Internal Fixation - Tawdra Kandle Page 0,65

has the capacity to destroy us.” With a trembling hand, she reached up to brush over my cheek. I turned my head and pressed a kiss into her palm. “Don’t you see that I’m right? I like you, Deacon. And I’m not going to deny that I want you, even now. But if we want to make our professional relationship work, then we have to be vigilant about not doing . . . this.” She pointed to me and then to herself.

“I want to go on record as disagreeing with you in the strongest possible terms.” I reached for her again, but she stepped back. “I don’t see any reason why this can’t work, if you want me and I want you . . . and we don’t let our work get in the way of our personal relationship.”

“And we did so well at that before,” Emma snorted. “Should I remind you of what happened in this very office, on that sofa, a few nights before you left town? You accused me of some horrible things, and then when we fought about it, we ended up having very . . . intense sex on that sofa. It wasn’t a good idea. And it can’t happen again. That’s why we have to be smart, Deacon. We have to just focus on our work together and ignore everything else.”

“Ignore it until it goes away?” I taunted. “Do you really think it will? I can tell you, Emma, that I was away from you, on the other side of the world, for over a year, and I never stopped wanting you, not even for one second. I didn’t touch another woman while I was there—or anywhere else. There hasn’t been another person for me but you. And there won’t be, because you’re the only one I want. It appears to be a permanent condition—the wanting only you, I mean. I don’t think there’s a cure.”

Emma smiled, but I saw the sadness there. “The cure is time and redirecting our energy to our work.” When I began to argue again, she just shook her head. “I’m not going to change my mind on this, Deacon. And I’m going to leave right now, because we’re not getting anywhere. I don’t want to be angry at you. We need to be able to work together. So . . .” She stepped back again. “I’m going to say thank you for letting me know about the paper being published, and thank you for the discussion about George’s treatment. And thanks for the champagne, too.” She inclined her head. “Good night, Deacon.”

“Emma—” I called her name, but she was gone, almost sprinting through the door. I heard her heels clicking against the tile in the hall before the sound faded away, leaving me alone with a half-drunk bottle of champagne, my own churning head, and a heart full of regrets.

12

Emma

“You know, I never pictured myself as a farmer.” Noah leaned on the shovel he’d been using to turn over soil for me. Lifting the hem of his T-shirt, he mopped at his face, revealing those rippling, impossibly firm abs.

I refrained from swallowing my tongue and cleared my throat. “No? Well, you make a pretty damn fine one, even so.”

Behind the relative safety of my dark, reflective sunglasses, I indulged myself in ogling him. Denying my physical attraction to this man was getting harder and harder. Yeah, that was exactly the right description. Everything was hard: being around Noah and not touching him in ways I knew I shouldn’t; ignoring his increasingly suggestive comments; reminding myself why the two of us didn’t really make sense . . .

And then there was what had happened last week with Deacon. I’d spent several long nights flagellating myself for kissing him. I could blame the champagne—and that was probably part of it, since my inhibitions had been lowered. I could also justify what I’d done as a need for closure—that the kiss we’d shared had been a good-bye, the ending we’d both had to have so that we could move on.

But in the darkness of my bedroom at night, I could admit to myself that I was still drawn to Deacon. Drawn to him—hell, that was just a fancy way of saying that I wanted him. Our nights together ran on a constant replay in my mind, no matter how much I tried to turn them off. There was something between us, some kind of pull that was almost painful to resist.