Within Reach (12 page)

And like some morals campaigners, he was a raging hypocrite because even now he had a hard-on that wouldn’t quit. For his dead wife’s best friend.

He swore again and headed for his bedroom. He dragged his clothes off angrily, carelessly, furious with himself, with his body, and, yes, with Angie, even though he knew she was the only one who was blameless in this situation.

He got into bed and punched his pillow and steadfastly ignored the demands of his body. He wasn’t a kid, after all. He might not be able to control who he desired, but he could damn well control what he did about it.

Even though he was gritty-eyed with tiredness, it took him a long time to fall asleep. He kept hearing his words echoing in his head and seeing the shock in her face. And he had to keep wiping the image of her wearing next to nothing from his mind’s eye. Her long, lean legs. The plush, full roundness of her breasts. That enticing glimpse of belly…

He must have eventually fallen asleep because he woke to find daylight streaming in his window. He stared at the triangle of bright white light on his ceiling and knew that his only priority for the day was to make things right with Angie.

Somehow.

He had no idea how he would achieve that. He only knew that anything else wasn’t an option.

CHAPTER NINE

A
NGIE
DROVE
AROUND
THE
block twice before parking in front of Michael’s house the next morning. Her first instinct on waking had been to not go to work at all. She didn’t want to see him. Not yet. Not until she’d gotten past the hurt and anger she felt at his baffling, unwarranted attack. But she had clients coming midmorning to brief her on a new commission and she needed to prepare.

She didn’t understand what had happened, why he’d spoken so harshly. As she’d said to him at the time, Eva and Charlie had seen far more at the beach. Nothing that shouldn’t have been on show had been on show. She’d been perfectly decent, even if she had felt more than a little exposed, given the circumstances.

The only conclusion she could come to was that it had been about a lot more than the fact that he’d busted her in her underwear. Michael’s reaction had been so strong, so visceral, and responses like that didn’t come out of nowhere.

She sat in her car long after she’d turned off the engine, hands tight on the steering wheel. She felt absurdly wounded by what had passed between them. Which went to show how much she’d invested in Michael and Eva and Charlie.

Given that, and given her…
issues
around Michael, maybe her first instinct to retreat had been the right one. Maybe she needed to start putting a bit more distance between them. She’d allowed herself to become so absorbed with Michael and the kids that she’d let her own life slide. Maybe she needed to address that.

The engine ticked, cooling in the morning air. She grabbed her bag and got out. For the first time since she’d moved into Billie’s studio, she used the side gate to access the backyard, walking the long way around. Feeling more than a little cowardly and furtive, she let herself into the studio. She didn’t relax until the door was closed behind her, then she let out a heavy sigh. Pushing her hair off her forehead, she dropped her bag onto the table and shed her jacket and prepared to very deliberately lose herself in her work.

She was using the flexi-drive drill, buffing work marks from an almost completed ring when a short, sharp rap sounded on the door. She glanced at the clock. It was a little past nine, which meant Michael had dropped Eva off at school already.

She let the drill fall silent and pushed her chair back from her desk. She took a deep breath, let it out, then swiveled to face the door, bracing her legs and resting her hands on her knees. “Come in.”

The door opened and Michael filled the frame. His gray-green gaze was troubled when it met hers. He looked tired, his face pale and tight.

“Have you got a minute?”

“Of course.”

He entered, his body stiff with tension. She clenched her fingers and forced herself to maintain eye contact with him. She might feel awkward as hell right now, she might be hurt and confused by what had happened, but this man was her friend. She wanted to hear what he had to say. She wanted to find a way to put last night behind them.

He was wearing a pair of black dress pants and a finely striped shirt and his dark hair was rumpled. His hands fisted and relaxed at his sides, as though he didn’t quite know what to do with them.

“I’m sorry about last night. I was totally out of line. I was tired and you surprised me and before I knew it a bunch of crap was spilling out my mouth—” He shook his head. “Sorry. Let me start again, without the excuses. I should never have spoken to you like that. Period. You mean a lot to me and the kids and I hope that you can forgive me.”

There was no doubting the sincerity of his words. Angie loosened her grip on her knees.

“It’s not a matter of me forgiving you, Michael. I guess I don’t really understand what happened. Like I told you, I had no idea you were even in the house.”

“It wasn’t about you, Angie, I swear.”

“If I’ve been coming around too much, hanging around too long after I finished each day, let me know. Because I would totally understand. This is your house, after all.”

It was one explanation for his extreme reaction. An unpleasant one from her point of view because it meant she’d worn out her welcome, but an explanation nonetheless.

He took a step toward her, one hand raised as if to erase her words from the air. “Angie, no. We love having you around. You know that.”

“Okay.” She knew she sounded unconvinced, probably because she was.

“Please believe me—this is all on me. You’ve done nothing but be generous and gracious and kind.”

“Okay,” she said again.

He made a frustrated sound. “I don’t know what to say to make this go away.”

“Tell me the truth.”

Because if she’d said or done something, if he was feeling that strongly about something to do with her, she wanted—she needed—to know. To be able to fix it if she could.

Michael stared at her. A muscle leaped in his jaw. After a long beat, he looked away.

“It was a stupid reaction. I-It’s been a while since I’ve been in the same room with an almost-naked woman.”

For a long moment she simply stared at him, her brain refusing to process what he’d said. Then she registered the color in his cheeks and the nervous, boyish bob of his Adam’s apple and comprehension washed over her.

“Oh,” she said. Heat rushed into her own face. “Right. I—I didn’t realize.”

“Relax. You’re not in any danger. I’m not going to leap on you or anything.” Michael’s laugh was nervous, awkward. “I guess I’m not as ready to become a monk as maybe I thought I was.”

She nodded, unable to think of a single thing to say. He glanced toward the door, the desire to escape writ large on his face. He didn’t make a run for it, though. He stood his ground and waited until she looked him in the eye again.

“Like I said, it was me, not you. And I’m sorry for being such a dick about it.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“I do, Angie. I definitely do, on both counts. I’ve been a shit friend and an even shittier husband.” He offered her a small, tight smile and turned to leave.

She didn’t say anything to stop him. Instead, she watched him exit and listened to his slow, deliberate tread as he crossed the deck to the house.

She stared at the patch of concrete where he’d been standing and tried to get a grip on what he’d revealed.

Michael had seen her in her underwear and been turned on. Despite what he’d said about not being interested in sex. Despite his lack of interest in other women.

And he hated himself for it. She’d seen it in his eyes as he confessed—guilt and self-loathing and shame. That was why he’d lashed out at her—because he’d been shocked at himself. Because he’d been so bloody determined to deny that part of himself.

She closed her eyes, reliving the way he’d faced her and confessed his “crime,” inviting her censure and judgment.

I’ve been a shit friend and an even shittier husband.

It was the absolute opposite of reality. Michael wasn’t a shit friend or a shit husband. He was loyal and generous and loving and gentle. And he was human—very human. Something he didn’t seem ready to accept.

Yet she’d let him walk away without correcting the record. She’d let him walk away carrying all that guilt and confusion and self-disgust, as though he was the only person who had been wrestling with an unwanted, uncomfortable attraction in the past few weeks. As though he was utterly alone and wrong and disloyal and all the horrible things she’d been hurling at her own head since the weekend.

A sudden, urgent certainty gripped her. She strode for the door, not daring to give herself a chance to think or second-guess. The French doors to the kitchen swung open with too much force, their glass panels rattling as they hit the side of the house. She didn’t stop until she was standing on the threshold of Michael’s study.

He was at his desk, his shoulders hunched and tight as he gazed at the blueprints spread in front of him.

“It’s not just you,” she said. Her voice sounded too high, the pitch all wrong.

He swung to face her, an uncomprehending frown on his face. She gathered her courage. After all, he’d been brave and honest enough to tell her the truth—the very least she could do was return the favor.

“Last Friday, when you told me about your dream, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About you. That’s why I haven’t been hanging around as much. That’s why I didn’t stay for dinner the other night.”

Her face was on fire. Her armpits prickled with embarrassed sweat. She felt as though she’d stripped naked and run onto a crowded football field.

“Right.” He looked shocked. As though the possibility of her returning his feelings—of their attraction being mutual—hadn’t even occurred to him. She knew how that felt—she’d experienced the exact same feeling not five minutes ago.

“When you think about it, it’s not exactly a miracle. I mean, we’re both single. We spend a lot of time together. We like each other. It was probably inevitable. But it doesn’t mean anything. It definitely doesn’t mean you’re a shitty husband, and it doesn’t mean I’m about to betray Billie. Believe me, I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. It simply means that we’re mortal and flawed and human. Nothing more, nothing less. Because it’s not as though you’re going to suddenly jump my bones or I’m going to jump yours. It’s just a thing that has happened, and we’ve acknowledged it, and now we can move on and get past it and life can continue as usual.” Angie paused for breath, aware that her speech had been closer to a stream of consciousness blurt than a rational statement.

A frown formed between his eyebrows. She could see him grappling with his guilt and trying to work out how her confession fit with his own culpability.

“It’s just a thing, Michael,” she said quietly. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It still happened.”

“If you’re going to punish yourself for every less-than-noble thought you have, you might as well knit yourself a hair shirt and start sleeping on a bed of nails.”

He shifted in the chair, uneasy. “If it was anyone else. One of those women from the mothers’ group. Someone at work… But you and Billie—”

“I know. Same here. But a thought is only a thought. It’s not an action. We haven’t hurt anyone. And before you know it, this weirdness will pass and I’ll be about as attractive to you as a lump of wood and vice versa. Hell, we’ll probably laugh our heads off over how ridiculous it all was.”

Michael’s gaze swept down her body. His frown intensified as one hand lifted to pinch the bridge of his nose. He swore, the single word pithy and heartfelt.

Maybe it had been a mistake coming in here, being honest with him. Maybe she’d made things worse, not better. She’d been driven by the need to show him that he wasn’t alone, that they were both struggling with the same thing. But maybe she’d only confused the issue.

“I’m sorry,” she said helplessly.

Michael immediately shook his head. “Don’t apologize.”

“Why not? You apologized to me.”

They stared at each other, the silence loaded.

“I don’t want this to mess things up between us,” he said. “There’s no way we could have gotten through the last year without you. I refuse to screw that up, Angie.”

“You think I want that? You and the kids mean the world to me. The world.”

“So, what? We wait this out?”

“You got a better idea?”

He dropped his head back and stared at the ceiling. “No.”

“Okay. Well, I need to get back to work. And you’re probably swamped, too.” She took a step away. “I’ll see you later.”

“Sure.”

She glanced over her shoulder as she left. Michael had already swiveled to face the desk. If anything, his shoulders looked even more tight and hunched.

Good one. Way to go.

What else should she have done? Let him fester in his misguided guilt? Let him go on thinking that he was some kind of freak for having a perfectly understandable response to a difficult, tragic situation?

She stopped in the hallway and pressed her palms to her face, trying to clear her head of the many confusing thoughts and feelings whirling through it. It was useless, however, and she was just as confused and unsettled when she returned to her studio.

She picked up the ring she’d been working on, but her mind kept throwing up the image of Michael’s tense posture. If only there was something she could do to help him…

You can. Stay away from him. Keep your distance. Let this thing die a quick, painless death.

It was the right answer, the only answer—and she hated herself for the little stab of disappointment she felt at the idea of having to distance herself from him.

Which proved that the voice in her head was right.

* * *

M
ICHAEL
WROTE
A
NOTE
on the blueprint. The balance between the two wings of the Watsons’ beach house was all wrong. He needed to chat with them and—

Who was he kidding? Approximately ten percent of his brain was focused on the plans in front of him. The other ninety percent was reviewing what Angie had told him.

She was attracted to him, too. She’d been turned on by his sexy dream. She refused to feel guilty about something she viewed as almost inevitable, given their proximity and involvement in each other’s lives. She firmly believed that this, too, would pass and that their friendship would endure.

He hoped like hell she was right, because the part that was stuck in his imagination like peanut butter was the turned-on part. Not the part about their friendship enduring. Not the part about him feeling guilty or not guilty—to his shame. All he could think about was Angie wanting him. Angie being aroused by the notion that he’d dreamed about sex. Angie looking at him and thinking the same things he’d been thinking about her.

Bloody hell.

He rested his head in his hands. When it came to sex, what turned him on had always been pretty vanilla by today’s standards—sex with a willing woman who meant something to him. He’d never felt guilty or conflicted about his own needs and desires, even when he was married. Until now.

He didn’t want to want Angie. He didn’t want his wife’s best friend to be the object of his sexual attraction. But there Angie was, lodged in his brain in the slot marked
sex.
He’d seen her in her underwear. He’d held the delicate silk of her bra in his hand. He’d listened to her talk about sex. He’d imagined her naked, looking at him with smoky, knowing eyes. He’d gotten hard over her. He was hard now, thinking about the dangerous, dangerous possibility her confession laid before him.