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And yet, I was walking away.
Why do you care?
I shouldn’t have. I wished I didn’t, but I wasn’t blind to the fact that the way I’d felt about Allie, the way I still felt was something that happened once in a lifetime, and it wasn’t something that just went away.
I locked myself in my office, tempted to make everyone else’s Christmas Eve as miserable as my own. I could call up my team, set up a conference, be the Grinch.
I checked myself and instead read all the business news, studied financial forecasts, and tried to get Allie out of my mind.
Why do you care?
I chuckled bitterly.
Because you’re in my blood, Allie. Forever and always. You’re a part of me.
Even if I told her that, it wouldn’t matter to her, or it would only matter until she found another reason to work herself into exhaustion with as many movie projects as she could.
I remained in the study all day and ate my dinner from a tray Colleen brought to me.
I worked till close to midnight. When I finally went out into the hallway, the house was dark and silent. I went downstairs to the living room, where Christmas decorations twinkled in the tree. At the bar, I poured myself a scotch. After downing it, I took the whole bottle and started back toward my bedroom. If work hadn’t helped, maybe a drink would make me forget the woman whose presence was rendering me unable to concentrate on anything else.
No such luck.
She was coming down the stairs as I climbed up. Even with her hair mussed and her face scrubbed, she was easily the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She was wearing plain white pajamas in watered silk, and I briefly imagined peeling the delicate fabric from her limbs and feasting my eyes on what lay beneath.
She stopped walking when she saw me, and one hand went up to smooth her hair.
“I was going to the library,” she said. “To find something to read.”
Once, a long time ago, I’d stocked up on all the books by her favorite authors. Those books were shelved, still unread, because while we were married, she’d been too busy to come enjoy them.
I shrugged and lifted the bottle I was holding. “I needed a drink.”
“Many drinks,” she observed, her lips pursed in a delightfully disapproving expression that made me want to laugh or kiss them.
“I’m assuming you couldn’t sleep either.” I grinned. “You could help me with this bottle.”
She shook her head. “I’d rather not…in fact, I’ve changed my mind about the book. I think I’m going to try to sleep after all.”
“Wait.” I said it before I could think, before I could stop myself. There was a desire inside me not to let her go, at least for now. “Come on, Allie,” I said. “We can have a drink together.”
She shook her head. “I think we’d better not,” she said softly. “Good night Braden.”
I watched her walk away, and this time I allowed myself to remember the one time we’d been alone together, after our separation. As the memories surfaced, I felt my body harden, felt the desire for her that never really went away.
Maybe it was best, I decided. Maybe it was best if we just avoided each other.
Book Three
Past
Seventeen
Allie
“Ari sent a script over,” Meredith said, handing me a printed stack and setting my coffee down on the end table beside me. “It’s for a TV show.”
“Limited series?”
