Road to Seduction (Kimani Romance) (2 page)

A giant red pot of tall pussy willows sat on the hearth, with more pots and candles on the mantle. Bookshelves overflowing with a little bit of everything, including romance novels, Stephen King books and more mysteries that he could ever count sandwiched the fireplace. Wait, was there a new section? He squinted at the titles. There
was
—a whole shelf lined with books like
Speaking Your Dog’s Secret Language
and
Be the Leader of Your Pack!
Eric chuckled.

Sipping the rich, vaguely sweet lager she always kept around for him, he relaxed another thirty percent and wondered idly if a man could come from the sheer pleasure of drinking an icy beer at the end of a long day. But then she sat right next to him, tucked her legs under her, took her sunglasses off and gave Eric a good look at her smiling face up close.

That was when the trouble
really
began.

S
he’d always been attractive, of course—nothing new there. A thousand years ago, at Princeton’s freshman orientation, he’d met her, registered her attractiveness and put her firmly in the adorable category, thereby removing her from the list of “women he wanted to have sex with” and putting her into the category of “women he could be friends with.”

Over the years, his friendship with Izzy had become too central to his existence—too
vital
—to ever risk screwing it up by making it sexual, not that he’d ever entertained sexy thoughts about her.

Until now.

Izzy had always stayed fun and cute, and life as he’d known it had sailed along problem-free. Today, however, there was a problem—a
big
problem—and she was causing it. She wasn’t showing him much cute. About zero percent, actually, compared to about a thousand percent sexy, and he didn’t like it.

Everything about her was suddenly tempting—the worst kind of forbidden fruit. Those black corkscrew curls were now super-straight and shiny and he wanted to dive into them. And her skin
sure looked irresistible. Normally sort of a coffee-heavy-on-the-cream color, it now had a healthy red tinge to it. She looked as though she’d been getting lots of sun—especially across her sweet chipmunk cheeks that didn’t look so chipmunk-y at the moment. The deep dimples on either side of her mouth were still there, but now her cheeks looked—like the rest of her—smooth and sleek.

Vaguely aware of her watching him with that same bemused look on her face, he let his unwilling gaze fall to her mouth and immediately regretted it. A tight, painful knot of longing grew in his belly, torturing him. Such lips she had—moist and lush, as tempting as a bowl of plump, ripe Bing cherries dribbling with juice. A wave of heat crept up his neck, shot past his ears, across his face, and headed north until his scalp tingled.

He wanted…to kiss those lips. That and more. Helluva lot more.

Caught again, he flicked his gaze up to her eyes, and there were two huge, almond-shaped, long-lashed, sparkling brown problems. What was going on here? Had someone switched Isabellas on him? No one had eyes like this…No one could be this beautiful. Surely he’d never seen this amazing face before.

Or was it that he’d never really
looked
at it?

“Oh, hey. Wait a minute.” Izzy clunked her glass down on the side table and fixed him with a look. “Where’s Jasmine? I thought you were bringing her to the wedding.”

“I didn’t feel like it.”

Izzy snorted. “
Didn’t feel like it?
I thought things were going so well.”

Eric shrugged and sipped his beer. He hadn’t thought about Jasmine in several hours, and didn’t particularly want to start now. “Not really.”

“
What
. Since when?”

He started to get exasperated because Jasmine wasn’t worth this much interest. He couldn’t understand Izzy’s continued curiosity, nor did he particularly want to discuss his former sex buddy with her.

“What’s with the questions?” he wondered.

They frowned at each other, and Izzy’s jaw tightened into the throbbing, obstinate angle that told him he better answer her question, and he damn well better do it
now
.

“Look.” He sighed and tried to look rueful lest Izzy think he was a heartless bastard. “It wasn’t going anywhere. It’s over. That’s that.”

Those sharp, shrewd eyes narrowed with the laser precision that always made him squirm like a guilty ten-year-old with a bat, a missing baseball and a smashed window.

“She was getting serious, wasn’t she?”

Denying it, much as he wanted to, seemed pointless. “Well…yeah.”

Isabella waited, but he had nothing further to say on the topic. He didn’t need to recount every excruciating detail of last night’s ugly parting scene with Jasmine: his confirmation that, yes, he really was going to the wedding in Florida, and, yes, he really wasn’t going to take Jasmine.

And then, the thick layer of butter cream icing on top of the misery cake: he really
would
be driving all that way alone with Isabella. The shit had really hit the fan then, with Jasmine hurling accusations of cheating, selfishness and lack of commitment.

He’d expected a certain amount of pouting about the wedding. Maybe it
was
selfish of him, but he wanted to spend some time catching up with Isabella and seeing his friends in Florida. Jasmine was not—and never would be—a big part of his life, so why bring her along and introduce her as though she was? It wasn’t like he’d die of loneliness during a few days without her.

So, yeah, Jasmine’s moping was fine, and he’d expected and deserved it. But when she’d launched into a tirade about the evil Isabella and how his relationship with Isabella came between
their
chances of long-term happiness—as if they had one!—he’d had enough. There was no way he’d give up, or even scale back, his relationship with Isabella. After seventeen years? Get real.

His temper good and lost, he’d let Jasmine have it with both barrels, and that’d put the period at the end of their relationship. The last he’d seen of her had been her door slamming in his face. Funny, though. Six fun months with her and he couldn’t work up too much upset—even over the loss of the sex, if nothing else.

His only regret was that, despite all his best efforts to keep things casual, Jasmine had gotten the impression that they had some sort of a future together. He’d inadvertently hurt her and for that, and
only
that, he was sorry.

“So…Another one bites the dust, eh?” Izzy asked, a new, unfamiliar edge of bitterness in her voice. Her lips twisted and, way back near her ear, her jaw began to throb.
“Men.”

Eric stared, watching her mutter something dark and unintelligible before she took a long sip of beer. He wondered what
men
had done to her that was so awful she needed to say the word with such revulsion. Like she was picturing dung-covered flesh-eating slugs or something.

“Uh,” he began, choosing his words with caution. “Did something, ah, happen?”

Snorting, she stared down into her now half-full glass, her shoulders squared and rigid. “You could say that—”

The cordless on his side table rang. Silently cursing the interruption, Eric picked up the phone and handed it to her.

“Hello?” she said.

A man’s voice—low, deep and smooth—came over the line.

Izzy listened and glowered and everything about her changed in an instant. The second she heard whoever it was, a light went out in her eyes.

Seeing this, Eric’s muscles stiffened with a primitive anger and the need to protect. To maim, if need be, because that didn’t sound like her father or brothers on the phone. It was the silky tone of someone who wanted to seduce, and Eric ought to know because he’d used that exact same tone often enough. Seething in silence, he waited for Izzy’s reaction.

“Yeah, well, it’s not really a good time,” she snapped. “Eric’s
here and we’re going to eat soon. So why don’t you call back in…oh, say,
never
.”

Eric gaped, feeling his eyes grow wide as dinner platters. What the hell was going on? Izzy could be hot-tempered here and there, sure, but he’d never seen her like
this
. What had this punk done to her?

More talking from the man; it sounded like wheedling now. Eric strained his ears trying to eavesdrop but couldn’t understand a word.

“Fine,” Isabella told the caller. “You have one minute, Joe.” She hung up and stood up, looking both agitated and incandescent with anger.

Eric fumed and watched her from behind the red film of his sudden fury, not at all certain what his role was here. He knew what role he
wanted
to play, though: avenger. Whoever had done this to Isabella—hurt her and made her so angry—deserved to die a lingering death that involved a dark dungeon with soundproof stone walls, and Eric was just the man to deliver that sort of justice. When he caught himself wondering where he could find a set of brass knuckles, it occurred to him that he needed to dial back his irrational anger a little. But he didn’t think he could.

He’d temporarily forgotten she was dating someone, and remembering now was a surprise. Yeah. That was it. He was just really surprised, not
jealous
. Never in his life had he been
jealous
and he wasn’t
jealous
now.

Even though Isabella had—fury shuddered through him again and he tried unsuccessfully to tamp it down to some manageable level—slept with that SOB, he wasn’t
jealous
.

Joe,
she’d said his name was. An architect, right? No. A corporate type. How serious was it? For the life of him, Eric couldn’t remember. Izzy’d talked about Joe here and there, but he’d never paid much attention.

He was paying extra attention now, though.

“Who was that?” Eric demanded.

Izzy glanced around and looked surprised to see Eric still
there. She fidgeted, crossing her arms over her chest. Then she undid her arms and ran one hand through her hair.

“Joe,” she finally said. “He’s coming up.”

“Why?” Eric stood and tried to rein in his flaring temper. “What’s he want?”

Izzy went to the front door. “The cheating bastard wants me to marry him,” she said over her shoulder, each syllable vibrating with righteous anger. “Like I’m that stupid.”

Leaving this bombshell to detonate inside Eric’s brain, she disappeared down the steps. Eric stared after her, aghast, while the startling word reverberated like a gong, making him feel both like vomiting and smashing something.

Marry…Marry…Marry…

The distant sound of the outer door opening and that male voice, louder now, worked Eric’s strained nerves. He paced back and forth in front of the windows, listening to their footsteps on the stairs as they came closer, and then Izzy reappeared with Joe right on her heels. Eric goggled, as though he’d just seen a Martian parallel park his spaceship, and so did Joe.

No freaking way,
Eric thought.
No. Freaking. Way.

If I had a long lost twin.

They were ringers. Dead ringers for one another.

No kidding—he and Joe the Jerk could’ve doubled for each other in a movie. Same height. Same skull trim and dark skin. Same mustache and goatee. Same shirtsleeves, with white dress shirt, dark suit pants and red tie loosened at the throat. The only difference, as far as Eric could tell, was the shoes, but a quick glance at Joe’s feet told Eric that they had the same taste in footwear, too; Eric’s own pair of $300 black Cole Haan oxfords was currently sitting in his closet at home.

Izzy made the introductions. “Joe Barker, this is Eric Warner.”

Eric scowled at this invader of his peaceful sanctuary…this…this…
man
who’d slept with Isabella—
his
Isabella—and then broken her heart. The sorry punk didn’t deserve to live and breathe the same air as Isabella for one more second, but Eric could take care of that. With punishment in his heart, he
took a couple of steps closer and Joe did the same, looking every bit as pissed off as Eric felt.

Face-to-face, they stared each other down. Neither blinked or spoke.

Finally Joe held out his hand, a sign of weakness as far as Eric was concerned. They shook, both using the power-shake iron-grip that was universal manspeak for
I’ve got bigger balls than you and I’m going to take you off at the knees first chance I get.

By some mutual but unspoken signal, they let go at the same time, and Eric dropped his hand, planted his feet wide, and prepared for war.

I
sabella fumed, watched the men and wondered how best to get rid of Joe, the man she’d thought she’d known but hadn’t known at all. She still hadn’t recovered from the other day and doubted she ever would. Their evening had started out so nicely. But now her head spun about how quickly their lovely relationship had unraveled.

Lovely relationship. Hah.
It had all been a lie.

After a year of dating, they’d discussed marriage for the first time last month. She’d told him a little bit more about her past and shared parts of her life she’d never even told Eric. And what had Joe done? Had he supported her? Encouraged her? Told her he loved her no matter what and always would?

Hell, no. He’d cheated on her with his secretary, promptly confessed, pledged renewed and undying love for Isabella and asked her to marry him.

As if.

She watched uneasily as the men puffed their chests like two silverbacks about to battle for supremacy. The negative energy
surrounding them reminded her of a black hole into which all the furniture might well be sucked.

With Eric’s weird mood today—why
did
he keep staring at her like she’d grown antennae?—on top of his firecracker temper, she really needed to get Joe out of here before someone’s blood got spilled. She shouldn’t have let Joe in in the first place.

It’d be an even fight if it did come to fisticuffs, she thought. Eric and Joe were roughly the same height—
really
tall—with the same broad shoulders, narrow waist, and muscular butt and legs, although at the moment Eric’s chest seemed to be the most inflated.

Their builds notwithstanding, though, they were nothing alike. Joe looked pretty good—she’d never kicked him out of bed, after all—but Eric blew every other man out of the water. Always had, always would, and it wasn’t just his classic good looks and killer body, either. Lots of men had smooth dark skin, intense brown eyes and a lush mouth that made a woman wonder what miracles he could perform with his lips and tongue.

No, with Eric it was the indefinable
it,
and he had it in spades. That restless energy, that leashed power, that wide, slow, mischievous smile that was a
pow
right between her eyes every time she saw it, even after all these years.

Not for the first time, she congratulated herself on her triumph of self-control, of mind over hormone, that she’d achieved years ago. How else could a woman possibly be friends with a man like Eric Warner without experiencing an atomic meltdown of sexual frustration?

Not that he’d ever tested her self-control by, say, expressing the slightest attraction to her. His obvious and complete lack of sexual interest—when he so clearly loved women and had loved more than his share—had stung, but only years ago, at the beginning of their relationship. Now she was older and smart enough to know that Eric could really do—and
had done
—women some serious damage, if a woman was foolish enough to let him.

Actually, Eric looked like he was about to do some serious damage to Joe right now. He stood even straighter, squared his shoulders, and raised his chin. “So what do you do?”

“CFO.” Joe’s jaw tightened. “Phillips Financial. You?”

“CEO. WarnerBrands International.”

Isabella watched them watch each other with grudging respect; two corporate titans meeting for the first time always felt like comrades, didn’t they? Well…maybe not. Still, they seemed stalemated, and she was beginning to think the crisis had passed, but then Eric had to open his big fat mouth again.

“What’s up? Izzy’s not too happy to have you popping by,
Joe
.”

“Now, wait a minute,” she interjected, annoyed. “I don’t need a spokesperson—”

“
Bella
and I,” Joe said, ignoring her and stalking closer to Eric until he was right up in his face, “have a few things to talk about.”

“Not if she doesn’t want to talk,” Eric said.

After one last scowl at Eric, Joe looked at her. “Can I talk to you?”

“Sure,” she said sourly. “And then you can
leave
. Excuse us, Eric.”

Eric went utterly still. “Come again?”

Looking over her shoulder, she shot him a narrow-eyed warning look which he returned. Worse, he showed no signs of leaving the room and giving them some privacy. What the hell had gotten into him today? It was going to be a long, painful trip to Jacksonville and back if he carried on like this.

Get out,
she mouthed.

Time stopped for ten long seconds while they glared at each other. Finally Eric snorted, wheeled around, and stalked off down the hall, but his brooding presence remained, looming over Isabella like a gray sky threatening sleet.

“I don’t like him,” Joe muttered.

“That’s your problem.”

Joe hesitated, apparently trying to decide where to start. Sighing, he ran a hand over his head, and his features softened. When he spoke it was with what looked like genuine regret, but with Joe, who could tell?

“You have to forgive me, Izzy. I can’t live without you.”

“Joe—”

“I’m sorry. It’ll never happen again. I
swear
.”

“I don’t believe you. You’re a liar.”

Joe took a sharp, stuttering breath and hung his head in a pretty good imitation of shame. When he looked up again there were tears in his eyes that did nothing to change her mind.

“Please.”
He tried to take her hand but she snatched it free. “Let me try to make it up to you. Don’t go to Johannesburg. Don’t run away.”

That last sentence had the sting of truth in it. Isabella blinked and tried to work up a plausible denial. “I’m not running away. I’m taking my life in another direction.” She’d accepted a two-year teaching position at the new leadership academy for girls in South Africa. She hadn’t even told Eric yet. “And you gave up any say about my career plans the second you jumped in bed with your secretary.”

Anger crept across Joe’s face, edging out any softness in his expression. “This is all about
him,
isn’t it?” He jerked his head toward the hall down which Eric had disappeared. “He finally decided he wants you? Is that it?”

“No.”
Where on earth had that come from?
“Eric and I are friends. That’s all. He has nothing to do with this. What happened with us is
your
fault.”

“Bullshit,”
he spat. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. I’ve heard the way you talk about him. Do you think I’m stupid?”

“Joe—”

Vibrating with fury, he glared down at her. “Are you stopping somewhere to spend the night at some hotel? Are you telling me nothing’s gonna happen
then?
You think I’m stupid enough to believe
that
whole setup’ll be platonic?”

Beyond outraged, she decided it was past time for him to leave. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Eric is my
friend
.” Somehow she kept her voice low and calm despite the furious rush of blood in her ears. “He’s been my
friend
for years, and he’ll always be my
friend
.”

“Even after
I’m
gone from your life, you mean.”

“You are gone from my life.”

Joe flinched and she felt a moment’s vindictive pleasure at hurting him a little when he’d hurt her so much. He dropped his head and made an incredulous, laughing sound, as though he couldn’t quite get over her foolishness. When he looked up again, his eyes glittered, hard and bitter.

“You’re naïve,” he told her.

“No, I’m not—”

“If you think that any straight man can look at
that
face—” his flashing gaze raked over her “—and
that
body without trying to get you in bed, then you don’t know a
thing
about men.”

“You’re wrong,” she said, stung to the core of her soul because she was no seductress and there
was
one straight man that’d never wanted her and never would, a man who was immune to whatever charms she possessed and had been for seventeen years. “Eric doesn’t want me.”

Joe flinched as though she’d sprayed him with mace, and, too late, she realized her mistake. “I didn’t mean—”

But Joe just laughed that same harsh, bitter laugh. “So everything would be different if he
did
want you, huh?”

“
No
. And it’s none of your business anyway.”

He stared her down and she blinked back the hot, unaccountable tears that stung her eyes. The painful silence lengthened until she wished she were anywhere else in the universe but here. She didn’t want this scene, didn’t want to talk anymore with this man and, most of all, didn’t want to explain again that she’d never turned Eric’s head, not even once.

“It’s time for you to leave,” she said flatly.

After giving her a long, searching look, he blinked and nodded. When he spoke again his voice was full of gravel. “I love you,” he told her. “I’ll always love you. This was the biggest mistake of my life.”

You got that right,
she thought, turning her head away.

“Take care of yourself, Bella.”

With that, Joe turned to go. And as the door closed behind him she couldn’t muster up any feelings of sorrow, loss or for
giveness for the man who’d been such a big part of her life. All she could think was:
good riddance
.

An hour later, Eric slammed around the kitchen, making dinner and working himself into such a state of agitation that his clothes, skin and muscles felt tight enough to suffocate. It was as though he’d been shrink-wrapped inside layers of plastic that prevented him from thinking clearly or even taking a deep breath.

This misery was his own damn fault, really, for hanging in the doorway and listening to every faint syllable of what he sincerely hoped was the last conversation
ever
between Isabella and her ex-jerk. Eric had had no business eavesdropping and he knew it. When had an eavesdropper ever overheard anything good? Why hadn’t he known better?

Spying and eavesdropping were deeply shameful activities, and the guilt gnawed at his gut like a beaver with a fresh log and a dam to build. He should be hung by the thumbs for such a terrible transgression, and if Izzy kicked him out for violating her privacy, it’d be no less than he deserved. So, yeah, he was the scum of the earth, but he had much bigger problems to deal with than his regrettable lack of moral fiber.

Restless and frustrated, he went to the fridge, forgot what he’d meant to get, and, cursing, returned to the sink where he stared blankly at the shrimp in their colander. He reminded himself of the manatees in their tank at the Cincinnati Zoo—always swimming, never going anywhere.

Idiot
. What the hell was his problem?

Glancing down the counter, he watched Izzy resolutely chop veggies for the salad and wondered if she was okay. After that jackass left a little while ago, Izzy had pretended she wasn’t crying and Eric pretended he didn’t see her red nose and eyes. Now he supposed they were both pretending they were having a perfectly normal evening together, the same as any other.

Hah.

Turning on the water, he began to clean the shrimp and tried
to think. So he’d listened when he shouldn’t have. The question now was: what, if anything, was he going to do about what he’d heard? His mind came up blank except for a few random thoughts swirling like feathers on the wind. Each time he tried to grab one and examine it, he wound up batting it further away:

Isabella was his friend.

Isabella was leaving the country.

He didn’t want her to go.

Jasmine thought there was something between him and Isabella.

Joe thought there was something between him and Isabella.

Jasmine and Joe were wrong, of course. Nothing had ever happened between him and Izzy. No lingering goodbye kiss, no drunken night together after some raucous campus party, never even a longing glance. Their relationship had been as platonic as a date between Elton John and Ellen DeGeneres.

Until now…

No
.

Muttering, he found a heavy pan, set it on the stove, and turned on the gas. There was no
until now
because nothing had changed or would change. If he repeated this mantra enough times, he’d surely believe it eventually.

Nothing had changed…Nothing had changed…Nothing had—

Except…something big
had
changed, hadn’t it? Something
other
than his fierce new awareness of Isabella as a woman. Forget the Africa thing; Johannesburg was a plane ride away for someone like him who had a private jet at his disposal. No, the real issue was someone wanting to marry Izzy.

Marriage was forever. Maybe Izzy loved that idiot. Maybe she’d sleep on it, wake up in the morning, forgive Joe and tell him
yes
.

Then she’d be a soon-to-be married woman, wouldn’t she?
Married
.

The thought sickened him, and feeling sick scared him.

God, it was hot in here
. Turning down the burner, he poured olive oil and butter into the pan, wiped his brow, and tried to
think. Why was the thought of Isabella getting married so unbearable? Hadn’t he always known that in the distant, indistinct future, someone would snatch her up? Didn’t he
want
her to marry someone, have a family and live happily ever after? Why was the thought of her building a life with a man like Joe so disturbing?