Infatuation. Alison Kent
fluorescent light overhead flickered, reflecting off the lounge’s big windows that looked out over the showroom floor. “I think that’s why we worked so well in bed. We’re both unbreakable.”
The look she gave him was a silent touché, and it set them on a more even footing. Neither had been fair with the other. But they’d both grown up, and the past was in the past—even if he was suddenly having a hard time keeping it there.
He shifted forward in his seat, braced his elbows on his knees and laced his hands between. This close, he could smell her, that subtle scent of a spicy sort of flower, the same as it had always been, reminding him how often he’d turned and expected to find her there since he’d last seen her.
He’d hated himself for that weakness. “I’ve got work to do, Milla. I need to get back. So can we get to the point here?”
She smoothed her palms over the straight black skirt she wore. It made her legs look paler than they were. “I wanted to ask you for a favor.”
A favor? “A favor.”
A hesitant smile crossed her face. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“And what time was that?”
“When I saw your card.”
“But now that you’ve seen me, it doesn’t?”
More smoothing. Some toying and plucking at her hem. “It’s not that.”
“Then what?” God help him, he really wanted to know. He reached for her fingers. They were cool and small and so…fragile in his. It was hard to keep his voice steady. “What is it, Milla?”
She raised her gaze to meet his. “Seeing you again…it’s brought back so many things…I don’t know what I was thinking, coming here.”
The fact that he was more interested in what she was thinking now was as telling as deciding they could get back to what she had been thinking later. Why had he assumed that he’d see her again? “What’s the favor?”
“I need a date for tomorrow night.”
“A date?” He hadn’t seen her for six years and she’d come to ask him for a date?
“Actually, for tomorrow and the next two Friday nights,” she added, rushing on. “It’s work-related. I do club reviews for a relationship Web site.”
“Club reviews,” he said, his echo of her words sounding ridiculously inane. He was stuck processing the reality of Milla Page asking him out on a date.
“I know, I know.” She pulled her fingers free and got to her feet, grabbing her purse and heading for the door before he could stop her. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I shouldn’t have come.”
Neither did he, but he’d bet the farm it had nothing to do with needing a date for work. “What time do you want me to pick you up?”
She stopped, turned, kept her gaze locked on his as he stood to tower above her. “You don’t have to do this, Rennie. I’ll find someone else.”
“You came to me for a reason, Milla.” When she started to interrupt, he held up one hand. “I’ll be damned if I know what it is, but we’ll figure it out later. Tell me what time and where to find you.”
Her fingers were trembling when she dug into her purse for a pen and her card. She printed an address on the back. “That’s where I live. The other side is work. Call me at six?” When he nodded, she went on. “My cell, office and home numbers are all there.”
“And where are we going?” He studied the card. “So I’ll know what to wear.”
“Oh, it’s a club in the Presidio. Test Flight. The dress is trendy casual.”
“I’ll see what I’ve got in my closet.” She hesitated, as if wanting to respond to what he’d said. He saved her the hassle of asking what he was going to wear. “Don’t worry, Milla. I know how to clean up.”
“I wasn’t worried about that.” She reached up to push away loose strands of hair. “I just hadn’t thought that I might be putting you out. If you have other plans—”
“If I had other plans, I’d be keeping them,” he said, glad he didn’t have to test that theory. “I’ll call you tomorrow at six.”
She nodded, turned and vanished from his showroom the same way she’d vanished from his life.
He waited for the hurt to return, for numbness to follow. Instead he felt the same adrenaline rush he got when test-driving one of his show’s new rides.
And right then he knew he was in trouble. He wouldn’t know how deeply until tomorrow night, a thought that sent him slamming out of the showroom to bury himself in work.
HECTOR PRIETO STOOD in the doorway of the shop office and watched Rennie drop back to the creeper and shove himself beneath the panel van.
Whatever had happened between the boss and the stick chick couldn’t have gone down too good. Ren might as well have dragged a storm cloud back with him into the shop.
Gloom and doom. That’s what Hector was feeling. And that was no way to be working when they had so much to do.
His own team of mechanics was in pretty good shape, working to tear down Ren’s Studebaker for a show that would run toward the end of the season. But that didn’t mean anyone could slack off.
“Yo, Angie.”
Behind him, Angie Soon straightened from where she’d been digging through the invoices in Ren’s file cabinet. “I am busy here, Hector. I am not at your beck and call.”
Women. Cripes. Thirty years old, and he still didn’t understand them. Hector glanced at her over his shoulder. “I’m not becking or calling. I wanna know what went down with Ren and the woman who came to see him. Did they have a fight or something?”
“What did I just say, Hector? I’ve been working.” Angie straightened, gestured with both hands, her bright pink nails flashing. “That phone up front doesn’t stop ringing just because Rennie decides to get into it with some woman who drops in out of the blue.”
“Humph.” Hector stepped back into the office. “They got into it, huh? What happened?”
Angie bent over to dig through the files again, inadvertently giving Hector an eyeful. Her blouse gaped open as she flipped through the folders, and he didn’t even think about looking away.
Her breasts were tight and small, covered by a plain pink bra, the skin of her stomach smooth and white beneath. He found his palms itching, and he curled his fingers into them, his mouth dry, his blood hot.
He’d never thought about Angie like that before…
“I don’t know exactly,” she finally said, pulling out one file folder and flipping through the contents, strands of black hair falling into her face. “They were quiet, but neither one could sit still.”
He crossed to the corner and pulled a tiny paper cup from the water cooler dispenser. “Where were they?”
“In the customer lounge. I could only see them through the glass. Rennie had that look on his face. That one where you can tell he’s got something on his mind.”
“Right. The one where he’s not going to talk about whatever it is until he figures it out for himself.” Hector downed the water, crumpled the cup and threw it away. “You think she’s an ex or something?”
Angie shrugged, returning the folder and digging into another. “She could have been. Or she could have been a bill collector. Whoever she was, they definitely weren’t having fun reliving old times.”
Hector found himself smiling. Not so much at the idea of Rennie in trouble with a woman, but at Angie. Just at Angie. And just