The Avoidance of Love (The Daniels' Sisters Book 2) (5 page)

I offered my hand to finish this moment of awkwardness and he eyed it with curiosity before looking directly into my eyes. He took my hand and shook it, however, rather than let it go, he pulled me into him and held me close to his chest.

“Thank you, Mara.” Oh God. This felt so good. His chest was so hard. His arms wrapped around my body easily. I felt so . . . I felt . . . I don’t know how I felt. Whatever this was, it wasn’t something I had felt before. He smelled so good. Like man and spice and the outdoors with a hint of petrol. I felt the chuckle rise in his chest. I knew I hadn’t resisted. I wasn’t going to bother to analyze it. I was just going to make sure it never happened again. He kissed the top of my head. If I felt conflicted and confused over my body’s reactions to Jace before, I was at a complete loss now. I needed him away from me. This was too much.

“This is really not necessary, Mr. Bryce.”

“Neither was the way you were looking at me, but I get the feeling that the attraction is mutual.”

“Well, then you would be mistaken. I’m not a prize to win or some sort of conquest.” He pulled away at that comment and eyed me curiously.

“Oh. I have never said or acted as though you are. Who are you then, Ms. Daniels, might I ask?”

“Quite simply, I’m a conqueror.” I turned and walked back to my desk. “Now, you’re dismissed.”

He laughed and ran his hand through his hair while shaking his head in disbelief. That single movement brought an unwavering heat to my core. “I’ll speak to you soon.” And with that, he left.

I stood staring at my closed door for a few moments before I numbly wandered collapsed into my seat. Was I numb? No I wasn’t. I was feeling the complete opposite. Every nerve ending was on fire. I was buzzing. I bent over and started to bang my head against the cold glass that was my desk. What the hell was going on with me?

I didn’t mix business with pleasure, ignoring the fact that the opportunity to mix business with pleasure had never arisen before. That aside, the woman who just welcomed Jace’s intimacy generally avoided that shit like the plague. Relationships, whether casual or serious, brought complications. They sucked you in and left you open and vulnerable to distraction and a world of hurt. I had seen it enough times with my sisters, with colleagues, and even my own parents. If they hadn’t been so wrapped up in their love for each other, they wouldn’t have been so distracted, and most definitely wouldn’t have been taking the trip away together that had resulted in their deaths. I knew it was a fucked up way to think but I always wondered if they had been paying full attention to the road. They were always looking at each other. What if they had been distracted for one crucial moment that would have saved their lives and a whole lot of heartache for everyone else who was left behind.

I rolled away from my desk to stop the inevitable blunt force trauma. I began to sort through the notes I’d made with Jace. Half way through the process, my office phone rang.

“Daniels Architecture, Mara Daniels speaking.”

“Urghhhh! You sound like Dana. I think your miserable persona is rubbing off on her.”

“What do you want, Lana?” My sister never called like a normal person. There was always some form of insult before she got to her point.

“Just making sure you’re still coming round to Dana’s later for sister night.”

“Yeah. I’m coming. I always do, don’t I? I just had a late meeting; I’m finishing now.”

“Ohhhhh. Does that mean Jace stopped by?”

“What?”

“Jace. Jace Bryce. Tall. Dark. Incredibly handsome. Ring any bells? I spoke to him earlier this week and told him to try you again. He said he was going to come and see you today. Damn bikers. So fucking unreliable. Oh, well. I tried.”

I was gripping the phone so tightly that my knuckles had turned white. Here some part of me was foolishly thinking, for whatever reason I don’t know, that Jace had come to my office of his own accord. Somewhere inside of me had hoped that he had felt something for me other than the need to flirt because it was second nature. I knew better. I always knew better. I felt stupid and angry with myself and as usual, before I could think, I unleashed it on the nearest sister.

“Did it occur to you, Lana that I didn’t ask for your help?”

“Well no, but . . .”

“And yet you interfered anyway. No matter how many times I ask you and the others to stay the fuck out of my business unless I ask for your opinion, you continue to stick your nose in.”

“But, Mara, I was just trying . . .”

“I don’t care what you were trying to do, Lana. You’re not helping. You’re never helping. You just have a great habit of making things worse. So here’s a tip. The next time you think you want to help, or that I might benefit from your assistance, take a pin, and stick it in that idea bubble of yours.”

“But, Mara . . .”

She didn’t get to finish what she was saying because I hung up the phone on her.

Originally, I hadn’t wanted Jace’s attentions. Then they sparked something in me, and I can’t deny that I wasn’t curious about it. Now, I find out that the only reason he was in my office is that my sister probably nagged him to death to get him to help me out. I knew what Lana and the rest of my sisters thought about me. It’s not as if they didn’t say it to my face when I pissed them off.

They all thought I lived a pathetic life with no one in it but them and our grandparents. They thought I was missing out on life, but it didn’t feel like that to me. I was protecting myself from the inevitable hurt that comes from having people close to you. I already know what it’s like to lose my parents. If I lost anyone else, I don’t think I’d recover. Nearly thirty years later and I’m still having nightmares about the day my Mum and Dad died. It’s more important to me that I’m there and of use to the people closest to me; I don’t need to add anyone else to the equation.

As I got ready to leave my office, everything that had happened today kept going round and round in my head. So much so that by the time I got to Dana’s house, I was angrier with Lana than when I’d spoken to her. Dinner was tense, and to be honest, I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Lana made no attempt to engage me in conversation, and any time she looked at me, I just glared at her. I was still seething. I couldn’t wait to finish my meal and make my excuses to leave.

When I finally got home, I chucked my keys on my table, something I never did because it was glass, could scratch easily, and cost a mint to repair. Right now, I just didn’t give a shit. The sooner I got to bed the sooner I could start afresh. The only problem was that I knew over the next few weeks that I was going to be speaking with Jace Bryce too much for my own peace of mind.

I WAS SURPRISED to find that once I started going through the notes I’d made with Jace, I started to understand his ideas more. I was even more surprised to learn that he’d be moving his father into the house with him. This brought its own complications to the project. Although he didn’t go into much detail about his father, he explained that he was disabled, so the house would need to have wheelchair access to most rooms in the house.

Jace talked about his hobby, which was custom body art for super-bikes. On top of the racetrack—which I was still struggling to get my head around—he wanted workspace to indulge in his art. When I looked at him as if to say
what the fuck,
he chuckled, and told me he had complete faith in my skills to deliver what he wanted. His chuckle was smooth. I decided to ignore the fact that it made me feel proud to have elicited that sound from him.

Most architects simply produced the drawings for a new project and left the owners of those drawings to move on with the construction themselves, but I loved seeing things through to the end and, on a large project, often worked as the project manager. I would need to clear my current workload before I took on Jace’s project, and until I viewed the site and agreed upon designs with him, I had more than enough time to get those other things done.

After two days of sorting and making list after list, I gave Jace a call to arrange a time to survey the site.

“You got Jace.” Another person who struggled with just answering the phone with
hello.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Bryce. It’s Mara Daniels here. I was just . . .”

“Hey, Mara. I was just thinking about you.” Why did that knowledge make my throat dry?

“Mara?”

“Um. Yes.” He laughed. Another sound that I had become fond of. “I was just calling to see if it would be possible to meet with you to see the site that you want to build on.”

“Great. I’m free tomorrow if that works for you?”

“Oh.” I thought I would have had more time to prepare myself. Not for the meeting, but for seeing Jace again. I didn’t think I could handle another meeting alone with him and then it came to me. “Tomorrow will be fine. Will 3 p.m. be all right with you?” I’ll be coming with my assistant, Mr. Cooper.” Coops never went to site viewings with me, unless there wasn’t anything to do in the office and he was bored, since I was perfectly capable of taking my own notes and pictures. On this occasion, his presence would serve a purpose

“Oh, yeah. Cool. I’ll see you then.” If I were naïve enough to believe, I would have thought he sounded disappointed, but I wasn’t. It was possible that Jace Bryce was interested in me based on his previous actions, but if he was, it was only because I was another conquest to be had. Even if his intentions were pure, I wouldn’t be interested in pursuing it.

“See you, then. Goodbye.”

“Bye, Mara.”

Once the site visit was complete, we would need to get all outstanding business closed while we focused on Jace’s build. Coops seemed more interested in why I was dragging him along to a site visit. “And I’m coming along to this why?”

“I told you: to take notes.”

“You never need me to take notes. Plus, you know I hate going to site visits. Why am I really going?”

“How many times are you going to repeat the same question so that I can give you the same answer?”

“What you really mean is am I going to let you keep avoiding telling me the truth. The answer is no.”

I groaned and began to beat my head against my desk. “Coops, why do you insist on making my life difficult? Just come and take the damn notes.” He stared at me for a while before I saw a dirty smirk appearing on his face.

“Hmmmmm. Let me put my magical gay power of smelling bullshit to good use.” I groaned some more. He dramatically drummed his fingers against his chin. “I’m not needed on this site visit.” He comically tipped his head to the side and began to tap his finger against the side of his mouth. “Don’t interrupt me now; I’m in
Columbo
mode. I’m either a diversion or . . .” His eyes widened in realization. “Oh my giddy fucking aunt . . . I’m a shitting cock blocker. Or is it clam jammer? Who cares?”

I stopped hitting my head against my desk and slumped back in my chair. I just looked at him as he continued on. “I’m a cock-blocking-clam-jammer. You’re using me as a cock-blocking-clam-jammer. Why am I a cock-blocking-clam-jammer?” He was getting hysterical, which was starting to piss me off. “Oh, shit this is too funny. Wait just a minute. Does Jace Bryce want in your panties? And you’re doing your frigid vagina thing, so you’re using me to help keep it frozen.” He stood there laughing for a solid minute and when that got to be too much he sat down so he could laugh directly in my face. “ Mara, what’s the problem? It’s not like you’ve never done a site visit with a man before.”

“I know this. But he kinda flirts with me. I don’t like it.” Coops squinted at me and crossed his right leg over his left resting his ankle on his thigh. His legs really were very long.

“Okay. So what I just heard was that Jace Bryce has flirted with you. You liked it even though you didn’t want to. Now, you’ve got a site viewing with him, and you’re afraid you’re going to maul him for sex and ruin your image.”

“Coops!”

“What? Most of what I just said was true. In fact, ninety-nine percent of it was true. My phrasing might have been just a little off. My point remains.”

“Apart from it being highly unprofessional, I’m just not interested in him.”

Coops let out a little snort. “Even I’m interested in him. When was the last time you had a man, anyway?”

“I’m not having this conversation.”

“I’ll take that as a long time ago. This,” he made a circular motion in my direction. “Whatever it is or is going to be, will be good for you. Something tells me Jace Bryce is a persistent little bugger and he’ll need to be to get through your ice knickers. Thinking about it, I might just hand him a pickaxe!”

“You’re not going to come are you?”

“Hell fucking no. I am not enabling you. The flirting will do you good.” I growled at him as he retreated to the door, barely stifling his continued laughter. “Okay, Okay. I’m good.” He struggled to contain himself.

“Uh huh.”

“I’ve got work to do. My boss is a frosty bitch who will freeze me with her ice glare if I don’t get through my to-do list.” I swear that if he had been just a bit closer, I would have kicked him in his shins.

“Laters.”