When Love Happens (3 page)

“See?”
Chloe said sotto voce before clearing her throat. “Hi. Welcome to Ribbon Ridge.”

“Thank you. It reminds me of villages back home—quite lovely.” His gaze was glued to Tori as he said lovely. His English accent flowed over Tori, eliciting the same visceral response she’d had when she’d met him more than nine months ago. Maggie
might dig British accents, but for Tori, they were auditory aphrodisiacs. Especially when paired with lush cobalt eyes and a smile that could melt a glacier. She was annoyed to find she hadn’t become immune during the months they’d been apart.

“Hi, I’m Maggie, and this is Chloe, Sara, and Tori.” She gestured toward each of them as she spoke. “Are you here for Oktoberfest or something else?”

“Something else.” The corner of his mouth lifted in the barest hint of that sexy smile Tori had fallen in lust with. And damn it if her knees didn’t wobble. “I wonder if I might borrow Tori for a bit?”

Tori resisted the urge to gauge the others’ reactions. Let them draw their own conclusions—she knew she’d have to explain later. But right now she wanted to know what in the hell her husband was
doing here.

She forced a tight smile that was more for her sister and the others than for Sean. He might still stir her desire, but seeing him dredged up a whole host of other feelings she preferred to bury—regret, self-disgust, guilt. “Sure.”

He offered her his arm, and she took it, lightly curling her fingers around his forearm. She could feel his muscles and tendons through the cotton of
his white button-down shirt. And his heat. Touching him, she decided, had been a lousy idea.

“See you later,” he said to the others, allowing his mouth to curve into that full devastating grin.

Tori had almost forgotten how gorgeous he was. Almost.

She glanced at her sister, who watched her with surprise and mouthed, “Who is he?”

Tori said nothing, just shook her head. Her stomach tossed as
she realized she’d finally have to come clean. First, however, she had to deal with Sean, find out what he was doing here, and then tell him to go away—for good.

S
EAN HAD EXPECTED
to feel the jolt of lust when he saw her. What he hadn’t expected was seeing it reflected in her eyes. It was Kuala Lumpur all over again. Totally cliché meet: They locked eyes across a crowded space. He bought her a drink. They chatted. They danced. They made love in her private bungalow all night. And they married five weeks later.

Jump ahead nine months, and
they were back to being strangers. Worse than strangers, actually, because the desire in her gaze had quickly faded and become something far uglier. She’d looked at him with utter distaste, as if she’d stepped in something really foul, and that something was him.

“Where are we going?” he asked, having no idea where to take her so they could talk.

“Out of the tent.” She steered him through the
main entrance, where people were filtering in and out. Outside in the park, smaller vendors were set up around the rectangular green space selling all manner of things—knitted accessories, handmade soaps, woodworked items. But it looked as though they were starting to close up for the night. Meanwhile, the food and beer were plentiful inside the main tent and at the tables set up behind it.

She drew away from him, her slim runner’s legs devouring the grass as she stalked to the corner of the park, where a small playground stood silent and deserted at this hour. As soon as they reached it, she turned and looked at him warily. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought it was past time for a face-to-face visit, don’t you?”

Light posts illuminated the displeased set of her mouth. “I didn’t
realize you were back in the States.”

“Only just. Coming to see you was my first priority.” That might have been true if she’d given him even a smidgeon of encouragement, but she’d done nothing except evade his efforts to connect. Which wasn’t to say he didn’t care—he did. And truth be told, he
had
wanted to see her. A part of him wanted to know if what was between them was really gone.

She
sipped her beer. “I’m surprised.”

“And annoyed, it seems.”

She exhaled. “Sorry, I really wanted to keep you separate from my life here.”

“From your life
period
, you mean?” Sarcasm wasn’t going to help his cause. He gave himself an internal shake and admonished himself to keep his focus. “Forget I said that. I take it your family still doesn’t know about me?”

“No, and I was sort of hoping they
never would.”

Ouch.
She wanted to end their fledgling union before she’d even given it a chance. That pissed him off. He didn’t give up on things. He fought and he worked and he went after what he wanted, no holds barred. It was why he was here—he had to save his job. And if it could somehow bring them back together, so much the better. However, his hope for that was completely withering.

He
stepped toward her. “I was hoping the precise opposite. You’re my wife, Tori, and I take my vows very seriously. I understand you needed time, but it’s been over eight months since the wedding. I haven’t seen you since March, and we’ve barely communicated. I’ve missed you.” He worried he was heaping it on too thick, but this was too important to bugger.

“Why?” She crossed her arms, still clutching
her plastic beer mug. “We barely know each other. Three days in Malaysia. What, five or six over a couple of weekends in LA? And then the weekend in Vegas.”

“Don’t forget the weekend in San Francisco.” Although they were likely better off doing just that. He’d visited her about a month after her brother had died. She’d been sad and withdrawn. He’d tried to be supportive, but she’d kept him at
arm’s length. He’d slept on the couch and cut the trip short.

She threw him a glance that said she was having the same thought as him—that some things were better left forgotten. Such as their entire farce of a marriage.

This evening was in danger of going directly into the shitter. He wished he had another mug of that delicious stout he’d sampled earlier. Or maybe a vat of it.

He took a deep
breath and tried for something pleasant, conciliatory. “You look great.” Dressed in skinny jeans tucked into knee-high boots and a V-neck coral sweater with a patterned infinity scarf, she was even sexier than he remembered. And he had a pretty good memory where she was concerned. A memory that included auburn hair. “Your hair’s different—I like it.”

She touched the long, dark strands. “Yeah,
I change it up from time to time. This is more my normal color,” she muttered. She shifted her weight between her feet and the silence grew. The sounds of laughter and enjoyment carried from the tent area, providing stark contrast to the tension swirling around them.

Tori fixed him with an apologetic stare. “Look, I don’t want to hurt you, but this . . . ” She gestured in front of her as if something
tangible was lodged between them. “Us. This marriage. It’s done. I e-mailed you a while ago about a divorce.” She looked away, as if she simply couldn’t bear to see him anymore.

Sean’s gut tightened. He didn’t want to feel a reaction, but it slammed into him nonetheless. He wanted to rail at her for not even giving them a chance, but again, that wouldn’t help him. Besides, his feelings didn’t
matter. His primary goal had to be keeping his job. Saving the marriage—not that there was anything to save—seemed hopeless, so he’d do better to focus on what he
could
salvage. And God, he hoped he could.

“Yeah, I got that. But I don’t agree that we’re done.” He kept his tone light and risked another step toward her. “I think we owe it to each other to see if there’s still something here.” He
was careful to make it about both of them and not her, even though she was the one who’d created this chasm.

She shook her head. “There isn’t.”

He took another step, slowly, in case she decided to run. She did look a bit like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. “May I make a proposition?”

She frowned at him. “I guess.” Her dismissive tone said she wasn’t even going to consider it.

He swallowed against his rising frustration. “Let me spend a week here.” She opened her mouth—likely to protest—but he held his hand up. “Hear me out? I think you owe me that much.” It was a risk, saying she owed him something, but damn it, she did. And she ought to be smart enough to realize that. Or maybe she was right, and he didn’t really know her at all.

She mashed her lips together until
they disappeared, which only made her look supremely irritated. Oh, she was making this so enjoyable. “Fine.”

“I’m asking for a week in which we spend time together, as friends if you prefer, and just see what happens.”

“As friends? How’s that supposed to work?”

Not very well, given your current animosity.
“You said you didn’t want your family to know about me. I’ll agree to that.” Even though
it grated like sandpaper against his bare arse. “I’m just a friend who’s been dying to visit Ribbon Ridge after all of the great things you’ve said about it.”

Uncertainty lurked in the depths of her gaze and in the measured delivery of her speech. “My family is going to wonder why I didn’t tell them you were coming.”

“Just say it was spontaneous. That I got back from my assignment in Europe,
had a little time off, and decided to surprise you.”

“A surprise makes it sound like we’re together or something.” She shook her head. “No, that’s not going to work.” Given the distaste in her tone and the tense set of her shoulders, she was clearly dead set against anyone thinking they were romantically linked at all.

“Why? I’m not asking you to say we’re married.”
Though that would’ve been
nice.
“Who cares if they think we’re an item?”
Unless
. . . Every muscle in his body constricted. “Is there someone else?”

Her gaze snapped to his in surprise. “No. In fact . . . never mind. I’ll introduce you as my friend. Let them draw their own conclusions. I’d prefer you simply say we’re just friends—no subtext. Will you do that?”

She was actually going to agree to it. He was nearly speechless.
“Yes, provided you give me the week and an open mind.”

Her brows pitched down over her eyes, making her look thoroughly disgruntled. He could scarcely recognize the vivacious, electric woman he’d met and fallen head over heels for. “I can’t promise anything, Sean. Things are different now.
I’m
different now.”

“I can see that.” He let his gaze travel over her slowly, but he wasn’t seeing her
as she was now. He envisioned her nude, lying tangled in the sheets of her bed in Kuala Lumpur, the morning light making her skin glow like pale, polished gold. She might feel different, but somewhere in there was the woman he’d married. The woman he’d fallen in love with.

The question was, did he love her still? He had a week to find out. And to determine if she felt the same. Though he was
fairly certain he already knew the answer to that.

He internally slapped himself out of his lust-addled haze. Right now she was a means to a very valuable end—keeping his job. He honestly didn’t expect anything else to come of this, and for that he felt sorry. Again, his competitive nature surged within him, but he tamped it back.
Eye on the prize, Hennessy, and it’s not her.

“So it’s settled
then?” Sean rubbed his hands together.

“Why are you still wearing that?” Tori’s gaze dipped to his left hand, where his platinum wedding ring glinted in the lamplight. “You can’t wear that.”

Right. He’d actually meant to take it off before arriving, but he barely even noticed it anymore. He’d worn it since they’d taken their vows, and it had, quite frankly, become part of him. He slid the band
over his knuckle. It fit snugly, so he had to straighten his finger and wriggle it a bit to work it off. Then he tucked it into the pocket of his jeans. “Better?”

She grabbed his hand and held it up in the light. “I don’t know. Does it look like you were wearing a ring?”

He tried to ignore the flash of awareness her touch wrought. “Does it matter?”

She pursed her lips and dropped his hands.
“I suppose not. I can’t believe you were still wearing it.”

“Why not? We’re married, aren’t we?” He glanced at her bare left hand.

She wrapped it around the beer mug and covered her fingers with her right hand. “You know why I had to take it off. I couldn’t wear it home. Not . . . not that day.”

He did, but he still didn’t understand why she’d
never
put it back on.

“Hey, Tori!” A man walked
toward them, his arms swinging as he picked up the pace upon seeing them. “I’ve been looking all over for you. Rob wants a picture with everyone.” He stopped a few feet from them and looked at Sean. “Hi.”

“Evening, mate.” Sean recognized the man from pictures Tori had shown him. He was Derek Sumner. The Archers had taken him in at the age of seventeen after his mother had died of brain cancer,
leaving him an orphan. Best friends with Kyle Archer, he had already been considered part of the family by Tori’s parents. Welcoming him as one of their own had been a no-brainer, according to her.

Derek cast Tori a curious glance. “Am I interrupting something?”

She smiled, though it seemed to carry a touch of nervousness. “No, just catching up. Derek, this is my friend Sean Hennessy. He’s been
wanting to check out Ribbon Ridge for a while now, and Oktoberfest seemed like the perfect time.”

“That and I had some time off.” Sean offered his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

Derek shook his hand. “Same. But why don’t you have a beer? You need a beer.”

Sean grinned, liking Derek immediately. At least someone would make the next week palatable. “Now you’re talking.”

Tori threw Sean an irritated
glance that seemed to scream
Knock it off!
Sean only smiled in return. He ought not to annoy her, not when he had to figure out a way to get her to agree to this Christmas special, but he couldn’t help himself. After months of feeling iced out, he rather enjoyed causing her agitation. It seemed only fair.

As they walked back toward the tent, Derek said, “You didn’t come all the way from the UK,
did you?”

Sean chuckled. “No, but I get why you’d think so. I’ve lived in LA for going on five years now.”

“And how do you know Tori?” It was a polite question. And maybe Derek actually did care how they’d met, but Sean sure as hell wasn’t going to answer it. Plus, he was looking forward to seeing what Tori came up with.

“I work with a good friend of Sean’s. We met a while back at a work thing.
He’s a beer connoisseur, so we hit it off. I gave him some Archer beer once, and he’s been dying to come up here ever since.” She actually sounded quite convincing, almost as though they
were
friends. But that was one thing he wasn’t sure they’d ever had time to be.

Derek grinned. “You’ve come to the right place for sure, and you’re with the right people. We’re a beer lover’s paradise.”

Connoisseur
was perhaps overstating things, but Sean did enjoy a good ale. “It certainly looks that way.”

They moved into the tent, and Derek looked to Tori. “Everyone’s over near the fondue table. The photographer wanted that as the backdrop with Kyle in his chef’s hat.”

Tori nodded before casting a guarded glance toward Sean. “I’ll catch up with you later, ’K?”

“Nah, come along,” Derek said. “That way
you can meet everyone else.”

Tori’s nostrils flared, and Sean swore her flesh tinged green, but she said nothing. He could practically feel her discomfort crawling up his own spine.

Sean, on the other hand, could barely contain his glee as he contemplated watching her squirm. He pinned her with a jolly grin. “Sounds good.”

T
HE BACK OF
Tori’s neck pricked with anxiety as she walked toward her
family in the corner by the fondue table. Everyone was there: Mom; Dad; Sara and her fiancé, Dylan; Kyle and Maggie; and Chloe. Well, everyone who was in town. Her three other brothers were scattered hither and yon, seeing to their own lives. Something she ought to be doing—and would, once The Alex was done.

She felt Sean walking behind her as if they were somehow joined. It wasn’t a physical
thing, she told herself. Well, maybe it was, but whatever it was, it didn’t bear thinking about. Except she had to spend the next week with him.