Friendship On Fire

“I’ve been making up my own mind for a while now and you don’t get to tell me what I do and don’t want.” Mason’s tone was soft but Callie heard the steel in his voice and, dammit, that hard note just stoked that ember of lust. Man, it had been so long since she’d felt like this around a guy, she didn’t know what to say, how to act.

For the first time in thirty-plus years she wanted to kiss someone who wasn’t her husband, to explore another man’s body. The problem was, while he was a fine specimen for his age, she was not. Her boobs sagged, she had a muffin top and lumpy thighs. Despite her wish for sex, a one-night stand, that was more hope than expectation. And if she found the courage to expose her very flawed body to a new man, he wouldn’t have the lean, muscled body of a competitive swimmer.

Mason made her feel insecure and, worse, old. There were, after all, ten years between them and, God, what a difference ten years could make. Age, the shape their bodies were in, and then there was the difference in their financial situations.

She was, not to exaggerate, filthy rich. Mason, she’d heard, was not. Did he know how wealthy she was? Was he looking for a, ugh, sugar mommy? What was his angle?

“Tell me about your daughter,” Mason said, leaning back in his chair.

Yeah, good plan. When he heard about her family he’d go running for the hills. “Which one? I have two by blood, one by love. I also have four sons, one by blood.”

Mason blinked, ran his hand over his face and Callie laughed at his surprise. “Do you have kids?”

“Two teenage boys, fifteen and seventeen.”

“My youngest, Ben, is twenty-eight,” Callie said, deliberately highlighting the differences in their ages again.

“You old crone.” Mason sighed, stood up and pushed his chair into the table. He placed one hand on the table, one on the back of her chair, and caged her in. His determined blue eyes drilled into hers. “You can keep fighting this, Callie, but you and I are going on a date.”

The Ping-Pong ball in her throat swelled and the air left the room. He was so close that Callie could see a small scar on his upper lip, taste his sweet, coffee-flavored breath.

“And while I’m here, I might as well tell you that you and I are also going to get naked. At some point, I’m going to make you mine.”

Callie was annoyed when tears burned, furious when her heart rate accelerated. “I’m not... I can’t... I’m not ready.”

Mason’s steady expression didn’t change. “I didn’t say it was going to be today, Callie. But one day you will be ready and—” he lifted his hands to mimic an explosion “—boom.”

Boom. Really? Callie blinked away her tears and straightened her spine. “Seriously? Does that work on other women?”

“Dunno, since you’re the only one I’ve ever said it to.” Mason bent down to drop a kiss into her hair. “Start getting used to the idea, Cal. Oh, and butt out of your kids’ lives. At twenty-eight and older, they can make their own decisions.”

Callie scowled at his bare back as he walked away from her. Really! Who was he to tell her how to interact with her children? And how dare he tell her that he was going to take her to bed? Did he really think that he could make a statement like that and she’d roll over and whimper her delight? He was an arrogant know-it-all with the confidence of a Hollywood A-lister.

But he also, she noticed, had a very fine butt. A butt she wouldn’t mind feeling under her hands.

Noah...

Noah would’ve preferred to meet with Paris Barrow at her office—did the multidivorced, once-widowed socialite have an office?—but Paris insisted on meeting for a drink at April, a Charles Street bar. Hopefully, since it was late afternoon, the bar would be quiet and he could pin Paris down to some specifics with regard to the design of her yacht. Engine capacity, size, whether she wanted a monohull or a catamaran. He had to have some place to start. Oh, and getting her to sign a damn contract would be nice—at least he would be getting paid for the work he was doing.

But Paris, he decided after couple of frustrating conversations, had the attention span of a gnat...

Noah pushed his way into the bar. Another slick bar in another rich city; he’d seen many of them over the years. Looking around, he saw that his client had yet to arrive, and after ordering a beer, he slid onto a banquette, dropping his folder on the bench beside him.

It was his second full day back in Boston and, in some ways it felt like he’d never left. After being kicked out of the Brogan house by his favorite pain in the ass, he spent last night on the Resilience and his brothers and Levi had each brought a six-pack. They’d steadily made their way through the beers while sitting on the teak deck, their legs dangling off the side of the yacht. No one had mentioned his abrupt departure from the house and he was glad. The last thing he wanted to discuss was Jules and the past.

Noah murmured his thanks when the waitress put his beer in front of him. Taking a sip, he wished he could make the memory of Jules standing in the bathroom, looking dazed and turned on, disappear as easily as he did this beer. He’d heard the door open and turned and there she was, shirtless in the bathroom, a wet dream fantasy in full Technicolor. Her hair was around her shoulders, her slim body curvier than before, her surprisingly plump breasts covered by a pale pink lace bra. He’d immediately noticed the darker pink of her pert nipples and her flushed skin.

Then he’d made the mistake of meeting her eyes.

Noah shifted in his chair, his junk swelling at the memory. Emotions had slid in and out of her eyes; there was surprise and shock, and it was obvious that nobody had told her that he was back in town. But those emotions quickly died and he’d caught the hint of hurt before appreciation—and, yeah, flat-out furious lust—took over. Her eyes had traced his body and he knew exactly what she was thinking, because, God, he’d been thinking it, too.

He wanted her...his hands on her long, slim body, his mouth on her lips, her skin, on her secret, make-her-scream places. Whatever they started with that one kiss so long ago hadn’t died. It had been slumbering for the past ten years.

Well, it was back, wide-awake and roaring and clawing...

The impulse to kiss her, to taste her again had been overwhelming, so he had. And it was as good—no, freakin’ spectacular—as he thought it could be. He’d thought about dragging her back into the shower, stripping her under the water and taking her up against the tile wall. He still wanted to do that more than he wanted to breathe.

He was so screwed...

“Noah? Noah?”

Noah jerked himself out of his reverie and looked up into Paris’s merry blue eyes, her face devoid of lines. Standing up—hoping he wouldn’t embarrass himself—he took her outstretched hand. She looked damn good for someone in her sixties, thanks to the marvel of modern plastic surgery.

Paris sat down opposite him and put her designer bag on the table. She ordered a martini, and after the smallest of small talk, she leaned back against the banquette, eyeing him. “So, I understand that you were once engaged to Morgan Blake.”

Oh, Jesus. Noah kept his face blank and waited for her to continue. “I told her that you were designing a yacht for me—”

“Well, technically I’m not. Yet,” Noah clarified. “You haven’t signed the contract, nor have you paid me my deposit, so right now we’re still negotiating.”

Paris wrinkled her nose before opening her bag and pulling out a leather case. She flipped it open and Noah saw that it was a checkbook. Paris found a pen and lifted her eyebrows. Noah gave her the figure, his heart racing as she wrote out the check. Taking it, he tucked it into his shirt pocket before withdrawing a contract from his folder. Paris signed it with a flourish and tossed her gold pen onto the table. One payment down and he’d receive the bulk of the money when she approved his final design. “Now, can we talk about Morgan?”

“No.”

Paris pouted. “Why not?”

“Because we need to talk about hulls and engines and square feet and water displacement. I’m designing the yacht, but I do need some input from you,” Noah said, his voice calm but firm.

Paris looked bored. “Just design me a fantastic yacht within the budget I gave you. I hear that you are ridiculously talented and wonderfully creative. Design me a vessel that will make people drool. I don’t want to be bothered by the details.”

The perfect scenario, Noah thought, pleased. There was nothing better than getting a green light to do what he wanted. He just hoped that Paris wouldn’t change her mind down the track and morph into a nitpicking, demanding, micromanaging client. But if she did, he would handle her.

Noah handed Paris her copy of the contract, wincing when she folded it into an uneven square and shoved it into the side pocket of her bag. She drained her martini and signaled the waitress for another. “So, about Morgan.”

God. Really? “Paris, I don’t feel comfortable discussing this with you. You’re my client.”

Paris waved his measured words away. “Oh, please! I’m an absolute romantic and a terrible meddler. I nose around in everyone’s business. You’ll get used to it.”

He most definitely would not. “There is no Morgan, Paris. That ended a long, long time ago.”

“Oh, I got the impression she’d like to pick up where you left off.”

Okay, it was way past time to shut this down. “Yeah, my girlfriend might object to that.”

Paris’s eyes gleamed with interest. “You have a girlfriend? Who is she?”

He could’ve mentioned Jenna in Cape Town or Yolande in London, who were both beautiful and accomplished good friends he occasionally slept with. But another name popped out of his mouth, thanks, he was sure, to a hot encounter in a bathroom yesterday morning. “Jules Brogan.”

Paris’s eyes widened with delight. “I know Jules. She decorated my vacation house in Hyannis Port.”

Oh, crap! Crap, crap, crap.

“She was named Boston’s Most Exciting Interior Designer a few months back.”

She was? Why had he not heard about that? Probably the same reason the family hadn’t told Jules about his return. They didn’t discuss either of them ever.

“She’s your girlfriend?”

“We’ve known each other for a long time.” That, at least, was the truth.

Paris’s pink mouth widened into a huge smile. “She can do the interior decoration for my yacht. Aren’t you supposed to give me an idea of the interior when you present the final design?”

Oh, hell, he didn’t like this. At all. “Yes. But I have my team of decorators I normally work with in London,” Noah stated, wondering how this conversation had veered so off track. Oh, right, maybe because he lied?

“I want Jules,” Paris said, looking stubborn. Her face hardened and Noah caught a glimpse of a woman who always got what she wanted. “Do not make me tear up that contract and ask for my check back, Noah.”

Je-sus. Noah rubbed the back of his neck. She would do exactly as she said. Paris wanted what she wanted and expected to get it. No did not feature in her vocabulary.

Noah leaned back, sighed and eyed his pain-in-the-ass client. “You’re going to be a handful, aren’t you?” he asked, resigned.

Paris’s expression lightened. “Oh, honey, you have no idea. So, what should I tell Morgan?”

Noah groaned and ordered a double whiskey.

Jules...

Jules heard the muted sound coming from her phone and, without looking at the screen, silenced the alert. Eight thirty in the morning and today was, Jules squinted at the bottom right corner of her computer, Thursday. The only way to stop thinking about Noah, and his wet, naked, ripped body, and the fact that he was back in her orbit, was to go back to work. Instead of taking the break she needed, she slid right back into sixteen-hour days and creating long and detailed schedules so that nothing slipped through the cracks.

Jules moved her mouse and today’s to-do list appeared on her monitor.

The reminder of her 9:00 a.m. meeting with the girls was followed by a list of her appointments with clients, suppliers and craftspeople. Her last appointment was at five thirty, and then she had to hustle to make her appointment with her beautician, Dana, for an eyebrow shape and a bikini wax. She was not going to dwell on the fact that the bikini wax was a last-minute request.

It had nothing to do with looking good for a brown-eyed blond.

You keep telling yourself that, sweet pea.

Jules reached for her cup of now-cold coffee and pulled a face when the icy liquid hit the back of her throat. Yuck. Resisting the urge to wipe her tongue on the sleeve of her white button-down shirt, she pushed back her chair. Her phone released the discreet trill of an incoming call and Jules frowned down at the screen, not recognizing the number. As early as it was, she couldn’t ignore the call; too many of her clients and suppliers had this number and she needed to be available to anybody at any time.

“Jules.”

She recognized his voice instantly, the way he said her name, the familiar tone sliding over her skin. “Noah.”

There had been a time when she’d laugh with excitement to get a call from him, when her heart would swell from just hearing his voice. But those were childish reactions and she was no longer the child who’d hero-worshipped Noah, or the teenager who’d thought the sun rose and set with him. He was no longer her best friend, the person she could say anything to, the one person who seemed to get her on a deeper level than even her twin did.

“What do you want, Lockwood?”

“We need to talk.”

“Exactly what I said to you ten years ago,” Jules said, wincing at the bitterness in her voice. After their kiss, he’d avoided her, ducked her calls. She hadn’t suspected he was leaving until he came by her mom’s house one evening to say goodbye. The kiss was never mentioned. When she asked to speak to him privately he’d refused, explaining that he didn’t have time, that there was nothing to discuss. He and Morgan were still engaged. He was dropping out of college. He was going sailing. He didn’t know how often he would be in contact.

Please don’t worry about him. He’d be fine.

She’d been so damn happy to receive his first email, had soaked up his news, happy to know that he was safe and leading the race. He’d spoken about the brilliant sunsets, a pod of southern right whales, a squall they’d encountered that day, the lack of winds the next. Reading his words made her feel like they were connected again, that their relationship could be salvaged...

Then she noticed the email was sent to a group and that her mom, her siblings, his siblings, plus a few of his college buds, received the same message. Jules never received a personalized email, nor did she receive one of his infrequent calls back home. She’d been relegated to the periphery of his life and it stung like a band of fire ants walking over her skin. She still didn’t understand how someone who meant everything to her had vanished like he was never part of her life at all.

“There’s nothing to say, Noah. Too much water under the hull and all that. We’re adults. We can be civil in company, but let’s not try and resurrect something that is very definitely over.”

“Oh, it’s not over, Jules. We’re just starting a new chapter of a yet-unwritten book,” Noah replied softly. Then his voice strengthened and turned businesslike. “I do need to talk to you—I need to hire you.”

Jules dropped her phone, stared at the screen and shook her head. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Speaking of work, I’m late for a meeting.”

“Do not hang up on me, Ju—”

Jules pressed the red phone icon on her screen and tossed the device onto her messy desk. Work with him? Seriously? Not in this lifetime.

* * *

The display room of Winston and Brogan doubled as a conference room, and most mornings Jules, Darby and DJ started their day with a touch-base meeting, drinking their coffee as the early-morning Charles Street pedestrians passed by their enormous window. Jules sat down on a porcelain-blue-and-white-striped chair and thought that it was time to redesign their showroom. It was small, but it was the first impression clients received when they walked through the door, and it was time for something new, fresh.

“Creams or blush or jewel colors?” Jules threw the question into the silence before taking a sip of her caramel latte.

Darby didn’t look up from her phone. “Jewel colors. Let’s make this place pop.”

“Whatever you two think is best,” DJ replied, as she always did. Jules smiled, her friend was a whiz with money but, unlike her and Darby, she didn’t have a creative bone in her body. They made an effective team. Darby designed buildings. Jules decorated them, and DJ managed their money.

The fact that they worked so well together was the main reason their full house design firm was one of the best in the city. Oh, they fought... They’d known each other all of their lives and they knew exactly what buttons to push to get a nuclear reaction. But they never fought dirty and none of them held grudges. Well, she would if they allowed her to, which they never did.

Darby crossed her legs and Jules admired the spiky heel dangling off her foot. The shoe was a perfect shade of nude with a heart-shaped peep toe. So, she’d be borrowing those soon. Hell, they’d shared the same womb, sharing clothes was a given.

“Tina Harper, she was at college with us, is pregnant. Four months.” Darby looked up from her cell and Jules noticed that her smile was forced. Her heart contracted, knowing that under that brave face her sister ached for what could not be. When they were teenagers, Darby was told that, thanks to chronic endometriosis, the chances of her conceiving a child were slim to none. Closer to none... It was her greatest wish to be a mama, with or without a man. And the way their love lives were progressing, it would probably be without one.

“Didn’t she date Ben?” DJ asked.

Darby shrugged. “God, I don’t know. At one point, Ben had a revolving door to his bedroom.”

“Ben still has a revolving door to his bedroom,” Jules pointed out, thinking of the youngest Lockwood brother. He was probably the best-looking of the three gorgeous Lockwood boys and he was never short of a date or five. She could say the same for her brother, Levi, and Eli and, she assumed, Noah.

Noah. Jules sucked her bottom lip between her teeth. As always, just thinking his name dropped her stomach to the floor, caused her heart to bounce off her rib cage. Remembering their half-naked kiss threatened to stop her heart altogether.

“So, how does it feel having Noah back?” DJ asked.

“He’s back in your life, not mine,” Jules replied, trying to sound casual.

She’d been interrogated by every member of her family so they could find out what had caused the cold war between her and Noah. Her stock answer, “We just drifted apart,” resulted in rolling eyes and disbelieving snorts but she never elaborated. They periodically still asked her for an explanation. She knew Noah was staying mum because a) Noah wasn’t the type to dish, and b) if he had, then the news would’ve spread like wildfire. The Brogan/Lockwood clan was not known for discretion. Or keeping good gossip to themselves.

Sometimes she was tempted to tell them that she and Noah had shared some blisteringly hot kisses just to see the expression on their faces. But then the questions would follow... Why hadn’t they explored that attraction? Why couldn’t they get past it?

It was a question that, when she allowed it to, kept her up at night. Why hadn’t they dealt with the situation, addressed the belly dancing elephant in the room?

Ah, maybe it was because, shortly after kissing her ten years back, Noah flew Morgan to Vegas to, she assumed, celebrate their engagement. Their kiss, him dropping out of college, his engagement, him turning pro... He’d made every decision without asking her opinion. Okay, she understood that he wasn’t obliged to check in with her but she had run everything past him and he did talk to her about his dreams, his plans. That Christmas season, Noah had clammed up and it felt like twenty-plus years of friendship had meant nothing to him...

That he and Morgan never married wasn’t a surprise, nor was it a consolation. He’d wasted two years of his time, his money and attention on Morgan, but it was his time and money to waste. Still, Jules couldn’t help feeling that his engagement was a big “up yours” to their newly discovered attraction. His lack of communication, blasé explanations and his lack of effort to maintain their friendship had severed their connection. Because she would never be able to fully trust him again, they could never be friends again.

And being lovers was out of the question. That required an even deeper level of trust she was incapable of feeling.

“Did you date anyone in California?” Darby asked her, pulling her attention off the past.

She had actually. “Mmm.”

“Really? And...?” Darby asked, intrigued.

“Two dates and I called it quits. Since we live on opposite sides of the country, there was no point.”

She always gave guys two dates to make an impression before she moved on, thinking that dating was stressful and who got anything right the first date? If they had potential, she extended the period, making sure that hands and mouths stayed out of the equation. Not many made it to twelve weeks and most of those didn’t pass her was-he-a-better-kisser-than-Noah? test. Actually, none of them were better kissers, but the two who came close made it into her bed. One lasted another few weeks; the other went back to his ex-girlfriend.

She hadn’t had a relationship that went beyond four months since college...and at nearly thirty she’d only had three lovers. How sad was that?

Yet, she continued to date, thinking that one day she’d find someone who made her forget about that nuclear hot kiss on a snowy evening so damn long ago. She had to find someone. There was no way she’d allow her best sexual memory to be of Noah Lockwood...ten years or four days ago.

“Maybe I should go back on Tinder,” Jules mused, mostly to herself. But at the thought, her heart backed into the corner of her chest, comprehensively horrified. She didn’t blame it, meeting guys on the internet was a crappy way to find love. Or to find a date with a reasonably normal man.

“Oh, come on,” DJ retorted, calling her bluff. “Psychos, weirdos and losers. You don’t need any of that.”

“Says the girl who has sex on a semiregular basis,” Jules murmured. Since college, DJ had an on-off relationship with Matt, a human rights lawyer, who dropped in and out of her life. It was all about convenience, DJ blithely informed them, and about great sex with a guy she liked and respected.

Jules wanted one of those.

“Please stay off the net, Jules,” Darby begged. “You are a magnet for crazies.”

Jules couldn’t argue the point. All she wanted was to meet guys like her brother and Eli and Ben. Despite their grasshopper mentality when it came to women, the three of them—even, dammit, Noah—were interesting, smart, driven and successful men. They were honest and trustworthy—well, three out of four were—and she wanted a man like them and her dad. Was she asking too much? Were her brother and her friends the last good men left in Boston? And if she found that elusive man, would she ever be able to trust him not to hurt her long enough for her to fall in love? Or would her fear send her running?

DJ gently kicked her shin with the toe of her shoe and Jules blinked, lifting a shoulder at DJ’s scowl. “What?”

“Why don’t you take a break from dating for a while, Jules? You’ve been scraping the barrel lately. Whatever you are looking for, you’re not finding.”

Darby tipped her head. “What are you looking for?”

Jules stared out of the window. I’m looking for a guy who makes me feel as alive as I do when Noah kisses me. I’m looking for a guy who will make me stop thinking about him, stop missing him, who will fill the hole he left in my life. I’m looking for someone who will make me feel the same way I did during that bold, bright moment the other day. Noah can’t be the only man who can make me feel intensely alive... That would be cruel. No, there is someone else out there. There has to be...