“Hi there.”
Okay, not Beah’s standard way of greeting anybody, making him think she didn’t want him to know who was on the other side of the call. Which just, dammit, made him even more curious.
The light turned and Finn accelerated.
“I’m good, thanks. Just very busy,” Beah said, and was silent for a while, her concentration fully on the person on the other end of the call. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back in London but I promise you, as soon as I know, we’ll get together.”
A potential date? Another lover? Finn felt acid flare up in his gut. Yeah, he couldn’t deny it, he felt a green monster gnawing on his backbone.
“I can’t answer your question right now,” Beah said after another long silence. “But you know it’s something I’m thinking about.”
Hell, what was she being asked to do? Take a holiday? Go on a date? Sleep with someone? Move in with someone? Finn’s hand tightened around the steering wheel and he glared at the back of the sedan in front of him.
He felt Beah’s eyes on his profile and heard her softly spoken words. “I’ll call you...when I can talk.”
Yep, there was definitely something she wasn’t telling him. And why did she feel the need to keep secrets from him?
Oh, that might be because you two are no longer married, and you’ve barely spoken for the past nine years.
Beah disconnected the call and put her phone back into her bag. He wasn’t going to ask; he didn’t have the right to pry. He’d lost that right when he filed for divorce.
“Who’s the guy?”
Hell of a thing when your mouth no longer obeyed your brain.
“None of your business,” Beah replied. And it wasn’t; it really wasn’t.
“Are you sleeping with someone else?” Finn asked, trying to sound casual but missing by a thousand miles.
“Would it bother you if I was?” Beah asked, and he heard the amusement in her soft question.
This wasn’t funny, dammit. “Damn right it would. I don’t like sharing.”
He turned his head and caught Beah’s nod and the thoughtful look on her face. “I don’t like sharing either so, fair enough. Just for the record, I’m not sleeping with anyone else.”
Finn felt the monster retreat and stretched the fingers on his right hand, then his left. “Okay.” He waited for her to explain and then waited some more. But no explanation came.
Crap. He didn’t like being kept in the dark. Not about her. And he knew, at a gut level, whoever had been on the end of the call was damn important to Beah.
Who? Why? What was she up to?
Before he could push, Beah changed the subject. “Where are we going first?”
The moment had passed and Finn knew he wasn’t going to get anything out of her until she was ready to spill. And she might never be ready. Not the nicest thought he’d ever had.
Finn pushed his irritation way and signaled to turn right. Get your head in the game, Murphy. You have no right to push and pry.
How would you feel if she was pushing you?
Finn wished, just for a second, that she would. He wanted her to go there, mentally encouraging her to pry, so they could start breaking down the barriers between them.
And why did he want to do that? He had no intention of falling even a little in love with her again, so what was the point?
Crap, she confused the hell out of him. And he wasn’t a man who was easily confused.
“Finn? Agenda?”
Finn dragged his thoughts back to the present and dragged a hand over his face. “Right. I haven’t been completely useless, wedding-wise. I have been in contact with vendors and last night I sent various emails to various people—the florist, the cake baker and the wedding coordinator for the chapel—asking to meet this morning.”