Playing With Seduction (19 page)

It was as though they were slowly saying good-bye, and that knowledge caused a lump to form in her throat and her heart to tighten in her chest. They were both aware that the gradual process of letting go had started, and even though she’d only been with Jase a few weeks, she already knew this separation was going to be even more painful than her divorce had been. If they’d met at a different point in their lives, or their futures had been more aligned, she was pretty sure that Jase would have been
the one
. But she didn’t have years to wait to start the family she wanted so badly, and he wasn’t ready to make that kind of commitment. She had eight years on Jase, and at the moment, she felt the weight, and distance, of every one of them.

She should have known that she wasn’t the type of woman who could have an affair, give her body to a man, and not get emotionally attached. Especially when that man was a perfect match for her in so many ways—except the most essential. Falling in love with Jase had already happened, and those growing feelings scared the crap out of her, since they both knew there was no way their relationship would work for the long haul.

The sound of the door opening into the studio brought Kendall back to the present. She saved the photo she’d been working on, put the file away so nothing got accidentally deleted, and headed out to the reception area. A woman stood there. She was meticulously, elegantly dressed. Her purse was a designer label, and Kendall was fairly certain that the glossy pumps on her feet had cost a small fortune. As well as the huge diamond sparkling on her ring finger.

The woman looked well kept and wealthy, but her expression was tentative and nervous as she watched Kendall approach. Kendall didn’t think she was there for the reception position she still needed to fill, so she assumed she was a potential client and quickly tried to put her at ease.

“Hi, I’m Kendall, the owner of Pure Bliss Boudoir Photography.” She extended her hand in greeting, which the other woman hesitantly shook, her fingers soft and cool to the touch. “And you are?”

“Lauren,” she replied reluctantly.

“Nice to meet you, Lauren,” Kendall went on, her tone warm and welcoming. “Are you interested in a boudoir session?”

Her brown eyes grew round as she hastily shook her head. “I…uh…no.”

Kendall tipped her head and smiled. “I also do regular photography and portraits if that’s something you need.”

Another rapid shake of her head as the woman clung to the purse hanging from her shoulder. “No, I actually need to ask you a question. I’m hoping you can help me with something.”

Lauren seemed so distraught that Kendall felt compelled to do anything she could to alleviate her anxiety. “Sure. What can I do for you?”

The woman reached into her purse and withdrew a small, wallet-sized photo. One that Kendall recognized immediately. It was a sexy, erotic shot of the “headless” couple—Stacie and Richard.

Her stomach pitched queasily. Dreading where she suspected this conversation was about to go, Kendall swallowed hard and raised her gaze back to the other woman’s. Her eyes were filled with the kind of pain that Kendall knew and understood all too well. The pain of betrayal.

“I need to know if the man in this picture is my husband.” Lauren’s hand shook as she held up the incriminating shot. “The photo has your studio name on the back, which is how I knew the picture was taken here. Is his name Richard?”

As much as this woman needed Kendall to verify who the man was, she couldn’t. It was a part of the contract she signed with her clients to ensure their privacy. To divulge that information, for any reason, could damage her reputation, and it was a personal risk she couldn’t take because of her business.

Yet her heart hurt for the woman standing in front of her. For what she had to be feeling at the moment, because Kendall had been there herself. “I’m very sorry,” she said, not confirming or denying what the woman needed to know. “I can’t share client information.”

Just the fact that Kendall hadn’t jumped to assure the woman that the man’s name
wasn’t
Richard—which wouldn’t have violated the contract terms—was enough to tell Lauren all she needed to know.

Kendall really looked at the woman for the first time. She was probably in her mid-forties…unlike Stacie, who was young and in her twenties. Kendall recalled her last conversation with Stacie, how the woman had made the comment that nothing was guaranteed until she had a ring on her finger, and how she was waiting for Richard to get his shit together…obviously as in divorce his wife. Which it seemed Richard hadn’t been in any hurry to do. But now Kendall understood why they’d wanted no faces in the shots, not that it mattered in the end if Richard had left it somewhere for his wife to discover.

“Where did you find the photo?” Kendall asked softly, giving the woman the opportunity to talk if she wanted to.

“In his wallet, the idiot,” Lauren replied, some of her anger coming through. “I had a feeling he was seeing someone else, but he always had a ready excuse for his behavior. Then, when I found this photo, even though you can’t see his face, I didn’t bother asking him questions, because I know he’d deny everything and try to make me feel like I’m being overly dramatic, just like he’s done with everything else in our twenty-year marriage.”

As Lauren spoke, her initial hurt and uncertainty shifted into disgust and resentment. Her shoulders straightened, and her chin lifted. “But you know what? I’m through being placated by that bastard, and we have a prenup that will string him up by the balls. I just needed some kind of evidence that he’s screwing around on me, and now that he is, I’ll make sure a private investigator gets all the incriminating information I need before I contact a divorce attorney.”

By the time Lauren left the studio, now with purpose and determination, Kendall felt drained. Her earlier thoughts and issues in regard to her relationship with Jase now seemed even more glaring. She’d honestly believed she’d gotten beyond her insecurities about her ex-husband’s betrayal, about not being young enough or good enough for Drew. But hearing Lauren’s story only brought up those uncertainties all over again.

Kendall didn’t believe that Jase would ever cheat on her, but it was just one more thing that kept her guarded and unable to commit. Not that committing was even an option when the man she was in love with wasn’t ready for marriage. Or children.

*     *     *

Jase stared absently
into his refrigerator, trying to figure out what to make himself and Kendall for dinner. He wasn’t in the mood to cook. Hell, he wasn’t even in the mood to eat considering how shitty his afternoon had been. He was seriously thinking about ordering takeout when he heard Kendall come through the front door. A few seconds later, she walked into the kitchen, and he took one look at her somber expression and his stomach twisted into a huge knot of apprehension.

She put her purse down on the counter, her walls a mile high. But that didn’t stop him from walking over to her and pulling her into his embrace. Her body was stiff at first, but she eventually laid her head on his chest, wrapped her arms around his waist, and hugged him back.

It should have been a comforting embrace, but it felt as though she was trying desperately to cling to something elusive and fleeting. He knew exactly what that intangible thing was. He just didn’t want to face it, and apparently, neither did she.

After a while he pulled back and she glanced up at him. She must have seen the irritation still lingering from that afternoon’s conversation with Dean and Mac at the office, because she frowned in concern.

“Looks like you had a crappy day, too. Everything okay?” she asked as she tried to casually slip out of his arms.

He let her go and leaned his backside against the counter. He hated when she moved away from him, because the distance suddenly seemed more than just physical. But that’s the way it had been between them lately, and every day it only seemed to get worse. He knew it was her way of protecting her emotions, a way of keeping her heart safe. He couldn’t blame her for that, because he was trying to do the same.

He exhaled a deep breath and answered her question. “Adam and I
finally
got summoned to Dean’s office.” It was three days later than expected, because everyone had had different agendas and Dean and Mac had been out of the office until this afternoon.

“And?” she asked, her eyes wide with worry. “You didn’t get fired, did you?”

He knew that was her biggest concern, that his impulsive actions on Saturday—on her behalf—would cost him his job. “No. But Adam did.”

He saw the questions in her eyes and continued on. “We both got a lecture and a warning since the altercation happened outside of work. But then Mac asked Adam to take a Breathalyzer test, right then and there, and he completely flipped out and refused. I smelled some kind of alcohol on Adam, too, when he walked into the office, so he’d obviously been drinking again. On the job.”

Kendall folded her arms across her chest and winced. “Wow.”

He casually slid his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “I think Dean and Mac realized the drinking was a much bigger problem for Adam, and might be Adam’s way of dealing with PTSD, which is common. Dean offered him treatment, but Adam refused. So, they terminated him, and he came unglued and went into a rage, verbally
and
physically.”

Shock etched her expression, even as she scanned his features with worry. “Did you and Adam get into another fight?”

“No. Mac restrained him pretty quickly, and I left the office so they could deal with him. But overall, the whole situation was pretty bad.”

“Not a good day for either one of us, I guess,” she said quietly.

She didn’t say anything more, but he knew whatever was on her mind was weighing heavily on her. “What happened?”

She rubbed her fingers across her forehead, but that did nothing to erase the troubled lines of distress he saw there. “Right before I was ready to leave the studio this evening, a woman came in and showed me a boudoir picture I’d taken, of her husband and the younger woman he was having an affair with.”

Oh, shit. He knew exactly where this was heading, that today’s incident had caused her past to clash with the present, with him caught somewhere in the middle. “And?”

She met his gaze in silence. But he was going to make her
say
it. “And it just made me think long and hard about you and me and our affair.”

Despite the dread twisting through him, he still tried to avoid the inevitable. “The difference is,
you’re
not married.”

“No, but I want to be,” she said softly, meaningfully. “Very much. I want a husband and a family, and I don’t want to wait, I
can’t
wait, another five years for that to happen. You
know
that.”

Yes, she’d been honest with him from the beginning, but that didn’t stop him from feeling as though he’d taken a blow to the stomach. Panic and denial clashed inside of him, and he instinctively started toward her. “Kendall—”

She held up a hand to stop his words and his approach. “No, Jase. We can’t keep doing this.” The pain in her eyes spoke volumes and slayed him in a way nothing else ever had. “The feelings I have for you…it’s all getting so complicated, and I just can’t do this anymore.”

The fear of losing her forever had him in a stranglehold, and desperation took hold. “You can walk away so easily?”

“Nothing about this is easy. For either one of us,” she acknowledged, acute sadness filling her eyes. “But you aren’t ready to settle down, and if I stay in this relationship, I know I’ll come to resent the situation, possibly even you, and that’s not how I want to remember you…or us.”

He couldn’t even argue with her, because she was right. About everything. She knew what she wanted for her future and was at the point in her life to make all those things happen. He wasn’t. And wouldn’t be for years. For all of his adult life, he’d had a plan, and he’d yet to stray from that path. His own unstable and painful childhood had dictated everything he’d ever done since the age of eighteen. The military had been a starting place, the first step in building a future for himself, and at some point, that would include a wife and family. But he was just now starting a new career, had just purchased a new house, and marriage and kids were still a ways down the road for him—and longer than Kendall should have to wait.

That damned age difference he hadn’t thought mattered just kept coming back to haunt him. First with Adam’s asshole comments and then with this cheating husband…who no doubt reminded Kendall of her own past. He knew they’d been on borrowed time, but he’d thought he could string things out longer, have more time with her…

Fuck.

The defeat he felt in that moment was crushing.

The resignation in her gaze was equally excruciating.

“I should go,” she said, her voice as ragged and vulnerable as his emotions.

Before she could react, he closed the distance between them, plowed his fingers through her hair, and brought her mouth to his for a hot, deep, soul-baring kiss. She didn’t resist him. Her lips parted, accepting the sweep of his tongue, while he took full possession of her mouth with a fierce groan. He tasted her one last time, memorizing the flavor of her, the scent of her, and knew it would never, ever be enough.

He couldn’t have her, but there would be no forgetting her, either.