Page 23 of About that Fling
“They were on every landing.”
She shook her head, eyes flashing with something that almost looked like sadness. “I’m abysmally bad at noticing the signs. In case you hadn’t noticed.”
He watched her, trying to grasp the turn they’d just taken in conversation. “Are we still talking about the stairwell?”
She sighed and stepped away from the door. He thought she was going to walk back toward him, but instead she sank down onto the bench beside what was left of his ham sandwich. He walked over and moved the tray aside, sinking down into the space next to her. When she looked up, her eyes seemed a little wild.
“How the hell did I not know you were Mia’s husband?”
Those last two words hit him like a punch to the solar plexus, and he waited for the pang of annoyance to ebb. “Ex-husband.”
“Still, I knew your name was Adam. That should have tipped me off.”
“There are more than 500,000 men named Adam in North America,” he pointed out, wondering if it was geeky or impressive for him to know that. “How were you supposed to realize you were knocking boots with the Adam who swapped rings with your best friend?”
She flinched, and Adam regretted the flippancy of his words. It was an engrained habit, this tendency to spout humor or data in uncomfortable situations.
What’s making you uncomfortable? The memory of your ex-wife, or the knowledge that you’re awkwardly attracted to her best friend?
Both. He’d spent a long time eradicating Mia from his life, or at least eradicating the anger that came with remembering her. But working with her again, and finding himself unable to resist the allure of a woman who’d probably heard all the ugliest stories from his marriage?—
He frowned, forcing himself to cut the self-analysis bullshit and stay in the present. The present wasn’t so bad, really. Jenna’s perfume smelled sweet and warm, and there was a spicy hint of fall on the breeze. He leaned back against the ledge, stretching his arms out behind him. One rested a few inches behind Jenna’s shoulders, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Look, I have my phone,” he said. “This isn’t some chick flick where we’re trapped on the roof together for hours until I ravish you up against the wall. I can call down to the front desk and have us out of here in five minutes.”
Neither of them moved, and for a moment, Adam wondered if she wanted to stay up here with him. The thought almost made him smile, but smiling didn’t seem like the right thing to do. Not yet, not with Jenna still bristling with tension. When she turned to look at him, her expression softened.
“Why did you change hotels?” she asked. “This obviously isn’t where we—” she paused, glancing away. “Where we met up last week.”
“Belmont likes to woo consultants with the nice digs up front, but for long-term contractors, this place makes more sense. Better weekly rates, and all the suites on the tenth floor have kitchens.”
Jenna sighed and leaned back against his arm, and Adam tried not to revel in the softness of her shoulders. “You know, I knew that about Belmont. About which hotels they use. Also a sign I should have picked up on, right?”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Jenna. We both could have been a little more inquisitive about each other’s identity.” He hesitated, knowing he should probably pull out his phone and dial the front desk, but not wanting to make the move until she did. “Why are you here, anyway? You look like a refugee from a garden party.”
She shrugged, studying her hands. When she looked back at him, her expression was guarded. “Mia’s wedding reception.”
He waited for the words to slice through him the way they might have two years ago. There was a dull ache in his gut, but it might have been the ham sandwich. Too much mustard. Or hell, maybe he was still affected by the thought of his ex-wife with another man. With the man she’d?—
“I thought Mia was already married,” he said, interrupting his own thoughts.
“They got married in Kauai a few weeks ago—at Mark’s parents’ place. Private, only immediate family. They’re having a reception here to celebrate with the people who couldn’t be at the wedding.”
Adam nodded, letting the words sink in, feeling nothing. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He felt something, but he wasn’t sure he could name what it was.
Some counselor you are.
“That’s smart,” he said, sticking with the basics. “Having a smaller, more intimate ceremony. I wish we’d done that the first time.”
She met his eyes and nodded. “I heard the first wedding was quite a show.”
“More than four hundred guests. Most of them friends of Mia’s mother. It was a nightmare. We wanted to serve chicken because several people in my family don’t eat red meat, but Sally—that’s her mother—insisted filet mignon was more high-class.”
“So she talked you into it?”
“Worse,” Adam said, surprised to feel anger swelling in him after all this time. “Sally called the caterer herself and changed the order the week before the wedding. We never knew until we all sat down to dinner under this big expensive canopy she also ordered without our knowledge.”
“I’ll bet Mia was livid.”
