Snowed in with Her Ex

Two

Days. Days! Trapped in this house with Briana Harper. What, exactly, had he done to deserve this? He must have done something because if the past few months weren’t karma coming back to bite him, he didn’t know what it was.

Ian scowled at his phone as appointment change notice after appointment change notice came through. After finding out they were snowed in, he’d called his administrative assistant and asked her to clear his calendar through Tuesday, just in case. Each meeting on his packed schedule generated another email as it shifted ahead into an already overcrowded week.

On the plus side, he had his laptop and cell phone, and the cabin had DSL internet service, so the wheels of progress could still spin to a point. He might be stuck here with Bree, but it was a big house and he was a busy man. Certainly with three stories and twelve different rooms to choose from, they wouldn’t have to cross paths very often.

He leaned to the side on his stool to peek into the living room. Bree was camped out there with her own computer and equipment. She’d been on the phone on and off, too. He’d tried not to listen, but it was hard not to. She’d called a woman named Natalie, then Amelia. The talk had been all about work and covering the weekend wedding festivities, but a part of him kept waiting to hear his own name.

Bree had mentioned that she’d kept their past together a secret, but surely now that she was trapped here with him, that information would be shared with her coworkers. In the scheme of things, it seemed noteworthy. Unless, of course, he was as distant a memory in her mind as his music was in his own. If that was the case, good for her. He hadn’t been as lucky. Thoughts of Bree still plagued him, angered him. He’d be happier now if he could’ve forgotten about her. Sometimes the intricacies of his work would push the thoughts away, but a quiet moment always brought them screaming back into his head.

She’d called her mother and left a message so she wouldn’t worry. One call she didn’t make, however, was to a boyfriend or spouse. He’d thought for sure that a man would’ve met Bree’s requirements by now. There were plenty of hopeful artists in the world for her to choose from. Or maybe she’d grown up and realized that it wasn’t practical for an adult who needed to support a family. Not that he was bitter.

Finally, she’d called a lady named Julia at the Whitman Gallery and said she’d have to reschedule her final appointment before the showing.

Ian had been to the Whitman Gallery on several occasions. They did a lot of special art showings and liked to feature local Nashville artists. Perhaps Bree was planning a show there. That would be a big step for her photography. Back in school she’d been big on nature and architectural photography. She took snapshots of people but almost never posed portraits. She’d told him once that she liked to capture genuine moments.

How things had changed! His engagement portraits were about as disingenuous as moments could come. But as he well understood, sometimes art had to give way to paying the bills, and wedding photography was a high-dollar business. The wedding industry as a whole was a racket. The paperwork Missy had brought home after she’d reserved the venue and put down the deposit nearly made him choke. The floral bill alone was running him nearly six figures.

Bree stood up and Ian quickly shifted his gaze back to his computer screen. He tried not to give her much notice as she came into the kitchen and opened the pantry doors. She pulled out a bag of coffee. “It’s freezing in that big room. Do you mind if I make a pot of coffee? Will you drink some?”

“That’s a good idea. I’ll drink it.” The thermos he’d demolished on the drive up here had burned off a long time ago.

Bree filled the coffeepot and went about setting the controls and adding grounds to the filter. “When it’s cold like this, I need something warm to drink.”

“I think we’ll be drinking a lot of coffee, then.”

“I noticed some decaffeinated herbal tea in the pantry, too. I’ll probably switch to that in the evenings. Otherwise I’ll be up all night.”

Ian’s brain instantly went to the nights he had kept her up without the assistance of caffeine. How many times had he missed his 8:00 a.m. English lecture because he’d lost track of time in Bree’s arms?

His eyes focused in on the curious expression on Bree’s face. “What?” he asked.

“I asked if you take cream and sugar,” she said with a smile.

“Yeah, two sugars. I like it sweet.”

Bree got down the mugs and turned to him while she waited for the coffee to finish brewing. “Still got a sweet tooth, huh?”

He nodded, remembering all the junk he used to eat back in college. Like any college student, he’d consumed his fair share of pizza and Chinese food, but more often than not, he could be found with a candy bar, a cookie or a can of soda in his hand. Sometimes a combination of the three. “This machine runs on sugar and caffeine most of the time. I have tried to scale back a little. I have a one-candy-bar-a-day limit my assistant enforces by keeping snacks in a locked drawer in her desk.”

The warm scent of hazelnut coffee filled the air. Bree turned to pour two cups and doctored them appropriately. She set a mug down next to his laptop and crawled onto the barstool at the opposite side of the kitchen island.

“I guess I always envisioned you marrying a pastry chef. Or a chocolatier. I’m going to take a wild guess and say that Missy doesn’t bake.”

“Lord, no.” Ian chuckled. “I don’t think Missy has so much as turned on an oven in her entire life. She was singing on mall tours at fourteen and was an opening act for a world tour at seventeen. I signed her with SpinTrax when she was twenty. She knows how to work an audience, but that’s about it.”

Bree took a sip of her coffee. “I suppose she doesn’t eat that stuff, either.”

“Missy doesn’t eat much of anything.”

Food was a constant point of contention in their relationship. Missy’s personal trainer had convinced her that greens and fish were all she needed. Anything else and she’d blow up like a pop star has-been. When she’d announced her pregnancy, he’d expected her to add some foods back into her repertoire, but the opposite happened. Since she knew there were certain kinds of fish she couldn’t eat, she’d gone fully vegetarian instead of taking the time to figure out what she could and couldn’t have. She insisted that was why her belly was still as flat as it was on her last album cover. He wasn’t sure how well she was going to take it when she hit the third trimester and even a strict diet wouldn’t keep her from putting on a few pounds.

“I guess I’ll never be a rock star, then. I like food too much,” Bree said with a smile. “Of course, I’ve got the junk in the trunk to show for it.”

One of Ian’s eyebrows shot up. He’d tried not to look, but he’d noted Bree’s trunk was nicely full. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, trying to sound sincere without seeming too interested in her body. “You look great.”

Bree smiled, a blush rising to her cheeks. She tucked a stray strand of blond hair behind her ears. “Thanks, but we both know this isn’t the same body I had back in college.”

“Thank goodness. I don’t think I was skilled enough to handle curves that dangerous back in school.”

Bree wrinkled her nose. “Were you always this big a flatterer?”

“I think so. I just did it with a song then. Now I have to be more direct. I don’t have time to beat around the bush.”

Bree’s bright blue gaze met his for a moment, and he felt the familiar heat rush through his veins once again. What was he doing flirting with Bree? He was engaged. He was going to be a father. He needed to focus on his relationship with Missy, not his past with Bree. How could he forget the fact that Bree had kicked him when he was down? That she had offered him the closest thing to a real relationship he’d ever had, then snatched it away?

Ian needed more space between them if he was going to get through the next few days. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to kiss her or give her a piece of his mind. Neither was helpful. He remembered the feeling from school. She knew just how to push all his buttons and make him unsteady on his feet. Back then, it had brought on a rush of excitement. Now, it just frustrated him.

He had to give Missy credit in that department. He knew exactly where he stood with her: she was using him to salvage her career. There was no great love between them, at least when the cameras were off. It wasn’t where he envisioned he would be with the mother of his child, but at least he understood the terms of the relationship. Bree was a wild card.

He looked back to his computer screen and closed his laptop. “I, uh, guess I’d better give you the tour so you can get settled in.”

Bree slid down from the stool, carrying her mug with her as she followed him into the living room.

“This is the main floor. My bedroom is over there under the stairs.” He gestured up to the loft overhead, then they headed up the steps. “You’ll see there are two bedrooms and baths up here, and two more bedrooms and baths on the lower level. If I were you, I’d sleep up here, though. Because of the vaulted ceilings, upstairs stays a little warmer.”

He led Bree back to the main level, past his bedroom door and down the staircase. At the bottom of the stairs was a spacious room with a big-screen television, a poker table, a pool table and a stone fireplace. “This is the game room. There’s also a hot tub out that door on the deck.”

He watched Bree roam around his vacation home, taking in every detail. She investigated both bedrooms, and then she looked out onto the deck. The direction of the snow was blowing such that it wasn’t piling on the patio at all. That meant the front of the house would be waist-high in drifts by morning.

“This is really a beautiful place you have, Ian.” Bree turned her back to the window and looked at him. “Do you get to spend much time here?”

Of course not. She had to have known the answer to that question before she asked it. It had been months since he’d last been here. Mid-September. Before his moment of weakness with Missy derailed his life. “Not as often as I’d like,” he answered instead. “My mother and stepfather come up here from time to time. So does my stepbrother and his wife and kids.”

“So your mom ended up marrying Ned?”

Ian’s father had split nearly the moment he’d been conceived. When he was in high school, his mother had started a fairly serious relationship with Ned. Ned had one son of his own, a few years younger than Ian. “Yeah, they got engaged not long after you...” His voice trailed off. He was about to say “not long after you dumped me,” but they were stuck here together. There wasn’t much point in antagonizing one another, at least on the first day.

Bree’s mouth tightened a bit, knowing what he’d been about to say. After a moment, she pasted back on her cheery smile. “How is everyone doing? I think about your family sometimes and wonder what they’re up to.”

Did that mean she thought about him, too? Ian knew he shouldn’t care, but a part of him wondered. She’d certainly been on his mind over the years. Sometimes he was angry and bitter. Most times he just felt disappointed.

“Ned is getting ready to retire and my mother is trying to figure out what she’ll do when she has to look at him all day. His son, Jay, and his wife just had their second child. They’re all great. I actually haven’t seen them in a while. Work has been pretty hectic.”

Bree nodded and turned back toward the stairs. “You sound like my dad.”

Ian noted the flat tone of displeasure in her voice. Bree and her father still had their issues, he could see. The man had been chained to his desk twenty hours a day when they were in college, and he blamed Mr. Harper in part for their relationship’s demise. “How are your parents?” he asked.

Bree reached the top of the stairs and turned back to look at him. “Dad’s recovering from bypass surgery after his second heart attack in five years.”

Ian felt his own chest tighten in response. Bree had accused him of turning into a workhorse like her father. He tried not to work longer than eighteen-hour days, but that probably wasn’t enough of a distinction in her eyes. Or the eyes of a cardiologist. “Is he okay?”

“Yes. He’s too driven to die. But the doctors want him to scale back his hours and pass the running of the company on to his partner. That—” she laughed “—might actually kill him. That and the diet his doctors tried to put him on.”

Ian nervously pulled at the suddenly tight collar of his sweater. He imagined the candy, coffee and liquor he consistently consumed was not on the doctor’s recommended eating plan. “I’m glad he’s doing okay. Is he back to work yet?”

“Yes,” Bree said. “He returned to the office the day his doctor released him, although I suspect he’d been sneaking in some and checking his email from home. My mother divorced him last year, and he said it was hard for him to sit at home alone with the housekeeper. I find that kind of ironic considering that’s how I’d spent most of my time. But his business is important to him. He’s already sacrificed his family and his health for his job. It’d be a shame to lose his company, too. It’s all he has left. You’d be wise to learn from his mistakes.”

* * *

Bree had no idea why she’d said that last part, but the words left her mouth before she could stop them. It wasn’t helpful. Or polite. Or any of her damned business. But a part of her just had to do it. If he was going to start a family, he should know what the price of his workaholic lifestyle would be. He should know what it would be like for his child.

Ian frowned at her and put his mug down on the side table. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Bree took a deep breath and shrugged. “You know what kind of hours you keep, Ian. They’re probably worse than they were back in school when you forgot my birthday and left me alone night after night.”

Ian widened his stance and crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you still mad that I missed your birthday? I apologized twenty times.”

“So did my dad, Ian. He apologized and bought me something expensive to make up for it, just to do it again. That’s the point. You can work yourself to death, like my dad does. That’s his choice. That’s your choice now. But not when you have a family. Things are about to change for you. You can’t work as hard as you do when you have a child at home who doesn’t understand why you’re never there.”

“Since when do you know anything about me and what I do, Bree? You walked out of my life nine years ago.”

That was an interesting way to look at how their relationship had ended. Her interpretation of the past was quite different. Bree planted her hands on her hips and prepared for battle. The minute she’d found out she was coming up here, she’d worried this moment might come. The presence of his fiancée would’ve kept the old feelings and hot tempers in check, but stuck alone? It was time to have the fight they’d never really had.

“How long did it take you to notice I was gone? A week? Two weeks?”

Ian clenched his jaw, fighting to hold back words he’d obviously suppressed all this time. “I noticed, Bree. I noticed that the woman I thought loved me just turned her back on me when I was at one of the lowest points in my life.”

Bree scoffed at his cold assessment of her actions. “I didn’t turn my back on you. You’re the one who made this huge lifestyle shift and shut me out. Suddenly, you were all about working at that record company and you had no time for me anymore. You missed my birthday. You stood me up for that dance. You left me sitting alone at a restaurant waiting for you, twice. I did you a favor by easing your guilty conscience. You didn’t have to feel bad about ignoring me if I was already gone.”