Her Kind of Trouble (Harlequin Superromance) (24 page)

Vivian kissed her sister’s cheek. “Thanks. I appreciate it. As well as the tough love.”

“Oh, this wasn’t tough love. You ain’t seen my tough love yet. I’m saving that for when you keep seeing Seth because you can’t help yourself and it slowly destroys you from the inside out.”

Vivian laughed, but there was enough dangerous truth in her sister’s words to send a dart of nervous adrenaline through her belly.

“Never going to happen,” she said bravely.

“I hope not, sweetie, because I like both of you far too much for things to get that sad.”

Jodie gave Vivian’s arm one last squeeze before heading for the door. Vivian’s head was full of so many thoughts it was hard to sift one from the other.

But maybe it didn’t matter. The important thing was that Jason and Jodie arriving so unexpectedly had been the circuit-breaker she’d needed. She’d been skating on thin ice for a while with Seth, and her sister had cut a hole in the surface and pushed her into the freezing depths. Suddenly Vivian could see everything clearly. And it wasn’t particularly pretty.

She’d been lulled by empathy and sympathy into letting her guard down. Seth’s charm, charisma and sex appeal plus Daisy’s stunning vulnerability had done the rest.

Stupid. Really stupid, especially when Vivian had told herself she was smart enough to handle Seth and keep herself safe. She made a rude noise. Yeah, right.

She was so far from safe it wasn’t funny. She was knee-deep in dangerous territory, vulnerable, exposed and teetering on the brink of enormous pain.

She heard the faint sound of the front door closing, signaling Jason and Jodie’s departure. She collected her clothes and dressed, then stole a few minutes to wash her face and pull her hair into a ponytail. She took a deep breath and went to talk to Seth.

He was standing at the sliding door, staring out at the patio, arms crossed. He must have grabbed clothes from the laundry, because he wore a pair of rumpled jeans, the denim riding low on his hips.

“Well, that was fun,” she said brightly.

He glanced over his shoulder and she could see he was angry.

“Jodie told you how to live your life, too, did she?”

“Not as such. I take it Jason did?”

“Oh, yeah. Apparently I’m a sleazy moron who can’t keep his dick in his pants and you’re my latest victim.”

“Wow. Jason really takes the big-brother thing seriously, doesn’t he?” Vivian had always known that Jason walked on the conservative side, but she wasn’t sure how she felt about being cast as the hapless dupe who’d fallen for Seth’s practiced charms.

“He’s lucky he’s still got all his own teeth.” Seth’s expression was dark. “I should have checked before opening the door. Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” She paused. “And maybe, in a way, we should thank them.”

“For what?”

Her heart was going crazy in her chest. She could hear her sister’s voice, urging her to lay her cards on the table so Seth would have to reveal his. Standing in the same room as him, the notion didn’t seem quite so suicidal. When he was this close—close enough to touch—it was impossible not to remember the way he’d brought her dinner the other night, and cooked for her last night. He’d run her a bath and bought her a present to make her laugh—a present that had meaning and significance for both of them.

All of that had to mean something. At the bare minimum, it suggested that Seth liked her a lot. It seemed to her that that was a pretty good start. Love started with liking, right? It certainly had for her.

She pressed a hand to her stomach, feeling more than a little queasy. “We both knew what this was going in. Right?” She watched him, waiting for some sign that her gut was wrong. “Probably better to have a wake-up call now, before things get messy.”

She held her breath as she waited for him to respond.
Please say something, do something. Give me a little bit of hope, something I can hang on to so I don’t have to do what I think I’m going to have to do.

For a fraction of a moment he was still. Then he arched an eyebrow, his mouth quirking up at the corner.

“Calling time on me already, Viv?” There was something supremely knowing and assured about the way he said it. As though he’d been here before. As though he’d had this conversation dozens of times.

And for all she knew, maybe he had.

“Seems smart to leave on a high, don’t you think?” she said as lightly as she could. She shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, clutching the denim tightly in an attempt to retain her composure. “You’ve got Daisy, I’ve got my business. It’s not like this was ever going to be a thing, right?” She manufactured a smile that was every bit as world-weary and wry as his.

He glanced at the ground, his smile twisting, one shoulder shrugging negligently. “Yeah. You’re probably right. We’ve both been around the block too many times to believe in those kinds of fairy tales.”

She had to bite the inside of her lip to distract herself from the insistent burn of tears. She would not cry in front of Seth. Not when she’d pulled out all the stops to preserve her dignity.

She had her answer. It was over. In reality, it had never really begun. In a way, that was the saddest thing of all.

“It was fun while it lasted, though,” she said.

“Yeah. It was, wasn’t it? You still up for breakfast?” Seth asked, walking to the counter.

As if she could eat.

“Thanks, but I might motor,” she said. “I’ll grab the rest of my stuff and say goodbye to Daisy.”

“Sure.” He shrugged again before turning to set the frying pan on the stove. Ready to start cooking his morning-after breakfast.

Life went on, after all. Eggs needed to be fried, bacon crisped. She was just another woman walking out the door. No big deal.

She waited until she was safely in Daisy’s room before she stopped and took a trembling breath.

She felt ambushed, and so stupid for feeling that way. Seth had never pretended to be anything other than what he was. She was the one who had ignored what she knew and allowed herself to play a very sophisticated game of chicken with him.

Well, game over.

Daisy made a small sound, drawing Vivian’s attention. She moved closer to the crib. Daisy’s tiny form was snuggled beneath a colorful quilt, her eyes closed, her mouth pursed. Both her hands were up near her face, the fingers loosely curled. Her blond hair was sitting up in wispy tufts, and there was a faint powdery mark on her cheek where she’d dribbled some formula.

“How’d that happen, sweetheart?” Vivian asked softly, brushing away the powder with her thumb.

Daisy turned toward her touch, eyes still closed, and sadness gripped Vivian so tightly it was hard to breathe. She’d never allowed herself to see Daisy as anything other than Seth’s daughter—she wasn’t that crazy—but there was no denying that she had fallen under this tiny baby’s spell. Daisy had come into the world in the most traumatic way possible, and she’d lost her mother after barely a week. A person would have to have a heart of stone to not feel for a girl who would never know her own mother.

Vivian didn’t try to stop the tears that misted her eyes this time. Instead, she leaned forward and whispered a promise to Daisy, a secret deal just between the two of them.

“If you need me, I’ll be here. Even if it’s hard. I’ll be the best aunt-in-law under the sun,” she promised.

Daisy’s eyes flicked open and she regarded Vivian unblinkingly for a long beat.

“It’s a deal, then,” Vivian whispered, watching as the baby blinked slowly a few times before slipping back into sleep. Then and only then did Vivian collect her bag and jacket from Seth’s bedroom. She paused outside the kitchen to ensure she had her game face on, then breezed in, her car keys already in hand.

“Bacon always smells so amazing. Like coffee. Two of the best smells in the world,” she said.

Seth was watching the frying pan, his expression closed off and unreadable. There was a moment when his gaze flicked to her that she thought she saw something troubled and deeply unhappy in his eyes...then he blinked and his mouth curled at the corners and he was Seth again, easy come, easy go.

“It’s not too late, you’re allowed to change your mind,” he said.

For a second the world seemed to stop. Then she understood that he was offering her a second chance at breakfast, not his heart.

“Tempting. But I’ve got a ton of stuff to do.”

He pulled the pan off the heat, but she waved a hand at him.

“No, don’t do that. I can see myself out. God forbid you end up with rubbery eggs.”

She forced herself to round the counter and press a quick, chaste kiss to his lips.

“Like I said, it was fun while it lasted,” she said.

“I’m hardly going to argue with that.”

Standing this close, she could smell the warm scent of his skin, and a sense memory hit her—Seth’s arm slipping around her torso during the night as he spooned her, his lips a soft pressure at the nape of her neck.

“Call me if you need anything, okay?” she said, because she couldn’t say what was in her heart.

I’ve fallen in love with you. Is it possible you could love me, too? Is it possible I could be amazing enough for you?

“Will do. Look after yourself, Viv.”

“You, too.”

Her footsteps sounded too loud as she headed for the front door. She fumbled the handle, then she was outside, momentarily blinded by the bright morning light. She forced herself to walk to her car, even though she really wanted to run. She managed to get her car started before it all caught up with her.

She point-blank refused to let herself cry, however. It didn’t matter that her chest was aching. She’d walked into this. She had no one to blame but herself.

Although maybe she could spare a little blame for Seth. Because they could have been so good together. They could have really had something....

You always wondered what it would be like if you let yourself go there with Seth. Well, now you know.

She sure did. Moving with deliberate care, she drove toward the sanctuary of home.

* * *

S
ETH
WAITED
UNTIL
the sound of the door shutting echoed through the house before flicking off the gas on the stove. He shoved the pan away, barely resisting the urge to chuck the thing across the room.

She was gone, just like that.

Probably better to have a wake-up call now, before things get messy.... It was fun while it lasted.

Man. He couldn’t believe it had all come crashing down so quickly. One minute he’d been hoping Vivian might spend the day with him and Daisy, which might lead to more days and nights, and the next minute his brother was looking at him as though he was a dirty old man in a smelly raincoat with a pocketful of sweets, and Vivian was drawing a line under the best three days of his life before heading for the door.

Ten minutes, start to finish, and it was all over.

Unable to stand still, he walked out onto the patio only to stop and look around, not sure why he’d come outside. He turned to go inside and caught his reflection in the glass. He was frowning, his stance aggressive, a faint curl to his lip.

He looked as though he wanted to punch someone.

He let his breath rush out in an exasperated snort. If he was going to punch anyone, it should be himself. He’d known from the moment Vivian slipped into his bed that they were living on borrowed time. It had been the unspoken rider to everything they’d said and done with each other. As she’d so eloquently said, they’d both known what this was going in.

They knew each other, and they knew his circumstances. His life was a mess, after all. And Vivian had far better things to fill her time than to take on an instant family with a man who didn’t exactly have a great pedigree when it came to long-term relationships. When viewed through that prism, the idea that anything that they started now had the chance to turn into something real and substantial was laughable.

And yet he’d let himself go there. There was no point pretending otherwise. In the past week, he’d imagined what it would be like having Vivian in his life. Nights with her in his bed, mornings when she was the first thing he woke to. A lifetime of laughter and smart-assery, sass and truth-telling.

Vivian, by his side. His friend. His lover. His partner.

“You stupid bastard.”

He dropped onto an outdoor chair like a felled tree, the realization hitting him like a freight train. He’d had
years
to get it right with Vivian. He’d had opportunity after opportunity—and he’d wasted them all. Every last one of them. He hadn’t understood, until right this second, what was at stake.

He loved her. He’d probably always loved her.

Of course he had.

Of course.

“Oh, God.”

Their shared history unspooled in his mind, each scene, each conversation, each moment making him squirm as he understood himself. Finally.

He really was a stupid bastard. The dumbest man in the world. Why hadn’t this epiphany hit him earlier when she was still under his roof, for example, or, better yet, still in his bed?

Right. Because it would have made such a huge difference. She’s the one who walked, remember? She’s the one who didn’t want things to get messy.

She was the one who had insisted he not even walk her to the door. Who had thanked him for a good time as though she were thanking the host of a particularly fun party she’d attended. Who had considered Jason and Jodie’s arrival “timely.”

She was the one who had walked away without a backward glance.

He’d been pondering how hard she was to read as he contemplated making a breakfast to knock her socks off, but in reality there wasn’t any ambivalence in her actions.

He was in love with her, but Vivian saw him as a good time for a short time.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t as cut and dried as that, but it might as well be. It wasn’t that great a surprise, after all. He was the one who had worked the playboy thing so hard. Who could blame Vivian for taking him at face value? That was all he’d ever offered her, so why wouldn’t she reach out and take it?