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“Most the ones I hang with do, but then again, I’m in the fashion industry. So give it to me from a layman’s point of view,” she said, looping an arm around his neck and studying him intently. “What do you think about Armani’s newest line? Or Tom Ford’s?”
Graham opened his mouth but couldn’t figure out how to get out of this one. “Riley, I have no clue.”
She studied him, this time a little longer. “You’re not really gay, are you?”
“No.”
“So you’re unavailable because you’re with someone?”
“Sort of.”
She sank against him. “Well, then, do me a favor. For the next few minutes pretend like she’s watching and show her what she’s missing not dancing with you.”
But she wasn’t watching. Graham had seen Tess leave, looking as if a pack of wildebeest chased her. And he knew some of it had to do with Riley, some of it had to do with Nick but most of it had to do with what had passed between the two of them—the passion neither of them could control.
Thing was, Graham no longer wanted to control it.
He just couldn’t figure out how to get from Point A to Point B. Usually that was his greatest talent. That was his freaking job. But this whole situation he and Tess had blundered into was like tiptoeing through a minefield. One wrong step and…
“Just hold me a little closer, please,” Riley said, her eyes not so much drunk as… sad?
“Sure,” he said, gathering her up tight against him.
“Thank you.” She sighed against his lapel. “I recently split with my boyfriend of two years. It’s been pretty hellacious. I shouldn’t have drank so much and propositioned you that way. Thought it might help stop the freaking bleeding inside, you know?”
“It’s fine, Riley,” he murmured against her hair. And then he did what she suggested. He danced with the brokenhearted Riley like he meant it, holding her tight, treating her like she was the center of his world, sliding his hands against her back, even giving her a little twirl.
When the music died, he gently brushed a kiss against her cheek. “Be happy, Riley.”
She looked up and smiled, still a little shaky on her feet. “Yeah, I wish I could. Things would be a whole lot easier if he wasn’t already married.”
“Sometimes the things that stand between two people in love are insurmountable. And sometimes we can knock down those walls… or bridge those waters.”
“Yeah, but not in my case. His wife is pregnant.” Riley lifted herself on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Good luck with Tess, Graham.”
He stood alone on the dance floor as Riley faded into the other dancers.
The woman had known him for all of half an hour and had known he was in love with Tess. That’s how obvious his feelings were. But what could he do about it? How could he break down the enormous wall between them?
It would already have been there if he’d come back and she wasn’t an Ullo. He’d have had to grovel, admit to her his weakness, his greatest fear of being a failure like his father. But add in the fact he’d taken the job she’d expected to get, her father’s terminal illness, and the fact they were rivals scrabbling for the same accounts, and that wall felt never ending. His own personal Great Wall of China.
But walls could be torn down. And he would have to figure out a way to reach the woman he wanted on the other side.
Like a knight of old, he needed a plan to breach the castle. If he wanted Tess Ullo, he’d have to do more than mope and complain.
He had to be a man of action.
SUNDAYDAWNEDHOTfor early May. Tess had struggled from bed, forced herself to go for a run, showered, and journeyed to her parents early as requested by her mother.
She had thought about faking a migraine because the idea of bed and a never-ending series of Lifetime movies seemed to suit how she felt today. But duty called, and she found herself entering her parents’ house via the back door.
“Hello there, my Tess,” her mother said, from her position behind the mammoth stove. “You look pretty this morning, hon. I like the way you’re wearing your hair.”
She’d braided it down the side. “Thanks.”
“And you’ve lost a little weight.”
Not sure if that was good or bad. Her mother was always trying to fatten her up with Italian pastries and calorie-laden pastas. “Stress takes it off me. You know that.”
