Red Hot Reunion - Bella Andre Page 0,50
work. He was a very busy, in demand man, and the fact that he was willing to give so much of his precious time to her meant a great deal.
Her cell phone rang, knocking her out of her musings. She reached into her purse, on the top of his dresser, and flipped open the top to see who was calling.
Her parents. Again. She didn’t want to answer it. Didn’t want to speak to them, but the way Jason had called her on her obvious avoidance of them, on the way she was hiding from their disapproval rankled.
Because it was so damn true.
She was determined to try and face her demons, one a time. Especially if it meant gaining Jason’s respect.
Taking a deep breath she said, “Hello.”
“Emma. Where are you?” Her mother didn’t wait for an answer, not when accusations and guilt were so much more fun. “We’ve been trying to reach you for nearly a week. Do you have any idea how worried sick we’ve been about you?”
“Mother,” Emma began, her brain whirring to come up with a way to explain the situation.
“That friend of yours, Katherine—”
“Kate.”
“As I was saying, Emma, we finally called that girl and she refused to tell us where you were. Refused!
Just wait until she’s a mother and her daughter runs off in the middle of a meal without a word to her parents about where she is going.”
Emma hated to hear her best friend be so mistreated. “She was only trying to protect me.”
Jane sniffed. “At least she told us you hadn’t been in a car crash. Your father nearly had a coronary over it all.”
Emma sorely doubted that. Her father was in better shape than most thirty-year-olds. But it was better to humor her mother than to give in to the snort of disbelief gurgling around in her throat.
“Tell Daddy I’m sorry.”
“You can tell him yourself tonight at dinner.”
“No!”
She couldn’t go back there. To her parents’ house, to her house, to her life. Not yet.
“Don’t raise your voice to me young lady.”
Letting herself lash out at her mother for the first time in, well, ever, Emma said, “If you haven’t noticed, I’m thirty-two, Mother. I’m not a little girl anymore who needs to tell you where I am every moment. I have my own life to live. And I’m living it!”
“I never thought I’d hear my own daughter speak to me like this. We raised you better than that.”
Emma tried to fight back the guilt at telling her mother off, but it was no use. She couldn’t change thirty-two years of behavior overnight. Even if she desperately wanted to.
“I’m in Napa. With Jason.”
Silence met her declaration. “Jason? You don’t know any Jason. Is he a new client?”
Emma hated to dash her mother’s hopes that this was only about business, but for the first time she wanted to come clean, no matter the repercussions. And she knew there would be consequences.
But if she denied being with Jason now to her parents, wasn’t it the same as turning her back on him in college?
“Jason Roberts. My friend from Stanford. He’s a chef now. A world-famous, incredibly talented chef.”
“I hope you’re not breaking your diet, Emma.”
Inwardly she fumed. How dare her mother tell her what she could and couldn’t eat. She wasn’t a toddler anymore.
“His food is divine,” she declared.
“You cannot be serious.”
“I am, Mother. And his food isn’t the only thing that’s wonderful.”
She barely stopped herself from saying,He’s the best lover I’ve ever had, hands down.
“I have to go now. Give my love to Daddy.” She put her thumb on the end button. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
Closing her cell, she turned off the ringer and shoved it in the back of the top dresser drawer.
“Nice performance,” Jason said, leaning against the open French doors.
“I didn’t know you were listening.”
Raising an eyebrow, he said, “I’ll make you breakfast.”
She followed him through the garden and into the patio door that lead to the kitchen, wondering if she’d unwittingly passed another test.
“Think your parents are going to send out the cavalry?” Jason asked as he whipped eggs, butter, and fresh feta cheese for omelets. His words were light but he wasn’t joking.
“No,” she said, thinking,I hope not. “They’re just over-protective,” she said, sighing and wondering why she was defending them to Jason. She should have been apologizing to him for how they’d treated him all those years ago. Jason slid a full plate across the island and she admitted, “You know what I’m just starting to