Switched (22 page)

She hadn’t moved. Hadn’t come to him or reached out with any part of her. She was closed to him, something that had never happened before, not even when she learned he wasn’t who he claimed to be.

He tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. “We should calm down and think about this logically.”

“You never made me a promise. I’m the one who rushed to fill in the blanks.” She rubbed her cheeks and under her eyes.

Tears.
The reality of her pain, that he inflicted it, sliced through him with the horrifying rip of a blade. “Please don’t cry.”

“I’m saying goodbye.”

The words shredded him as much as the tears. “Why does this have to be a forever-or-never issue?”

She rounded the bed with the suitcase in her hand. “If I thought, for even one second, that there was hope you’d put the past behind you and trust me with your future, I would ask you where you wanted to go for dinner.”

“Then we’re fine.” He reached out. When she didn’t shrink away from him, he let his hands settle on her arms. Let her warmth seep into him.

“You’re saying words you don’t mean.”

The hollowness in his stomach spilled over to the rest of him. “I hate when women do that, when they think they know what you feel and assume.”

She gave him a watery smile. “I’m just one of the ‘women’ now?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I can promise you I’ll never try to change your love for your job. Guarantee that I won’t make you choose. That I will always love you. But none of that matters if you don’t believe.” She kept the stranglehold on the suitcase and never touched him.

“I do trust you.” He said the words and meant them. He trusted her more than he’d ever trusted another woman.

She lifted her hand then. Her fingers traced his cheek to his jawline. “You are this smart and dedicated, strong and sexy man. But you have this wall around you, and while I am willing to climb over it, I need help.”

The words didn’t make any sense to him. He was offering her all he had. “You are making this so much more complicated than it needs to be.”

“No, I’m making everything very easy. You can go back to your life exactly as you like it—alone and safe.”

“That’s not fair.”

She leaned in and kissed his cheek. The touch was gone almost before it started. “Merry Christmas, Aaron. I hope you get everything you want.”

His hand dropped from her arm as she turned away. “Risa, don’t do this.”

“Goodbye.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

After a week without Risa, Aaron was slowly going mad. Though she’d barely been in his condo, he smelled her when he walked in the door each night. He saw her, or visions of her, on the street. He even listened to her last voice mail over and over to remember her voice.

He had it bad.

Royal sat at his desk and stared Aaron down. “Man, if you don’t smarten up soon I’m quitting.”

He’d been back in the office for four days. He didn’t let a little thing like surgery and almost being blown into a million pieces slow down his work schedule. Royal wanted his life back and insisted that happen immediately.

Then he came in, ribs wrapped and limping, and demanded to know where Risa was. He’d been asking questions about her ever since. The two times Aaron complained, Royal blamed the interest on Gail.

“I may leave anyway,” Royal grumbled. “It would serve you right.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Aaron asked, but he knew. Royal had been dropping hints at his displeasure over his boss’s love life every ten to twelve seconds.

“Take it from a long-married man—”

This counted as Aaron’s least favorite lecture. “You got married before you were legally able to drink.”

Royal pointed at Aaron. “And I’m still with the same woman, and will be forever, so the start date of the relationship isn’t relevant. Neither is how long you’ve known each other before you know she’s the one.”

Now he sounded like Risa. “Subtle.”

“Go to her. Get on your knees, beg for forgiveness and stop kicking around here.” Royal moved around too much, then grabbed his side on a wince.

“It’s not that easy.”

Two days ago when Royal had said the same thing, Aaron told him where he could go. Hearing the advice a second time now, Aaron could think if nothing but that it might not be enough to get Risa back.

He’d gone from being firm in his position to wavering. He was ready to chuck whatever complaints he could think of if it meant she’d give him ten minutes to plead his case.

“Of course it is. Christmas is next week. Do you really want to go through another holiday season alone?”

How had the holiday snuck up like that? The last thing he cared about was gifts and trees.

“I ticked her off.” The words popped out. Normally he wouldn’t share on this level with Royal, but all the arguments and frustrations were locked inside him and Aaron needed them out.

Royal leaned his chair back and stared at the ceiling. “You’re ticking me off.”

“We have work to do.”

His chair legs hit the floor again. “Let me ask you something.”

Aaron pretended to file. He’d done that a lot lately. “Can I say no?”

“Is there anything on your desk or anywhere in this office that matters to you more than Risa?”

Aaron slammed the desk drawer shut. “No.”

“Then go fix your mess.”

When he put it like that, it did sound easy. Pretty satisfying, too. Sleeping alone sure wasn’t.

And it wasn’t just the sex. He’d turned over a thousand times during the past week, thinking to tell her something and she wasn’t there. How a woman who spent so little time in his life could come to mean so much confused him.

He struggled to bring common sense back into the equation. The last time he’d led only with his heart, he ended up with a woman who dumped him. “I need to think this through. If I rush in I run the risk of disappointing us both.”

Royal nodded. “Absolutely. That makes sense.”

Aaron wasn’t expecting the agreement. “Right.”

“Good.”

Was it? “It’s the smart way to proceed.”

Royal held up a finger. “One thing, though.”

“What?”

“She works with pretty much all men, right?”

Aaron didn’t like where this was headed. The chest ache he got every time he thought about her thundered back. “Where are you going with this?”

“Nowhere.”

“Okay, then.” Aaron stared at the papers in front of them. He had no idea what they said. His vision clouded until all the black ink ran together.

The silence lasted all of three seconds.

“It just seems to me the combination of men, mistletoe and the holidays could be tempting, especially if she’s looking for a way to forget you or even get back at you.” Royal reached for the soda on the far side of his desk and hissed when he couldn’t grab it. “You might want to be careful about how long you wait.”

That did it. Not having her ripped him up inside until he bled. Thinking of her with someone else shredded him further. It would also guarantee jail time because he’d kill anyone who touched her. It wasn’t rational and might not even be right, but he knew how he felt and that was it.

Aaron stood up, stopped by Royal’s desk to slide the can closer. “I’m leaving for the day.”

The guy sighed with delight. “Thought so.”

“I’m taking some vacation time.” Aaron got the whole way to the door before he turned back. “And, Royal?”

“Huh?”

“Thanks.” Maybe Risa was right about something else. Royal would make the perfect business partner.

* * *

T
HAT
F
RIDAY,
R
ISA HOVERED
by the eggnog bowl and watched her coworkers laugh as they fought over the remaining Christmas cookies. They joked. A few sang.

Who knew engineers loved sugar cookies in the shape of stockings?

Finding out she had almost died all in the name of locating the ultimate holiday party location made her the office star. When they insisted on changing the venue to the office, the relief crashing through her nearly knocked her off her feet. The idea of going back to Elan made her stomach heave.

Not that Elan was an option. They’d managed to blow that place apart. Literally.

The soft opening had turned into an early closing. A full renovation of the brand-new facility was now necessary. There was talk of waiting until spring to try again. Some reporters suggested a name change.

The general view was the place was cursed. It didn’t help that one article talked about dead bodies on every floor. That was an exaggeration, of course, but every time people told the story it seemed to get worse. Having lived it, she wouldn’t have said that was possible.

Personally, she wanted to petition to shut the place down permanently. Revisiting the terror and uncertainty was her nightmare, and she wouldn’t let it happen. Being in the place where her feelings for Aaron had exploded into love sounded just as awful.

She wanted to forget. She’d played every mind trick she could think of to push the image of his face out of her head, to erase the memories and rewind to the moment right before she met him. Nothing worked.

She’d picked up the phone to call him so many times since their last rough encounter. Leaving that hotel had been the hardest decision of her life. Some part of her, that romantic part deep inside, had hoped he’d follow. The idea seemed ludicrous now, but it hadn’t been then.

Realizing he wasn’t the type for a grand gesture, she was sometimes tempted to give in and let their relationship meander along the way Aaron wanted. Maybe he really did need time and space. Or maybe she was just sad and pathetic.

Seeing happy couples and all the holiday decorations didn’t help. The holiday season was a killer for a person in love and alone.

He wanted the strings loose. She weighed the pros and cons of letting that happen, but in every scenario he treaded water and she got her heart broken.

A reluctant smile curled her lips when two guys wrestled for the microphone on a carol singing dare. The cameras came out and the bragging grew to Big Band levels. Her coworkers made it all bearable.

A weight pressed against her back. She was about to push away and send a have-you-lost-your-mind? glare when the husky voice broke through the celebration and touched like a kiss against the back of her neck.

“Are they always this loud?”

“Aaron?” She spun around to face him.

He continued to watch the festivities. He wore dress pants and a sweater as he rocked back on his heels. His handsome face was even more breathtaking than she remembered, even with the shadowed valleys under his eyes.

His hands stayed in his back pants pockets. “You may need a bouncer.”

The party blended into the background. The sounds and lights faded away until all she saw was him. “What are you doing here?”

He looked at her then. Those blue-green eyes held both sadness and a flicker of an emotion she couldn’t identify. “You asked me to be your date.”

Her heart leaped, but she ignored it. “That was before.”

His eyebrow lifted along with his mouth. “Before I was a jackass?”

“I… Well, yeah.”

“Dance with me.” He held out a hand and nodded toward the now-empty dance floor. The engineers liked to sing but, apparently, not to dance.

The sharp change in direction caught her by surprise. She never expected to see him here, in this environment. She absolutely didn’t expect for him to offer his services as his date.

But touching him… She’d been dreaming about that for days. Her wavering control would take a hike if she let him get close.

For her self-protection, she gave him the answer she didn’t want to say. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“But I want to touch you.”

Yep, the man knew just what to say. It wasn’t just her heart jumping around inside her. She’d bet every internal organ was up and spinning around. “I have no idea what to say to that.”

“How about yes?” He slipped his fingers through hers in the intimate hold she loved so much.

Before common sense could kick in and ruin everything she gave in. “Okay.”

She fell into his arms as if she were born to be there. Her hand went to his biceps, and his palm slid to her lower back. The press of his fingers against the thin material of her dress touched off a flash of memories, all of them welcome and more than a few X-rated. If her mind wandered down that lane too far, she’d be blushing.

“This is a nice place.” He bent his head close to hers.

Her breath caught in her throat. She tried to push it out, but it just hung there as if waiting for him to take it from her. “I love it here.”

She loved him. Every single thing about him. The way he smelled. The way he held her. The promise of his kiss and the staking of a claim in his hold.

He continued to dance them in a circle. Their feet moved in time with the music. Like with everything else he did, he was good at dancing. Could keep a beat and knew how to lead.

“The company suits you. The mood fits your personality.”

Her mind spun off and his conversation kept to the mundane. Much more of this and she’d go insane. She stepped back, putting a bit of air between them.

Though meeting his gaze without melting proved difficult, she looked up at him. “Aaron, honestly, I have no idea what we’re doing here.”

He stopped moving but didn’t let go of her. “I’m groveling.”

She must have misheard. “What?”

“See, I’m not afraid of much in this world. I carry the gun, issue orders and generally stay in control. Dad taught me that. The navy reinforced it. Operating that way more or less guarantees my life runs like I want it to.”

She had no clue what any of that had to do with him being there or the dancing. He put pieces together in a way that didn’t always make sense to her. “Okay. That’s good, I guess.”

“It all worked, went along fine or what I grew to believe was fine, until you came along. You mess everything up.”

The last flicker of hope blew out.

She dropped her hands and stepped back. She didn’t need air between them. She needed a building, possibly a state. “Thanks for stopping by, Aaron, but—”