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“Don’t, okay? The quicker all this gets started, the quicker I get all of you out of my hair.” She distanced herself again. “I’ll give Faro a call after my meeting…”
Grae was barely listening. The reference she’d made to her hair had his eyes fixed upon the fluffy mass. Coarse-textured and flowing, it framed her round face like an enchanting dark cloud. He knew she usually tamed the wild tresses into a thick ball, only leaving it wild about her face when she was heading out for the evening or going to bed…
Who did she say she was meeting again? he wondered.
Something to do with business, but it mattered little. Tielle could capture a man’s eyes and stir his appraisal—no matter the venue. Her curvy proportions, untamed hair and baby-doll allure had anchored him with an invisible yet irresistible hook since the day he’d met her.
He was still anchored to her. Of course he was, with only his anger and suspicion to hold on to. She was right—what he’d lost, it was all on him.
“Grae?” Tielle waited until he’d focused on her. “Is that it?”
He watched her so meaningfully in that moment that Tielle was forced to glance down at her dress to see if it was still clinging to her body.
“For now.” He pushed off the arm of the chair. “Thanks, Tel.”
She managed to stay on her feet until he’d pulled the door shut behind him.
* * *
“I’m so sorry, Ti.” Laura offered her apology while adding more of the ginger dressing to her salad. “He was already here when I got in this morning.” Done with the dressing, she blew at a tuft of her bobbed hair. “And we must not forget our helpful man-crazy staff. They’d already given him your full itinerary for the day.”
“Our man-crazy staff?” Tielle gave Laura a look of mock reproach. “Are you trying to suddenly distance yourself from the bunch?”
“Well, hell, Ti, I mean, can you blame us?” Laura was crunching around a mouthful of salad by then. “Especially when it’s Graedon Clegg who comes a-callin’? What woman wouldn’t drop everything to…help him?” She closed her eyes over her word selection and winced. “Sorry.”
“No…” Tielle was giggling a mite helplessly. “I need the laugh.”
“So?” Laura pretended to be focused on the wide salad bowl she clutched. “You gonna tell me what happened in there? Every woman out here was falling all over the man when he got here. He was polite enough.” She shrugged beneath the lime-green cropped neck sweater she wore. “He really was pretty sweet, but he didn’t really come alive until you walked in. You were ranting so…didn’t even notice him following you to your office like you were dragging him along with a leash. Humph…pretty amazing to watch.”
It was pretty amazing to hear, and Tielle listened to the recap in awe.
“It’s been a year and I still can’t quite wrap my head around what happened.” A shiver touched her arm, and she began a slow rub to rush warmth to the limb. “We loved each other—wanted each other all the time.” Tielle let her lashes drift downward and swallowed with effort as emotion promised to close her throat while memories set her arousal mounting. She shook her head in a poor attempt to ward them off.
“What went wrong between us didn’t have to.” She looked out at the sunny environment beyond the long windows running past the tables in the staff cafeteria where she and Laura had their lunch.
“I’m sorry, Ti. It—it’s none of my business.”
“It’s okay.” Tielle leaned over to warm her fingertips against her teacup. “Maybe talking about it will help. Nothing else does.” She looked at Laura squarely then. “Grae wanted me to stop talking to his brother and I wouldn’t. I thought I could fix whatever was wrong between them.” She considered the shade of the blueberry tea then. “I didn’t know how impossible that was until I lost him—until I lost my husband. It’s not like I didn’t see it coming, but helping people find their way back to one another is what I’m supposed to be best at, right?”
