Infatuation. Alison Kent
“She’s like a stick figure with white skin and white hair, and eyes like big green double spoke rims. Her name is—”
“Milla,” Rennie said, swallowing hard as his gut drew up into the knot of fiery emotions he hadn’t felt in years. “Her name is Milla Page.”
2
SHE LOOKED exactly as he remembered. She’d always been slender; it had been an ongoing source of inside jokes, fearing she would snap in a strong wind, be whipped about on the bay’s waves like driftwood, float on a bank of misty fog. That she would break in two if he wasn’t gentle when they made love.
She’d disabused him of that notion quite forcefully and quite often—often enough that those memories were the first to come to mind when he should have remembered that everything between them had been a lie. Instead, all he could think about was the sex.
She didn’t say anything, just stood in front of him, her feet primly together in shoes he knew cost what was a month’s rent for Hector, Angie and Jin. He didn’t hold it against her. Milla Page was who she was.
He could tell by the way she clenched and unclenched her fingers around the handle of her funky purple purse that he’d been standing and staring way too long.
She was uncomfortable; he gave her the benefit of the doubt, deciding it wasn’t the fault of the neighborhood as much as it was seeing him again.
It probably didn’t help that Angie sat behind the receptionist station punching buttons on the switchboard console, transferring calls and paging salesmen, glancing back and forth between them while neither one said a word.
So Rennie forced a smile and motioned Milla forward, leading the way across the sales floor to the customer lounge, listening for her soft steps to fall behind him. He grabbed a foam cup from the corner table’s stack and poured himself a coffee from the pot on the warmer. Milla shook her head when he offered to pour one for her.
“Still prefer lattes?” he asked, now a fan himself though in a pinch of nerves sludge would do.
“Yes, but right now I don’t think I could swallow anything,” she replied in that voice that still slid over him like the honey she’d loved…so sticky, so sweet, so warm on her tongue.
He nearly choked as he knocked back a slug of the caffeine. He was already wired to the gills and hardly in need of the jolt, but he wasn’t quite sure what to do. And he wouldn’t be able to figure that out until he knew what she was doing here.
Why it had taken her six years to look him up.
Why she appeared ready to bolt.
Why he cared when he’d sworn to wipe her from his mind.
Curiosity got the better of his self-made promise. He gestured toward the row of chairs on her right. “Sit. Please.”
She did as he’d asked, or rather as he’d ordered her, choosing the seat closest to where she stood and settling onto the edge. She held her purse tightly in her lap.
Her knuckles stood out like bleached bones beneath translucent skin. Her smile seemed forced and fragile, and that made him groan.
No matter her size, Milla Page was the least fragile woman he’d ever known. If anything, she was unbreakable. Untouchable. Unyielding. And he shouldn’t be feeling responsible for the change.
He moved closer, choosing to leave only one seat between them and angling his body to the side. He liked the idea of the space between them being more for show than effect. He wanted to see if after all this time he could still make her sweat.
Or if there was more to her emotional state than a simple case of nerves. “I guess this is where we do the small talk thing. Unless you want to skip the catching up and just tell me why you’re here.”
“I happened—”
He cut her off with a shake of his head and a laugh that was harsh. “Nope. I don’t buy that you just happened to be in the neighborhood.”
He watched as she struggled not to snap back. Her eyes, as always, gave her away. “What I was going to say was that I happened across your business card.”
“So you’re here to buy a car?” The more likely scenario was that she was here to see for herself that he really hadn’t come up in the world.
But she shook her head, surprising him by admitting, “I’m here to see you.”
He grunted, slumped back in his chair. Did she know about his show? Had she come thinking to cash in on his celebrity? Was his financial portfolio more to her liking than had been his empty pockets in college?
“It surprised me…seeing your name like that…I hadn’t thought of you in years—” She caught herself, her mouth clamping shut on her words. She shook off whatever it was she’d been thinking, and started again. “No. That’s not true.”
“Which part?” he asked, the words clattering out on a growl. The sound was an echo of the uproar piston-pumping through his midsection. “That seeing my name surprised you when we both know it shouldn’t have caused a blip on your radar?”
She set her purse on the seat between them and got to her feet, moving across the room to the coffee service before turning around. “I think about you every day, Rennie. I have for the last six years.”
He didn’t believe her. Unbreakable, untouchable, and unable to tell the truth when a lie would do. Even worse was knowing all of that and wishing it wasn’t so.
Wishing she had thought about him as often as he’d thought about her.
He clenched his fist, felt the foam of his cup begin to give. “So, you think about me every day, but it takes seeing my business card to get you to stop by?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t know you’d come back to the city.”
That’s right. He’d told her he was off to see the world. That he wouldn’t return until he’d made his first million. Instead he’d come back after what seemed like a million miles on the road and a million sleepless nights to make his fortune right here at home.
“You could’ve driven by and asked,” he finally said, his jaw tight, shooting his near-empty cup into the brown rubber can in the corner. Drops of coffee spattered across the white liner.
“You’re right.” She walked back into the room, sat in the chair across from his. “I could have and I didn’t. I’m not sure why.”
He knew exactly. And he started to remind her of their last night together, the party, the fight that had grown larger than either of them had known what to do with. But the expression of pain on her face stopped him.
He draped his arms over the backs of the seats on either side, stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. When he rocked his feet, the toe of his boot grazed her lower calf. “I didn’t look you up, either. When I got home. Guess that evens the score.”
“How long have you been back?” she asked softly, looking at his legs rather than meeting his eyes.
Streaks of grease, oil and transmission fluid stained his navy work pants and the once-tan leather of his boots, but none of that was what she seemed to be seeing. “At least five years. I wasn’t gone long.”
Her gaze came up, her curiosity drawing her blond brows together. “I thought you were off to see the world and make your fortune.”
He shrugged, tapped his toe against her calf again. “I did some sightseeing, took on some odd jobs to keep afloat. Didn’t take me long to realize home is where the heart is, I guess you could say.”
He expected her to question his possession of one. A heart. Instead she seemed to close up a bit, her voice taking on a hint of bitterness as she said, “It’s good to know it wasn’t broken.”
He huffed. What? She expected him to admit how hurt he’d