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Why did he have to look so delicious tonight?
The dark jeans, the black button-down, the golden-brown hair that was currently just the right kind of messy, the dark-blue eyes that were so fixed on me that I couldn’t breathe.
I squeezed the glass, feeling the coolness of the wine under my sweaty fingers, and joked, “You’re very late.”
“You’re lucky I came at all.”
So, he was inthatkind of mood.
Damn.
I attempted to fill my lungs, my entire body a tight, nervous ball, and I shifted to the side so my back was resting against the door, moving out of the way for him to walk in. “What can I get you to drink?”
“I won’t be here long enough for that.”
Well, I’m not taking no for an answer … dick.
Once he was in the foyer, the movement sending me a full breeze of his cologne, I shut the door and headed straight for my bar. I’d picked up a bottle of bourbon just for tonight from the liquor store we both shopped at, the salesclerk helping me choose one of the best from their inventory. I unscrewed the top and poured several fingers’ worth in a small tumbler, and when I turned around, he was in the entryway of the living room, about ten feet behind me, his shoulder pressed against the corner of the wall with his arms crossed.
A position that, under any other circumstance, would have been so incredibly sexy.
But the scowl on his face ruined it.
“Come on.” I nodded toward the couch, and after I walked there, taking a seat toward the center, I added, “Join me.” I dangled the glass in the air to entice him.
“I knew this was a fucking bad idea.”
“Why?”
His exhale was long and loud. His hand then shot up to his head, his palm flat against his hair, rubbing toward his forehead and back to his neck. “Because there’s nothing for us to talk about. There’s no reason for me to even be here. Nothing that you can say will?—”
“I have a lot to say, Cooper.” My heart was pounding. “Come sit.” When he didn’t budge, I slid toward the right side of the couch, hoping that would encourage him. “Please.”
Hesitation and anger moved across his expression in waves, but he eventually took the spot on the opposite side of the couch, putting as much distance as possible between us. His fingers grazed mine as I reached forward and gave him the glass, my breath hitching from the contact.
It was just a touch.
It hadn’t even lasted a second.
But it was enough to shoot a round of tingles through my body.
His fingers were just that powerful. I had known that from the moment he touched me at the bar in the lobby of the hotel.
Because every day since, I’d thought about those fingers. I’d recalled each time they’d touched my body.
And I’d yearned for them.
I took a drink of my wine, swallowing to say, “I understand why you’re mad at me.”
“You couldn’t possibly.” The tumbler sat on his thigh, untouched, his posture as cold and uninviting as his words.
“No. I do.” I pushed up the sleeve of my sweater, instantly regretting it, and pulled it back down. “I’ve been thinking about your side of things and how it could look from your point of view. How you could have taken my actions and processed them, and I want to make a few things clear.” I took another sip, holding the gaze of his dark-blue eyes. “I didn’t know your family was looking at the land in Lake Louise. I didn’t assume we were the only ones viewing it, but I certainly had no idea you were going to be in Canada. And when I arrived at the bar and sat down, I didn’t know it was you at first. I mean, I figured it out before you introduced yourself, connecting you with the photos that I’d seen of you online, but I didn’t take that seat to intentionally put myself next to you.”
I glanced toward the top of my glass, remembering the moment it had hit me that Cooper Spade was the man sitting on the barstool to my right and how connecting those photos to the real thing was this overwhelming swish of electricity that didn’t just shock me, but practically choked me too.
He was just far too hot for his own good.
I wiped the sides of my mouth with my sleeve. “So, if you think I was there to get information out of you or that I had a motive or that my family had sent me there to talk to you, that’s not the case at all. Please don’t let any of that even cross your mind.”
