Worth the Risk_ A Contemporary - Megan Hart Page 0,64

stopped short of grabbing his crotch, but his gesture made his intentions clear. Arden felt her face twist in an expression of distaste so blatant there was no way Brian could miss it. He recoiled, charming smile gone.

“Fine,” he said, straightening his tie. “Consider the dinner my parting gift to you.”

“Thank you,” Arden said again, “but I’ll be happy to pay for my half.”

Brian slapped down a sheaf of bills on the table. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you? Then you could be justified in turning me down. Well, too bad. I took you out, I’m paying for dinner, and you can go home with a guilty conscience.”

This made her brows lift in amazement. “I have nothing to feel guilty about!”

Brian leaned so close she could smell his cologne. “You led me on.”

Had she been catapulted back to high school and her one and only date with the school jock? He’d tried all the same lines to get into her pants. She hadn’t fallen for them at sixteen. She wasn’t going to fall for them now.

“Goodbye, Brian.” Arden tucked her purse under her arm and turned on her heel. By the time she got to the doorway, tiny hitching gasps were threatening to turn into full-fledged guffaws. The situation didn’t exactly seem as though it called for laughter, but it wasn’t worthy of tears either. She got into her car and stifled a cackle with the back of her hand. Then she looked at her reflection in the rear view mirror.

“Nice first date,” she said to the empty car, and laughed again.

A few minutes later, she’d picked up her children. The girls were both full of stories about their night’s events. Aislin had been to a Brownies’ sundae party to kick off their fall fundraiser, and Maeve had been invited to a movie with her friend Katie. Both girls were high on sugar and up-past-bedtime excitement, but their excited chatter gave Arden the chance to drive and think about her date with Brian.

She ought to have felt worse about it. She’d been a bad judge of character. Brian’s charm had turned sour faster than milk on a hot day. His expectation of fast, easy sex had affronted her...not because she was looking for a boyfriend, but rather because he’d assumed getting in her pants meant not giving a damn about anything else. Getting laid was one thing. Getting laid by a moron was something else entirely.

She glanced in the rear mirror to catch sight of her daughters still babbling to each other about their evenings. Arden’s throat closed at the sight of their sweet faces. She was a mother, a mommy, not some siren of sex. Not even a M.I.L.F. At least, she’d never thought so.

Making love with Jason had always been good, even in the dry times when pregnancy and caring for infants had sapped her sexual desire. He’d always made her believe there was more to her than changing diapers and cleaning toilets. He’d made her feel like a woman even at her times of lowest self-confidence, with baby weight and leaking breasts, greasy hair and bad-fitting clothes. Jason had always made Arden feel beautiful...and loved.

But those feelings had been saved for him alone. If other men looked at her with appreciation in their eyes, she’d never noticed, content to be a wife and mother. Today had been her first experience with seeing male reaction to her in twelve years—since meeting Jason.

Knowing that a man, even a man as scummy as Brian had turned out to be, found her attractive could not offend her. Discovering she was desirable after so long pushing away that part of herself was a heady feeling. That some man other than the one she’d married and invested her life in could want to take her to bed...that made Arden grin and giggle out loud.

“Mo-oom! It’s not funny!” Aislin’s cry tore Arden’s attention away from her thoughts.

“I’m sorry, honey. What’s not funny?”

Aislin gave a long-suffering sigh. “Brittney Zook at Brownies said her mom’s going to buy her a bra, and she made fun of me because I don’t have one.”

Arden thought carefully before replying, flicking on her turn signal and heading down the street toward their house. “Do you want a bra, Aislin?”

Maeve burst out laughing. “She doesn’t have any boobies!”

“They’re called breasts,” Aislin told her sister haughtily before saying to Arden, “No, but I don’t want Brittney to make fun of me either.”

Arden pulled into the driveway, turned off the engine and turned in