why hadn’t she known this was coming? For the past five years, Claire had been dropping little hints, trying to get Andrea to bring Brian around more often. It all made sense now. Andrea forced a smile, but inside she seethed. “Do you want him?”

Claire shrugged. Her expression turned serious for a few seconds before her playful smile was back full force. “Yeah, actually I do. But I can’t have him. He’s taken.”

Not even close. “No. Trust me, he’s not.”

 

 

 

On Monday morning, an hour before he had to leave for work, Brian slammed his fist into the punching bag hard enough to make pain radiate down his arm. His knuckles hurt like a sonofabitch, but he pushed past the throbbing. He’d been at it for the last hour, beating the shit out of the bag hanging from his basement ceiling. Any more and he’d be bleeding. If he wasn’t already. He’d thought a good workout would get Andrea off his mind, but he wasn’t that lucky. She was stuck there, not going anywhere, and until he talked to her at work later that day he had a feeling there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.

What the fuck had he been thinking?

For two days, he’d been berating himself over the situation with Andrea. The woman was his best friend, and he’d taken advantage. True, it had been her idea for him to stay, but he’d bought the wine. Suggested the dinner and practically dragged her to the restaurant with him. And then, when he’d known his control was hanging by a thread, he’d stayed at her apartment instead of being a gentleman and walking away. The whole thing was his fault. She deserved a better friend than him and he owed her an apology, which he’d give her if she ever spoke to him again. She certainly didn’t seem to be in the mood to return any of his calls. So much for the talk she promised him they’d have. How did she expect to work things out if she refused to talk to him?

Had the sex been so bad that she couldn’t even face him now? Had he been so bad? It shouldn’t matter to him, but every time he thought about her now, he ached. His cock had been semi-hard since he’d left her house, and now, thinking about her under him, screaming his name and clawing at his back, had it standing at full attention. He pressed his hand to his erection, wanting to ease the throbbing, but at the same time, he couldn’t let himself. How the hell was he supposed to reconcile what he wanted to do with what he’d done?

A big believer in monogamy, he’d never really understood what possessed some men to be driven solely by the act of sex. He’d had his fair share of one-night stands, but they always left him feeling empty. Cold. He usually preferred spending time with a woman outside of the bedroom before they ventured into that territory. He understood now. It was all about passion. Heat. The driving need to take. No woman had ever made him insane, but Andrea was pushing him toward insanity, and he hadn’t even seen her in days.

With a frustrated sigh, he grabbed his water bottle from a nearby shelf and downed the last half of the cold liquid in one gulp. Wiping his hand across the back of his neck, he made his way upstairs. He would have to find a way to get a certain woman off his mind if he planned to make it through the week at work. There, if he even looked at her funny, he risked not only his own job, but hers too. As much as he wanted her, there was only one solution to the problem. They would have to go back to being just friends, like they’d been for the last five years. There really was no other way.

In the shower minutes later, with the hot water beating on his back and steam clouding the air around him, he lost his resolve. He might not be able to have her again, but he needed some form of relief if he expected to be able to concentrate. He gripped his cock in his hand, pretending Andrea’s fingers were surrounding him instead. No, not her fingers. Her sex. Yeah, that was what he needed. Andrea lying on her back, legs parted, a welcoming smile on her face.

The wet heat of her had fit him so tight, pulling him in, drawing him deeper with every thrust. She’d been damned sexy, her hands and lips everywhere she could reach. Those soft moans she made when she was close to coming had been almost enough to drive him over the edge. Jesus. The woman was so hot she could turn him on without even being in the room. Why had he not realized how attracted he was to her? He’d been a complete idiot to keep her at arm’s length all this time.

He tightened his fist and closed his eyes, getting into the fantasy. He bucked his hips. The vision shifted until Andrea was kneeling in front of him in the shower, the wet strands of her hair wrapping around his legs as she wrapped her slender fingers around the base of his cock. She worked him in and out of her mouth, cupping his balls in her other hand, squeezing gently as she sucked him off.

She glanced up at him, a seductive smile in her eyes as she worked his erection harder. Soon he was moving his hips in time with her mouth, forcing his cock deeper every time she sucked him in. It wasn’t long before he came—then his fantasies of Andrea disappeared as cold, hard reality washed over him as his cock softened in his hand. He’d never get the chance to have Andrea on her knees in front of him. Hell, he’d be lucky if she didn’t slap him the next time she saw him. He’d been a first-class ass, and no matter how many times he tried, he couldn’t think up a decent excuse for his behavior.

He sank to the shower floor and rested his head against the wet tile. She’d kicked him out in the morning. Had barely been able to look at him. And to make matters worse, he actually cared. Not only about their friendship, but about something stronger. Shit. He was in a lot deeper than he’d thought.