Worth the Risk_ A Contemporary - Megan Hart Page 0,85

what to type. If she said yes, and he didn’t call, she’d feel like the worst sort of ass. If she said no after what they’d just done...

She took the easier way out.

shesewsbuttons: I don’t think so.

With a beep, the computer told her he’d signed off. Just like that, gone. Not another word, like because he didn’t get what he wanted, he stomped off in a huff.

“Typical!” Arden closed down the browser window so there’d be no more surprises waiting for her. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at her desktop wallpaper. “Can you believe that jerk?”

Keanu said nothing, just gave her a knowing look from under his inscrutable black sunglasses. “Should I have said yes?”

Arden sighed and got up from her chair. Her entire body felt languid and luxurious...like she’d just had fantastic sex. Well, hadn’t she?

Chapter 7

“How’d it go?”

Arden rolled over to look at the clock, phone clutched in one hand, while she swiped at her eyes with the other. “Gah.”

“That good?”

“Lida, it’s too early to talk.”

“Up late, huh?”

She couldn’t bear to break Lida’s excited bubble, but she’d never lied to her friend and she wasn’t about to start now. “I didn’t do it with him.”

Silence. “No?”

“No. Really. We had a great time, and I thought I wanted to...”Arden sighed. “But then I didn’t. It’s complicated.”

Lida made a clucking sound. “I know, hon. But you had a good time?”

“Yes. Definitely.”

“And you’ll go out with him again?”

Arden smiled as she snuggled down further into the pillows. “I think so. Maybe.”

Lida crowed so loudly Arden had to hold the phone away from her ear. “You liked him!”

“I liked him.”

“But...?”

“But nothing.” She looked at the clock again. “Listen, Bev and my dad are bringing the kids over in about two hours, and I have a lot of work I need to catch up on before then. Can I call you later?”

Lida made a disappointed noise. “Okay. You working tomorrow?”

“Bright and early, as usual. The girls will be in school and out from under my feet.” Sudden melancholy overtook her. “I didn’t mean that. I love my girls.”

“I know what you meant, Arden. You don’t have to explain it to me. I’ve got a truckload of the angel- monsters myself, remember?” Lida gave a low, hoarse chuckle. “And speaking of them, I hear Danny pounding on Henry pretty hard. I’d better go referee. I’ll stop in tomorrow, okay?”

They hung up and Arden pulled the covers up to her nose, reliving last night. Had that really happened? Had she really had cybersex with Shane? Oh, good gravy. She really had.

She couldn’t stop smiling.

It was wrong. But it felt oh, so good. Decadent, like eating the entire box of Godiva by herself, only without the damage to her thighs.

She stretched and yawned, luxuriating in the soft bed and warm covers. She reached out a hand to the empty space beside her. For the first time since Jason’s death, she didn’t want to weep at the vast expanse in the king-size bed beside her. She rolled over to look at the place he’d always slept, at the extra pillow she hadn’t been able to bear removing, though she never used it.

She’d turned a corner. Maybe not in a way everyone would approve of, but her date last night and the session on the computer had done more than ease the sexual frustration she’d been trying to ignore. It had opened her up to starting fresh.

“Good morning,” she said aloud, to nobody, and didn’t feel sad that she spoke to an empty room.

Her breakfast of bagel and coffee interrupted by the slamming of the front door, Arden put down the thick Sunday paper and turned in her chair toward the sound of pounding feet. Two shouting voices greeted her. Four small arms flung themselves around her. Two sets of sweet pink lips fought to kiss her cheeks first.

“Hello, my lovelies,” she said in what the girls called her pirate voice. She squeezed them until they screamed, then swatted them on the rears and sent them to the cupboard for the doughnuts she’d brought home from the bakery. “Hi, Bev. Where’s Dad?”

Bev gave one of her patented eye rolls. “Worn out from those two.” She jerked her thumb toward the powdered-sugar-smeared Aislin and Maeve, who giggled. “They kept us up all night.”

Arden turned to give a mock stern look. “Did you really?”

“Yes!” cried Aislin.

Her sister answered, “Yes, Mommy, we did.”

Bev nodded with a wry grin. “They sure did. All the way to ten P.M.”

“Is