Cape Cod Promises: Love on Rockwell Island (7 page)

“I’m managing the project.” His piercing blue eyes never wavered from hers. “I came over to set up a meeting so we can talk about the details.”

How the heck had
he
been the person at the resort chosen to work with her on this? How was she going to work with him when she couldn’t even talk to him? Didn’t anyone realize they were divorced? And that divorced couples shouldn’t spend a bunch of time together...especially when they had a knack for wanting to rip off each other’s clothes?

“Are you free tonight?”

His easy smile hadn’t changed, but the air between them sizzled. Even though he wasn’t asking her on a date, that was exactly what this felt like to her crazy, lust-befuddled brain.

“Tonight?” She tried to think up an excuse to buy a little more time to prepare herself. But when she opened her mouth, all that came out was, “Sure.”

His smile broadened. “Great. How does six o’clock in the resort conference room on the second floor sound?”

The resort conference room? Okay, maybe all this heat is just in my head.
“That sounds fine.”

He glanced at his watch, then said casually, “I’m meeting my mother and Sierra for lunch. I’d better run.”

“You’re taking lunch off?” She was a little embarrassed that surprise rang loudly in her voice, but the Trent she’d left in New York wouldn’t have taken off time in the middle of the afternoon to have lunch with anyone but an important client
.
In fact, she could count on one finger the number of times they’d had lunch together on a weekday.

“Things have changed, Reese.” His smile was gone now, and he was looking at her with an intensity that seared through her.

“Have they?” She hadn’t meant to ask the question but, again, the words were out before she could stop them. Before he could answer, however, and make the quicksand between them any deeper, she said, “Please tell them I said hello.”

“I will. And I’m looking forward to hearing your ideas for the mural tonight.”

With that, he headed out the door while Reese stood there with her hand covering her heart.

“See?” she said to Jocelyn. “Every time he talks to me, or touches me, I’m nineteen all over again. This is so freaking ridiculous.”

“Honestly, you were a bit of a bumbling mess. Adorable, but bumbling.”

“Thanks, Joce. You could have at least lied to me.” Reese put her face in her hands and mumbled, “What am I going to do?”

“Him,” Jocelyn said.

When Reese lifted her head from her hands, she tried to look shocked at the suggestion that she hop back into bed with her ex. But it wasn’t easy to pretend she hadn’t been wanting just that from the moment she’d tumbled into Trent’s arms outside Shelley’s café. Even if she knew opening that door with Trent was dangerous. They were
too
drawn to each other. It was too easy to get lost in him, and if he put his hands on her? She’d be a goner for sure.

Still, she made herself say, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I’ve known you my whole life,” Jocelyn said. “And what I just witnessed has only happened once before—the last time you fell head over heels for Trent Rockwell.”

The last time?
“What am I going to do?” Reese felt more twisted up and confused than she ever had before. “A week ago I was ready to leave the past behind and finally move on.”

“Or maybe you had your life on hold because you were still in love with Trent.”

“This can’t be good. Even if he is taking off to have lunch with his mother and sister today, I’m sure he still works too much and puts work ahead of everything else in his life.”

“Although you did have all those awesome marathon sex sessions,” Jocelyn pointed out with a laugh.

“Stop.” Reese laughed, too, but her body shivered in the most delicious way with the memory of Trent’s big hands on her. And his mouth.
Oh God, his mouth
. “It’s been ten years. Ten years without anything even remotely flirty. We never even had any real closure after our divorce, and now
this
? This sudden—insatiable—desire to connect with him on every level again.”

“I swear I’m not taking his side,” her friend said, “but I can’t help wondering if maybe, just maybe, that isn’t such a bad thing. Because when the two of you are in a room together...” Jocelyn fanned herself. “I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve never seen chemistry like what you two have. Both then
and
now. What if he
has
changed his life for the better?”

Reese shook her head, trying to separate her emotions from her desires and think clearly, but they were all muddled together. Then again, when it came to Trent, they always were. There was no sex without emotion. There was no sex without love. From the very start, the physical and emotional had been tangled together so completely they’d blended into one.

“Okay,” she finally admitted. “He’s having lunch with his mother and sister, and he walked here when he could have made a phone call instead, and that’s all different from the way he was in New York. Still, that doesn’t mean the man who worked ninety hours a week is gone.”

Reese looked around the gallery, remembering how much work it had taken to drag herself back into life after their divorce, much less get up the gumption, and the desire, to open her gallery and actually fulfill her dreams. But she’d done it, and if she jumped right back into Trent’s arms, she was risking everything she’d worked so hard to achieve. Her brain turned to mush around him
, even after all this time
. It was a little unsettling—and equally as exciting—to feel the effect they still had on each other. But this time she knew she needed to slow down and think things through. She needed to make herself, and building up the trust between them, as a priority over her raging hormones and secret daydreams about having Trent’s love again.

Drawing upon the strength she’d honed all those years ago, she silently renewed the commitment to herself and the life she’d built. They’d take it slowly, like the older, wiser adults they were.

At least they would if she could figure out how to keep her lips off his…

THE CONFERENCE ROOM had seemed like a stellar idea when Trent had suggested it. It was a professional environment that shouldn’t be the least bit seductive, which dinner in a dimly lit restaurant might have been. It was also located on the administrative floor of the resort—nowhere near his suite, or any other bedrooms for that matter. But as Trent watched Reese study the architectural outline of the resort, her brows knitted together and her lips pursed in that adorable way she had when she was concentrating, he realized it wouldn’t matter if she was sitting in the middle of a boardroom or the center of his bed.

He was even more captivated by her than he had been ten years ago.

When Trent shifted in his seat and his leg accidentally brushed hers, Reese lifted her eyes to his, reminding him of how easily he had always gotten lost in them. She blinked up at him through thick lashes, her eyes full of desire, but as she shifted her knees away, he could see that it was underscored with confusion.

After ten years of conflicting feelings, I’m suddenly not conflicted at all
.

Trent finally knew exactly what he wanted—another chance with Reese. He badly wanted to clear the air between them and let her know how sorry he was for their divorce, but he was so worried about short-circuiting the small steps they were taking that he wasn’t yet sure how to do it.

As her eyes moved over his face, lingering around his mouth, Trent suppressed the urge to lean in and kiss her. Being with her was so natural, so comfortable—for
him,
at least. As if no time had passed since their last kiss the morning he’d gone to work...and she’d gone packing.

But Reese’s brows were knitted tightly together and she was nibbling nervously on her lip, and his heart ached to apologize, even if he wasn’t sure of the right way to do it.

Would there ever be a right time?

Trent wasn’t an indecisive man, and trying to refrain from it all—the apology, touching Reese, telling her about his burgeoning emotions—was just too damned hard. “Reese, we should talk. About us. About our divorce. I really am sorry for everything, and I’d like to—”

She put up one hand to stop him, clutching the table with the other as if she were bracing herself. “Please, Trent. Don’t do this. Not when we’re going to have to work together on this mural.”

But he couldn’t just give up. Not when it suddenly felt like giving up was exactly what he had done ten years ago. “There must be some things we can get out in the open.”

Her eyes roved over his face again, and he was almost positive that the wall she’d erected was starting to crumble away. He held his breath, waiting for her to finally talk to him—or at least to hear him out. But before either of those things happened, she turned away from him and focused intently on the drawing again.

“How much of the wall am I allowed to paint?”

“There are no boundaries put on the space. You can use the entire wall if you’d like.” He tried to sound nonchalant, professional even, and knew by the way the tension in her shoulders began to melt that he’d hit his mark. He leaned over the documents to get a better look, and their shoulders brushed.

She licked her lips, driving him even crazier, and when she stole another quick glance at him, the cooler air that had come with her shutting down his apology heated and sparked again.

He and Reese had never been good at cooling things down. Their connection had always run too deep—and apparently still did.
Thank God
.

“No boundaries,” she said just above a whisper.

His heartbeat quickened. “Do you have any idea”—
what you’re doing to me?
—“what you’re going to paint?”

“Not yet.” She wouldn’t look at him as she added in a softer voice, “I’m still trying to decide.”

Trent had lived with her long enough to guess that she wasn’t just trying to figure out the mural, she was also trying to figure out
them.
He didn’t want to push her so hard that she’d run, but he couldn’t hold back the hope that he was reaching her at least a little bit. “Reese, can we talk about us? Please?”

“How can we when this is exactly what we lost?” she asked. She turned to face him, and a lock of hair fell in front of her eyes. “Not just talking to each other, but listening. Really
listening.
”

As he’d done so many times before, Trent reached up and tucked the lock behind her ear. He hadn’t forgotten how silky her hair was and how smooth her skin felt, but it stunned him nonetheless.

“You’re right. We screwed up. In the worst way possible. But we can try to fix it now.”

Her eyes were full of both desire and restraint as she shook her head. “I don’t know if we can.”

Even though he knew he shouldn’t, he couldn’t resist stroking his fingertips gently over her cheek. He had missed touching her so much, and she always felt so warm, so good. So
right
.

“Trent,” she whispered, desire taking the lead now as she reached up to touch the back of his hand, and her lips parted. When her tongue swept across her lower lip again, his restraint shattered.

“We did lose track of how to talk to each other, but we sure as hell never lost this.”

Trent sealed his lips over hers and slid his hand to the nape of her neck. He kissed her gently at first, testing the waters, half expecting her to push him away. Instead, she gripped the sides of his head and deepened the kiss, sliding her knees between his as she moved closer, the same way she always used to.

She tasted sweet, hot, and so damn familiar it was hard for Trent to think. But he didn’t need to think. All he needed was
Reese
, and he didn’t want to stop with just one kiss. Their tongues moved with familiar passion and longing so thick it threatened to pull him over the edge.

But just as quickly as she’d deepened their kiss, now she was pulling away with the same speed. “You kissed me!” She covered her mouth with a trembling hand, her eyes wide with surprise.

Desperate to kiss her again, Trent couldn’t stop the truth from pouring out. “Maybe I should be sorry I kissed you, but I’m not. How can I be when you’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted to kiss like that?”

“Trent. I’m not sure…I don’t think…” She shifted her knees away, her hand still touching her lips.

He knew how conflicted she was, could hear it loud and clear in the tone of her voice. But the way she’d kissed him, how greedily she’d claimed his mouth and held him so tightly, told him that she wasn’t completely over him.

And that gave him hope. More hope than he’d had in ten years. All he wanted was to pull her into his arms and love the conflict in her eyes away, but he knew he should give her time to think.

“You don’t need to figure this out tonight, Reese.” He put his fingertips beneath her chin and gently tilted her face up to his so that he could look into her eyes. “But I need you to know something.”

“What do you need me to know?” Her words were barely above a whisper, almost as if she’d been trying to get herself to keep from asking the question.

“I never broke our promise.”

* * *

OUR PROMISE
.

The words they’d spoken to each other a decade ago rang in her ears as if they’d just vowed them.
I promise to always love you. Forever.
She
could see the truth of Trent’s confession in his dark eyes and hear it in the tone of his voice. Reese knew each of Trent’s tones by heart—serious, professional, playful, loving, sensual—and now they were all rushing back at once. His touch had melted the tenuous wall she’d worked so hard to erect around herself for their meeting.

“I should go.”
Because if I sit here any longer, I’ll kiss you again
.

She saw the disappointment in his eyes that she hadn’t reacted to his confession, but she was too flustered to even try to respond. She wanted to kiss him and to yell at him all at once. Ten years was a long time, and now they’d just crossed a line that not only made it hard for her to see where the past ended and where the present began, but even harder to process and remember the reasons she
shouldn’t
kiss him.