With His Touch. Dawn Atkins
their melted chocolate depths.
Stop it. Enough with the hot baths and candy eyes.
“The only us that counts is us as partners, Gage,” she said. “We got carried away. We have history and attraction. You’re lonely. I’m lonely, too, I guess. And that water bed…wow. Who could blame us?” She was trying to joke, but her throat hurt and she couldn’t make herself smile.
“You won’t even consider it?” He dug at her with his dark eyes. “You don’t feel—”
“We can’t.” She wasn’t sure how she felt, but she wouldn’t lead him on, so she shook her head. “Even if I did feel—Well, anyway, no. Just no.”
“Oh.” Gage released her hands, which fell back to her lap. She stared down at them. Without Gage holding them, they felt numb and empty. Hands were for holding.
Oh, stop. She was so not sentimental.
“Now what?” Gage asked softly, sadly.
She took a deep breath. “Now we do what we do best….” She faltered. “We’re partners. So we’ll debate the franchise idea until we agree and—”
“I can’t do that,” he said slowly. “I can’t go back.”
“What are you saying?”
“Or maybe I just don’t want to. Now that I figured it out.”
“What does that mean?” Her heart leaped to her throat.
She was startled to feel Gage back away. Always when they disagreed about an issue, Gage engaged, fenced with all his might until they were exhausted and the best idea won out.
Not this time. She felt chilled to the bone.
“Maybe I need a change,” Gage said.
“What kind of change?” She felt scared and thickheaded.
“I mean, maybe it’s time for me to go.”
It was as if someone had plunged a hot knife into her chest. “You can’t leave Spice It Up.” This was not the kind of shake-up she wanted at all. “Is it the franchise? Because you don’t know enough yet. Look at what I’ve got before you dismiss the idea.”
She rushed to her briefcase, opened it and grabbed the franchise research folder, Gage’s silence behind her like a wall or a threat. She held out the folder, but he simply looked at her.
“I don’t see how I can stay, Sugar. You don’t really need me anymore.”
“Of course I do. Especially with the franchise, I—”
“Things between us are different now.”
“They don’t have to be.” But they were. She felt it, too. “What would you do instead?” she asked faintly, sinking to a seat beside him.
“I haven’t thought about it. You could buy me out, I guess.” He shrugged.
“I don’t have that much cash. How would that work?” She was flailing for a delay, anything, until she could come up with a fix. The resort was everything to her. And Gage was so much a part of the resort in her mind, she couldn’t imagine going on without him.
“I can be flexible about terms. I’m not in a rush.”
“But I’d need a new partner and everything.” A lump filled her throat, making it hard to speak. “With the franchising…”
“You could take over my work or Oliver could step up to the job. And, as far as the franchise goes…I don’t think that’s wise.”
“Look, we’re both upset, Gage. Let’s not say things we’ll both regret.”
But he looked dead serious, not flipped out, not overwrought. She was the one on the edge of hysteria. Gage seemed…resigned. He stood, as if to leave her room.
She stood, too. “Read over this stuff.” She pushed the folder at him and this time he took it.
“I don’t see the point,” he said.
“I’ll come over for dinner in an hour and we can talk it through.” Debates had always worked with them, so why not now?
When he was gone, she rested her back against the door. He just needed a little time to come to his senses, right?
Why couldn’t he leave? Sugar believed in moving on when the time was right, so why couldn’t Gage? Even Mr. Stay Put had his limits, right?
But this was totally for the wrong reasons. It was practically emotional blackmail. Be with me or I’ll break up our partnership? She should be furious.
But she wasn’t. She was scared. The idea of Gage leaving made her mind stutter and spit like a candle in a draft.
She didn’t want him to go.
3
AN HOUR LATER, Sugar stood outside Gage’s room, holding his birthday gift, determined to be positive. No way would Gage leave over something as crazy as a sudden surge of lust. It was as though they’d gotten drunk at a high-school reunion and confessed an old crush.
Gage had had time to read what she’d given him, so they’d debate the franchise through to the other side and be fine. One day soon, they’d laugh about that silly Water Bed Moment and the Amazing Washing-Machine Kiss.
She tapped on the door. For a second, she wished he would yank it open and kiss her mindless again. That kiss had been wild and free and safe and sure all at once. She’d been almost afraid to relive it in her mind. It was like too much ice cream too fast. It gave her brain freeze.
The door opened. Gage stood there. He looked…normal.
Disappointment stabbed her. What was wrong with her? Normal was good. Normal was her only hope.
“Come in,” he said and backed up.
Inside, she smelled dinner. Something sweet, orange, garlic with an under note of…what?
Roses. On the rolling dinner table in a vase surrounded by white tea-light candles, their gold tongues turning the transparent vase into a dancing prism of colors.
“You got roses?” She bent to the flowers. The cool petals brushed her cheek, the fresh musk filled her nose.
“So you would stop and smell them,” he said, smiling sadly.
“Saying it with flowers, huh?” Esmeralda had urged that, too. To avoid his eyes, Sugar ran her finger down the curve of the vase, which suggested a sleek woman’s body.
“The shape reminded me of you,” Gage said.
She started to joke about her waist being thicker and her hips broader, but she didn’t feel like laughing and he didn’t seem to, either.
She saw two packages on one of the beds—one small and hand-wrapped, the other large in fancy gold paper with a huge bow bearing the hotel’s gift shop sticker. He’d bought that since they arrived. Probably where he’d been headed when she’d seen him from the bar. A gift to go with his blurt of love.
Her heart pinched. If only she were a different person, the kind of person who could say yes to Gage and mean forever. “Gage, about what happened—”
“Let’s forget it for tonight,” he said. “We both have things to think about and decisions to make.”
“Did you read my stuff?” She nodded at the far bed, where her folder lay, hoping against hope that would solve everything.
He shook his head. “Let’s just celebrate our birthdays, okay?” He sounded weary.
“Sure. That’s smart.” The tradition of celebrating birthdays together had started the year they met in a psych research class at Arizona State. She had asked Gage to be her study partner—he took great