No Denying You (21 page)

Emma turned into the driveway of the house that she shared with Brant. They had decided to move in together almost immediately and, since he lived on the beach, it hadn’t been a tough decision for her. She parked beside the sports car that he let her drive on rare occasions. She usually got a charge out of him sitting in it beside her, gritting his teeth and trying to act like he trusted her with his baby.
Men and their toys.

The last three months with Brant had been close to paradise. The verbal sparring was still there, which made the sex afterward only that much more amazing. Her uptight man had no reservations between the sheets . . . at all. He had even managed to shock her a few times. If variety was the spice of life, then things would never be boring with Brant Stone.

Emma looked around when she opened the door, not seeing Brant in the living room. As she always did, she started talking to him because inevitably he came out and picked up the conversation. He seemed to hear her no matter where he was in the house. “Hey, baby.
I’m sorry I’m so late getting home, but your demon sister was out of her mind today. I bet you were laughing your ass off when you signed that transfer to her office. If Mac doesn’t break up with his girlfriend soon, I’m going to have to find another job.”

When Brant still hadn’t appeared, she walked toward the bedroom, stopping in surprise at the closed door. What was he doing in there? She flung the door open and stood in the doorway gaping. Holy shit. “What’re you . . . Oh wow, Mr. December,” she exclaimed. Lying on the bed, in re-creation of his Mr. December pose complete with Santa hat and boughs of holly, was the man she adored. When he swiveled his hips, she noticed that something sparkled on his . . . yule log, and she started laughing.

“Um . . . baby, you’re going to have to cut out the laughing or the ring is going to lose its suspension. Thanks to you being late getting home, it’s been a . . . challenge to keep it up there for so long.”

“Oh my God,” Emma gasped out as she dropped down on the bed beside him. “If this is what I think it is, then it’s the most original proposal . . . ever!” Brant looked at her, the grin slipping from his face. Suddenly, he jumped from the bed, untying the ribbon from his . . . yule log and catching the ring as it fell. Emma stared at him in shock as he jerked on some clothing and grabbed her hand. Her head was spinning as he pulled her from the house and to the beach. When he dropped to one knee in front of her, she looked at him in shock.

“Em, baby, I love you. I just . . . had a flash of what we would tell our kids one day when they wanted to know how Daddy proposed to Mommy and I couldn’t do it.” He took her hand in his, clearing his throat. “Emma, from the moment you first walked through the door at the office, my life has never been the same. You’ve shown me that not everything has to be taken so seriously. I can’t imagine a future without you in it. Will you marry me and save me from a future of . . . well, being myself?”

Emma felt tears rolling down her cheeks as she whispered, “Yes.” Then Brant slid the ring onto her finger. She had no idea what it even looked like because she couldn’t see through the tears filling her eyes. “That was so beautiful. I love you, Brant.”

He hugged her to him, saying against the top of her head, “I love you more.” She pulled back from him and finally took a good look. By now, he was used to her laughing at unusual times, so he looked only mildly curious when she burst out laughing.

She reached up and tugged the Santa hat from his head. “I guess I should have said, ‘I love you, Mr. December.’”

He gave her the sexy grin that made her skin burn and picked her up effortlessly into his arms.

“I believe we need to deal with the boughs of holly and my yule log . . . now.” The sound of their laughter filled the air as Brant rushed back toward the house with her cradled in his arms. Fittingly, his proposal was just like their love story—one of a kind.

To my dear friends: Amanda Lanclos and Heather Waterman with Crazy Cajun Book Addicts. Thanks for all that you do. I love you guys so much! Also, to my very special ladies: Tracey Quintin, Lisa Salvary, Shelley Lazar, Lorie Gullian, Sharon Cooper, Melissa Lemons, Tracy Gaylord, Amy Minor and Marion Archer. I am blessed to have you as friends. To my wonderful Facebook group, Sydney’s Seductresses, how I wish I could list each and every one of you. You make every day special for me and I consider you all dear friends.

As always, to my editor at Penguin, Kerry Donovan, and my agent, Jane Dystel. These two ladies work tirelessly behind the scenes to make each new book possible.

A special note of thanks to Noël Kristan Higgins. You take my best and make it better.

Also to: Tianna Croy and Tasha Whitbread. Thank you, ladies, for all of your help.

“Oh my God, what’s he done now?”

Ava scowled at her assistant and future sister-in-law, Emma Davis, as she settled into a seat in front of her desk. Ava had been a vice president at Danvers International since she and Brant had sold their family business to Jason Danvers. Truthfully, she enjoyed the work as well as the challenge of something new.

Ava gave an unladylike snort at Emma’s question and resigned herself to playing twenty questions. There was no way her nosy assistant was going to let her off without explaining her shittier-than-usual mood. She gave her best innocent look and said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Don’t you have some work to do in your own office?”

Emma merely smirked at Ava’s disgruntled expression, knowing by now that her bark was worse than her
bite. Ava would never let the other woman know it, but she had grown to love her dearly since Emma had gotten engaged to her brother Brant. Between Emma and her other brother Declan’s wife, Ella, family occasions were no longer akin to a gathering at the morgue. Emma and Ella had breathed some much-needed life into the Stone family. “Nah, I’m on a break, so I have time.”

Rolling her eyes, Ava said, “A break, huh? You seem to have a lot of those.” Secretly, Ava knew why Brant had enjoyed arguing with Emma when she had been his assistant before their engagement. It was just freaking fun. Emma was actually fabulous at her job and took a lot of the workload from Ava’s shoulders.

“All right, enough of this stalling crap. What’s happening with Mac? I take it you’ve spoken to him again, even though he’s been avoiding you, since you’re suddenly acting like someone with a monthlong case of PMS.”

Putting all pretense aside, Ava said, “Yeah I ran into him and . . . her in the parking garage yesterday.”

“Oh shit! Did you, like . . . speak to the tramp?”

Ava smiled even though she felt the need to defend the woman who’d stolen her sorta man. “I don’t think she’s a tramp, Em. Mac wouldn’t be interested in anyone like that.”

Emma shook her head in disgust. “You’re totally missing the point here. This woman is messing with your guy. We don’t take that lightly. Until we get rid of her, she is the ‘tramp’ to us. So . . . how did it go?”

Ava tried to hide her pain as she relayed her run-in
with Mac. “Well, he was walking . . . her to the car when I saw them. He helped her inside and kissed her, and then she drove off. He saw me and we talked for a minute. That’s it.”

“Ava, why do you put yourself through all this? If you leveled with Mac about how you really feel, he’d probably kick . . . the tramp to the curb faster than you could say bye-bye. He loves you. According to your family, he’s never made any secret of that fact. And . . . you love him. Are you really going to let . . . her have him?”

It all sounded so simple when Emma put it like that, but the reality was completely different. After years of being terrified of intimacy and feeling as if she wasn’t good enough for Mac, Ava had finally decided to do everything she could to overcome her fears. She had purchased every self-help book that she could find and was seriously considering going to a therapist. She was so very tired of being afraid all of the time. Just when she was on the brink of confessing to Mac how screwed-up she really was and how she felt about him, he had pulled the rug out from under her. Apparently, they had both arrived at the same conclusion—that they needed to move on and stop tiptoeing around each other. Only she had wanted to move toward him, but unfortunately, his moves had taken him away from her.

Since then, she had been reeling in shock. What now? He had been her reason for finally getting her shit together. He had waited for her all of these years, and just when she thought they might be on the same page,
he was gone. Just like that. He’d freaking left her behind. And damn it, she couldn’t even blame him, which was the worst part. “Em, it’s not that simple. What am I supposed to say? ‘Oh, Mac, please toss your new girlfriend aside. I’ve decided that although I’m too fucked-up to have a relationship with you myself, I can’t let anyone else have you? I’m going to need you to masturbate and remain true only to me.’”

Emma cocked a brow before saying, “Well, that wasn’t quite what I had in mind, other than the tossing of the new girlfriend. Seriously, though, grow a pair or whatever the female equivalent of that is and take Mac back.”

Ava reluctantly smiled. “So you’re going the tough-love route today, huh? Given up coddling the poor, messed-up girl?” She saw the look of sympathy that Emma tried to hide as she stood, turning toward the door.

“You’re one of the strongest people I know, Ava. I have no idea what it’s been like for you all of these years. However, I know if you lose Mac, you’ll never move forward. He’s your white knight, but this time you’re going to have charge to his rescue. You need to save the both of you from living a life without ‘the one.’”

When the door closed behind the other woman, Ava turned to stare out the window. The beach town was bustling with the last of the summer crowd before cooler weather took over. She hardly noticed, though, as her friend’s words echoed through her head. Was
she strong enough to finally show Mac how she felt? God, where did she even start? He wouldn’t even agree to have a drink with her last night, so it was unlikely he was up for an impromptu date. Emma would probably laugh her ass off if she knew that at this moment, Ava was sitting at her desk googling ‘how to show a man that you love him.’ Great, number one was just telling him. Fucking Google. Always making everything sound so simple.

When Ava entered her empty apartment, feeling lonelier than ever, she was no closer to a solution than she had been. Embarrassingly enough, she’d even resorted to stopping at the store on the way home and buying almost a hundred dollars’ worth of magazines. If there was anything pertaining to men or love, she bought it. Walking into her kitchen, she pulled out the bottle of wine she had also purchased. You had to love today’s conveniences. You could now buy everything short of a car at Walgreens. She’d even paused by the condom aisle as if trying to think positively that she might need them soon. Yeah . . . that really looked likely.

Popping the cork on the bottle, she filled a glass nearly to the brim and walked back to the couch with her overflowing bag. The first magazine cover promised twenty sexual moves that would drive her man crazy. She laughed under her breath. She’d have to actually have a man for that to work. She had bought it, though, just in case she ever moved on to the next level. Setting it aside, the headline on the next one
immediately caught her eyes:
Want to catch his attention? Unleash your inner daredevil!
Okay, maybe she could work with that. Flipping the magazine open, she found the page number on the contents page and went to the article. The picture showed a woman about her age holding a motorcycle helmet in one hand and a pair of skates in the other hand. Ava grabbed a notepad and a pen off the coffee table. Her brother Brant was an organizational freak and she was more like him than she cared to admit. How many women would buy a magazine for help with landing their man and take notes along the way? She was even tempted to highlight relevant paragraphs but suppressed the urge.

Hours and almost one bottle of wine later, she had filled her notepad with suggestions from the ten magazines she had spent the evening scouring. The overall advice was the same in all of them, except for the one encouraging her to be a daredevil. Shit, it was either that or start dressing like a slut and making sexual advances toward Mac. One even suggested in a roundabout way that she invite her man to her house for dinner, wear a dress and sit in front of him. Then, after a few moments of small talk, she was to open her legs and start touching herself. According to the author of the article, it would have him eating out of the palm of her hand . . . or eating
something
for sure. She could feel herself blush furiously just thinking about doing that. Mac would probably have her committed.
Poor Ava’s finally snapped.

She wanted Mac in every way, but damn it, she was
essentially a twenty-eight-year-old virgin. She had never had a real sexual relationship with a man. Like most single women her age, she had needs and desires. Her vibrator took the place of a real man in her bed, and she had learned to live with that. It was the safe way out. When she needed to take the edge off, she used it. Sometimes—most of the time—it was Mac’s name that she called as she reached orgasm.

She didn’t know how to function outside of that, though. She could probably talk to her sister-in-law Ella if she could muster up the courage. Ella had confided that she had been a virgin when she met Declan. That was where their similarities stopped, though. Ella might have lived a sheltered life before meeting Ava’s brother, but she hadn’t spent her life running from past trauma. She wasn’t scared of intimacy or afraid she’d freak out during sex and humiliate herself.

Part of her knew that Mac would take care of her and help her overcome her fears, but the other part didn’t want him to know how messed up she was. His opinion of her mattered. She wanted him to see her as strong and confident, not scared and insecure. God, what would he think if he found out that she had picked men up in bars for years, paying them to come home with her for a few hours, just to keep up the pretense that she was normal? She knew it would sound bad, but it seemed to make people look at her with less pity when they believed that she was dating. Normal, unattached women her age had sex, right? She wasn’t normal, and she wasn’t having sex, but it was all about
perception. If you threw people a few tidbits here and there, they would draw their own conclusions. In this case, the assumptions were wrong.

Ava had spent years believing that one day she would cross some invisible line and she would be worthy of Mac. It was kind of like holding on to an outfit in a smaller size, thinking you’ll lose weight and fit into it in the future. Well, fast-forward ten years and the damn outfit still didn’t fit and she was no closer to making it happen. She was still dreaming of the day when it would all come together and she woke up normal, in love, and with Mac.

Looking down at the magazines spread over her couch and coffee table, she felt a wave of despair. This was it? All that was standing between her and losing Mac to another woman was a bunch of magazine articles? Self-help and advice for the romantically hopeless. Shit, short of the boob job, she planned to try some of the other suggestions. What did she have to lose? Mac was probably with Gwen tonight, maybe having sex. While she was sitting home alone, just like always. When had she given up? At what point had she stopped trying to get better and accepted herself as broken beyond repair? Had her friendship with Mac unwittingly become a replacement for a real relationship with him? While he was in the military, there hadn’t been any real pressure. Actually, it had made it easier for her to communicate with him, knowing he was too far away to drop by unexpectedly. She had seen him when he was home on leave, and they had written and talked on the
phone, but she hadn’t seen him every day. When he’d finally come home for good, they had just fallen into the routine of spending most of their spare time together. They went for drinks, had dinner, hung out at each other’s apartments and attended family events together. They were more of a couple than many married people she knew. They were almost back to where they had been before her attack, only now they were both very much adults.

Mac had never been one to verbalize his feelings, but he showed her in a million different ways that he cared for her. In the last year, though, it was as if his patience was wearing thin. His touches had gone from fleeting to lingering. A few months ago, before he had started dating Gwen, he’d kissed her. Not the usual brief peck either. There had been lips and tongue involved and . . . she’d freaked out. They’d been watching a movie at her place, and she’d been curled up next to him, half asleep. When she felt his hands sliding through her hair, stroking her neck, she had nestled closer, instinctively seeking the comfort of his touch. When he lowered his mouth to hers, she had allowed it, more curious than anything. But things had quickly escalated. She had found herself returning his kiss, tangling her tongue with his. Desire had raced through her veins until he pulled her closer, embracing her solidly against his hard chest. Then she’d panicked. She couldn’t breathe; she had to get away. So she had jumped from his arms to the other side of the room to put as much distance as possible between them.

Things had gotten awkward after that. He had apologized that night, and she had thought things were okay until he started pulling away. Day by day, she lost him. Then he was dating someone else right in front of her for the first time since they were teenagers. Oh, she knew that Mac had sex; she wasn’t that naive. But he didn’t have relationships, and she had never seen him out on a regular date. Ava had always came first with him—but no longer. Now Gwen was the priority, and she felt a very distant second, if even that. He’d given up on her that night just as plainly as if he had said it aloud.

He was no longer content to wait around; he wanted more out of life. He wanted the fairy-tale happy ending. He wasn’t going to be satisfied with half measures; it was going to take more to get him back. And scariest of all, she knew he wasn’t coming back to a friends-with-no-benefits relationship. In order to get Mac, she would have to become part of his fairy tale. She would have to put the ugliness of her past behind her and become his freaking Cinderella.

She put in her purse the notes that she had made while reading the magazines. “Okay,
Cosmo
, let’s give it our best shot.”