Redeeming Her SEAL (ASSIGNMENT Caribbean Nights #9) - Kat Cantrell Page 0,20
the receptionist into making, Charlie headed into Freeport again. Funny how he’d managed to stay away from the city pretty easily for the last year, but it was his most common destination lately.
This time would be different though. He was an adult who had a business to run. To save. Dr. Reed could help with that, and he’d maintain a professional distance in order to secure it.
Since he had an appointment, the receptionist waved him right to the elevator with a smile. Audra’s office door was open, and he took a half second to watch her work at her desk, head bent over some paperwork. She massaged the back of her neck while she read, a small frown marring her luscious lips.
The feel of those lips sliding across his slammed through him without warning. Audra had been a volcano in his arms, so hot, so ready to explode, and he’d been right there with her, ready, willing, and able to pretend things were like they had been once. She’d made him feel whole, alive, clean. And she still did.
Until she’d cooled it off. And that’s when reality had intruded.
There was no pretending. He couldn’t unimagine her twined with Jared Anderson, laughing against his mouth the way she’d often done with Charlie. She’d been so unapologetic, refusing to acknowledge that she might have done something wrong, insisting that she had a right to do as she pleased no matter how hurtful it was to others. Her betrayal rode shotgun in his chest for a reason. To keep him from making a mistake.
Bad thing to recall. Charlie knocked on the door, determined to keep it civil. Unlike the last time.
Audra glanced up, her expression expectant, and then her gaze hardened. “I didn’t order a booty call.”
“I’m not here with one.”
Silently, they assessed each other, and all the unspoken things spilled into the room between them. The question she’d challenged him to ask filled his mouth, jockeying for position on his tongue. Why? Why Jared Anderson? Of all people she could have moved on with. Especially given that it didn’t seem to have worked out.
He didn’t care. Or more to the point, he was trying really hard not to care. Because he shouldn’t. They’d both made choices they couldn’t undo. What was the point of rehashing it?
No point. Except for the fact that one kiss had woken up things inside that were still scored with Audra’s signature, and it was fairly obvious that his feelings for her hadn’t faded one iota.
This appointment might have been a mistake. It was easy to be rational, to convince himself he could take her or leave her when he wasn’t in the same room with her, breathing in her scent. Now that he was here, he yearned to touch her, to round that desk and pull her into his arms to finish that kiss. To find out if there might be the slightest possibility that he could strip away all the bad vibes between them, even though he knew it was a lost cause.
“Go away,” she ordered and pointedly ignored him in favor of her paperwork. But her hand never left her neck, massaging it absently.
“I have an appointment.”
Audra glanced at her open laptop on the corner of the desk and swore. “How did you sneak that in there?”
He shrugged, glad he’d had the foresight to keep this aboveboard. Professional. “Resourceful, I guess.”
“I don’t have to honor it.” She crossed her arms. “It’s precious how you managed to avoid me for so long only to keep popping up. What can I do to put us back in the place where we don’t see each other on a regular basis?”
Despite everything, that stung. Was it really so easy for her to dismiss him, to cut him off as if he’d never existed, never had even the smallest impact? Obviously so. She’d walked away from him in that alleyway without a backward glance.
“The Caribbean is a small place. We’re bound to run into each other,” he acknowledged with a nod to her earlier point, carefully composing his face to avoid giving her the slightest clue that she’d affected him. “Let’s call a truce.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You want something.”
Yeah. But what he wanted was impossible. Instead of taking a seat—because the welcome still didn’t seem all that warm—he leaned on the door jamb.
The distance was probably better anyway, especially if he actually planned to cross the finish line on securing her help. “How much do you know about Aqueous Adventures?”