Going All the Way. Tanya Michaels

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      3

      SERENA was sure someone, somewhere, had put a lot of time and thought into creating the right ambience for the restaurant, but the surroundings were wasted on her. She couldn’t focus on anything outside of the intimate booth she and David shared.

      The table for two was small enough that they could easily hold hands without having to reach for each other, not that they would be holding hands. Or touching each other at all, except for occasional accidents, such as his legs brushing hers under the table as they had just now. She almost jumped, her nerves taut with awareness.

      His knee bumping mine is not sexy.

      No, but the memories she had of their limbs intertwined beneath tangled sheets certainly were.

      David leaned back against the richly upholstered bench opposite hers. “I know what I want. What about you, Serena?”

      As with three-quarters of the comments he’d made on the drive to the restaurant, she couldn’t tell if he intended his words to have a double meaning, or if she simply had a one-track mind. His tone was innocent enough, which in and of itself was immediate cause for suspicion.

      “I haven’t decided.” The menu in its embossed burgundy cover gave her something to hide behind when she worried her one-track thoughts would be revealed on her face.

      After the time she’d taken in her office to adjust to his presence, the ride to the restaurant had been more relaxed than their initial encounter. His cologne was still driving her crazy—to say nothing of her preoccupation with his hands as he’d fiddled with the air vents and shifted gears—but she’d enjoyed being in his company. By the time he’d moved to Boston, they’d been friends long enough to have developed their own conversational rhythm, following each other’s thoughts, knowing when it was safe to heckle the other about something and what subjects were more sensitive. So talking to him in the car hadn’t been difficult. They’d discussed Inventive Events at length, and David’s enthusiasm for her small but spunky business endeared him to her even further.

      Now that she thought about it, her job had monopolized conversation, and she still wasn’t clear on what work-related project had brought David to town. But, after dating an artist who was a minor celebrity in public opinion and a major celeb in his own, it had been gratifying for someone to show so much interest in what she did for a living. Her father, James, firmly believed there were more dignified ways to earn an income—ones that would probably reflect better on him—and certainly steadier incomes to be earned, given her education. Whenever Serena mentioned her company to him, he got a pained look on his face that she recognized from childhood.

      It was the same one he’d always given her mom.

      “Serena?”

      She jerked her head up from a list of pasta entrées she hadn’t been reading. “Still looking.”

      “No, I just wondered if everything was all right.” David frowned. “You seemed…troubled.”

      “My mind wandered for a second. As seldom as I see James and Meredith, you had the bad luck to catch me on a week when I have.” She knew her father was genuinely making an effort these days, but she’d honestly be glad when his early-June wedding to Meredith McPherson was behind them. With luck, he’d just go back to ignoring Serena. “Sorry. Guess not enough time’s passed for me to have sufficiently detoxed from the visit.”

      “Oh.” The lines of worry in David’s expression eased. “That’s a relief.”

      She raised an eyebrow.

      “Not that I’m relieved by any trouble you’re having with your family, just that I was concerned I might have upset you. I suddenly felt like maybe I’d strong-armed you into dinner.”

      Serena laughed. “You mean because you traveled across all those states, told me you wouldn’t accept no for an answer and wouldn’t even let me take my own car?”

      “Is that all?” He flashed a grin. СКАЧАТЬ