Page 68 of Old Flames

Stung, she shot upright, exposing her breasts and her indignation. “Isn’t this what you want?”

“July,” he said in that maddening tone, “what I’ve wanted from you for a while is a straight answer to any question. Let’s clear that hurdle first.”

Jules reclined, laughing. “Suit yourself, man!” she said, with forced ambivalence. “Don’t say I never met you halfway.”

He smiled, amused, but did not budge, keeping a safe distance. Could she blame him? She’d been particularly bitchy tonight. “Come closer,” she said. “I don’t bite.”

“But I do.”

His answer sent goose bumps down her arms. “I’ll take the risk.”

He sat at the edge of the tub and stretched his legs.

“Good,” she said. “What should we talk about?”

“How about the night we met?”

“What’s there to talk about?”

“Why it still haunts us,” he said. “And don’t deny it.”

She caught a large soap bubble in her hand and blew gently on it until it drifted and popped. It was time to clear the air. “Alright.”

“I thought you were the cleverest person I’d ever met.”

Jules wanted to say something punchy, anything except what slipped out of her mouth. “I wanted to impress you.”

“You didn’t have to try hard,” he said. “You were calm, confident. Meanwhile, everyone in that dining room was jockeying for attention.”

“I was on the clock,” Jules reminded him. “We weren’t paid to peacock around.”

“When I found your book all those years later, it confirmed what I suspected. You’re brilliant.”

“Thanks,” Jules said quietly. Despite herself, she still wanted to impress him. That feeling would likely never go away.

He narrowed his eyes, as if looking directly into the past. “You were on a break,” he said. “I worried I was bothering you.”

“Oh, you were,” Jules said with a laugh. “Some things don’t change.”

“I wish we had more time out there. I regret letting you walk away.”

“You had no choice,” Jules said. “I had to get back to work, and you had to get back to being honored and celebrated.”

“I thought we had something,” he confessed.

“We did,” Jules said. “Gross economic disparity.”

“Hey! I was broke, too,” he said. “Critics loved my book, but it wasn’t selling.”

“There’s broke with prospects, and there’s flat-out broke,” Jules said. “You get the difference?”

“Is that why you hated me?” he asked.

“I never hated you,” she said. “I hated how much I liked you.”

If he wanted straight answers, he’d get them tonight.

He reached into the water. The back of his hand skimmed the C curve of her waist. Jules curled her fingers around his wrist and stopped his hand’s downward trajectory. “You can get in or stay out.”