I’m talking about the kind of hate that gets stronger over time, rotting you from the inside out. Sometimes it simmers. Sometimes it boils. Either way, the hate has no problem whatsoever existing alongside my ongoing fascination with this one woman.
Even so, my lingering hard feelings don’t stop me from staring at her. And I doubt they’ll ever stop me from wanting her.
You can’t blame me for that. She’s got a Liv Tyler vibe that’s enough to make people lightheaded when they see her. But her hair is blacker, her skin paler and her eyes bluer. Her dimpled smile is all her own, as radiant as a Tahitian sunrise. She’s always been lean and athletic. That hasn’t changed if the way her strappy and slinky black dress pours over her thighs is any indication. With a dress like that, you start to wonder about the panty situation. If any. She wears a pair of killer heels that really work for her, but not as well as they work for me and my impressionable dick.
She laughs at something the woman says. The husky sound combines with the flash of her white teeth and the confident way she flips her hair over her bare shoulder to form something glorious. I can’t lie about it. She’s on top of the world tonight, clearly. I allow myself to be mesmerized and wallow in that smile for several suspended seconds.
I’m allowed. I haven’t seen it for twelve years.
But then, without warning, she turns her head in my direction as though she’s heard my heart thundering over all the ambient noise. No surprise there. The two of us were always great at creating our own energy field. Our gazes connect across the ten feet that separate us. I feel that connection as a zap of electricity shoots straight up my spine. She stiffens, her eyes widening. Her smile fades, leaving something stricken behind as color floods her face. She recovers quickly, peeling her attention away from me and recapturing most of her social graces for the benefit of her friend, but she’s not that good an actress.
Except for the part when she acted like she gave a rat’s ass about me back when we were in college.
That was good.
This? The unmistakable flare of panic in her big baby blues? The glitch in her composure as she smooths her hair with a hand that now looks a little shaky? She’s rattled and she can’t hide it. I consider that a win. God knows she’s done nothing but rattle me since the day I laid eyes on her.
In a stroke of good luck, I complete my approach just as the woman excuses herself from Mia, leaving Mia to hesitate before squaring her shoulders and turning to face me. Maybe she was tempted to take off with the woman, but the Mia I thought I knew would never do that. She’s many things—merciless witch comes to mind—but a coward isn’t one of them.
Sure enough, she hitches up her chin, eyes glittering.
“Liam Wilder. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
I shrug and slide my hands in my pockets, buying myself time to get my shit together. It’s not easy to think straight while being in her presence and hearing the throaty sound of her voice again.
“I’m full of surprises.”
“That you are. I didn’t know that Michael had invited you.”
“He didn’t, but I’m sure that was an oversight.” I ease closer, arrested by the subtle defiance in her expression and by her scent, some carnal blend of flowers that defies description and is exactly the way I remember it. “You probably didn’t know I was back in town.”
“Odd, huh? You’d think a news flash like that would make the front page of the Times.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. One of the most intriguing things about Mia has always been the way she sharpens her tongue and wields it like a samurai sword, slicing and dicing people like a professional.
“Actually, Michael did mention you were back in the city.” She hesitates. “And that your mother had died. Sorry to hear that. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”
“Thanks,” I say, which is all I can manage when I think about my mother’s decline and death. She wasn’t a gem in the mother department, but she was the only parent I had left, given my father’s sudden cardiac arrest death right before I started college. Not to mention the fact that Mia seems concerned for me, and a tender emotion from Mia is, sadly,