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“No, nope. Still tastes like smoke in liquid form mixed with rubbing alcohol.”
“That’s first-class liquefied smoke, thank you very much,” I corrected her, picking the glass up myself. I used my thumb to wipe off the little smudge of her lipstick on the edge of the glass, and she watched me swipe that off my thumb with my tongue.
The sight made her chew her lip for barely a second before she tore her eyes away from it.
“Now who’s admiring their ex?” I challenged her in a lower tone, but she pretended she didn’t hear me and just swallowed.
“What about you?” she changed the subject hurriedly. “What brings Chase Hawthorne to my little corner of the mountains?”
“You make it sound so personal. I have to admit, this place does have something of a homey charm to it.”
“Good to see you’re still as good at deflecting questions as you used to be,” she pointed out, and my smug smile broadened.
Of course, I couldn’t break the mood and tell her why I was really here. If it had been anyone else in the world, even other exes, I would have had no trouble sticking to business. Haley, however, was someone special. There was something about her that drew me to her, like a magnetism I couldn’t resist toying with.
I loved getting her worked up, and she loved it when I did so. We could almost forget we were exes.
“I’m just passing through on business,” I lied on the spot. “There’s a meeting I have to attend in Aspen, but it’s going to be crowded with people I’m not exactly keen on spending a days wrestling with over a conference table, so I figured I might as well stay somewhere nice beforehand to unwind. It’s hard to resist the snow-covered mountains when it’s this perfect outside.” While her gaze was on me, I let her watch my eyes glide down her figure and drink her in. “I wasn’t expecting things to be so nice on the inside, though.”
Her blush grew deep, and she turned her head, clearing her throat.
“Aspen’s lovely this time of year. I’ve gotten used to the pace of life in a small resort town, though.”
“You always did prefer q
uiet retreats over the party life,” I recalled. “I always liked that about you.”
“I suppose I could have chosen something quieter than running a resort if I really wanted that kind of life, though,” she admitted.
“I can imagine things get stressful, running things all the way out here on your own.” I was going to tease her out just a little further and see how far I could coax her from that shell she always hid behind. “There can be some advantages to having people just come and go from your world so quickly, though. A woman like you could see a lot of action on that front.”
Her eyes widened when she realized what I was implying, and she turned her head with an embarrassed smile. “No. I mean, no, not really.”
“That’s surprising,” I mused, narrowing my eyes. “I’d think a woman like you would be in an ideal place for a little distraction.”
“Well, work eats up a lot of time, and besides that, there’s nobody around besides college kids coming in and out, and-” She stopped herself, giving a laugh and shaking her head. “Wait, why are we talking about this?”
“I wasn’t talking about anything that serious, but now, I think the fact that you were willing to go on about it so quickly tells me work has been getting to you.”
She opened and closed her mouth, failing to find words. I grinned.
“How about that drink?”
“I really shouldn’t,” she tried to insist, but the reluctant smile on her face and the way she was running her fingers through her hair told me she desperately wanted it.
“Won’t the resort survive for a few minutes while you catch up with a paying customer who happens to be an old friend?”
“An old ex,” she corrected me. There was the faintest hint of a challenge in her voice, and it sent a shiver of delight up my back. There was a side to Haley under all that energized, high-strung businesswoman that I loved teasing to the surface.
“An old ex, then,” I conceded, not moving a muscle as I watched her.
She chewed on her lip a moment. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”
“Only one way to find out,” I challenged her. She watched me with an even gaze for a few moments, and I kept eye contact with her the whole time.
I even held it while I waved a hand to the waiter passing nearby.
“Double gin and elderflower tonic, top shelf. A Plymouth gin, if you have it.”
