Red Hot Reunion

“Hey, if the getting’s good, I say go out and get it. Forget I ever mentioned slow. Slow is for wimps. And you are definitely not a wimp. Besides, it’s not like he’s exactly pushing you away, is he?”

Emma giggled. Jason had jumped her bones repeatedly, with little to no provocation. “He’s definitely not saying no.”

“I think you’re doing both of you a big favor. He’s too much of a macho, pride-ball to give in to what he wants—which is you—but then you came along and took the decision away from him.”

“What if he thinks all we’re doing is having meaningless fun together?” Emma said, giving voice to her biggest worry. She knew Jason wanted her. That much was obvious. But for how long? “I don’t know how much longer I can hide my true feelings from him.”

“Which are?”

“I love him, Kate. You know that. We all know it.”

Kate sighed. “I don’t know what to say, honey. I hope he’ll be man enough to love you back, but…”

Emma finished her sentence. “I shouldn’t count on it, should I?”

Kate’s silence said it all. And as Emma hung up and went inside to take a shower, she didn’t know if she felt better or worse. Because there was definitely no denying that every time she and Jason made love, another protective layer melted away from her heart. In no time at all, her love for Jason wouldn’t be buried way down deep anymore. It would be right there on the surface, in plain sight for the world to see.

Only this time, if he rejected her like she had rejected him, Emma didn’t know where she’d run.

Because there’d be no place left to go.

Jason’s meeting in the city was long and intense. His last cookbook had hit theNew York Times

hardcover bestseller list and everyone was working overtime to make sure it happened again. He tried to throw himself into his work with the same passion he always did, and yet for the first time he wasn’t all there, wasn’t completely in the game. He didn’t think his editor or the marketing and sales teams noticed his distraction, but he did. And it bothered him a great deal.

His entire adult life, Jason’s goals had been clear and direct. He would work hard, succeed, and be satisfied with what he had achieved. Everything had worked out precisely according to his plans.

Everything except Emma. And now she was throwing another wrench into his life. Because this morning, he’d woken up with her in his arms and actually been overwhelmed with happiness.

There was no point in pretending it was anything else.

With every passing hour in her company he remembered why she was his best friend in college and why he’d fallen in love with her. She was funny and sexy and intelligent. And so damn beautiful it made his breath catch just to look at her.

Was it possible that she’d changed? Was she really ready to turn her back on her fake, stuffy world to be with him? He felt twisted up inside and it wasn’t a sensation he cared to hold on to. Forcefully, he caught himself, took hold of his thoughts and emotions. At Stanford, he’d been nothing but a green boy with stars in his eyes. He’d seen what he wanted to see, loved because he thought it was his right.

A decade later, Jason knew better. He knew that love didn’t really matter. That sex was just an illusion.

Jason wasn’t stupid enough to think that he’d ever be free of Emma. He’d always want her. Which was all the more reason why he had to stick to his plan. The time had come to find out exactly what she was doing in Napa. Why she’d come to find him. Tonight he’d question her motives and, based on her

answers, he might very well have more ammo for getting payback.

Thirteen

Emma paced nervously in front of the winery. Jason had sounded so serious when he’d called her as he was leaving his meeting in San Francisco. Her brain immediately went to a host of worst-case scenarios.

What if he was going to tell her that he was done having fun with her, that she wasn’t exciting enough for him? Sexy enough?

Or, what if he hadn’t actually been meeting with his publisher today? What if he had a lover stashed away in San Francisco and after crawling exhausted out of her bed he realized he couldn’t get it up with scrawny, pathetic Emma one more time?

Even though she knew how ridiculous it was to expect Jason to want to be with her again after all this time, after her past unfaithfulness, she’d still hoped. She’d still dreamed.

But she had a sinking feeling that tonight could be the end of it all.

“Emma,” Jason called out, a picnic basket swinging from one hand.

She couldn’t help but reach for him, kiss him with all of her pent-up desire. “I missed you today,” she admitted, figuring there was no point in holding her cards close to her chest anymore. Not if he was going to discard her anyway.

His eyes darkened and her pulse quickened with desire. “I missed you too.”

His words meant so much more to her than he would ever know. She held them close to her heart and prayed that he meant it. She followed him up the gravel pathway around the banks of a small lake that overlooked the grounds and the mountains beyond.

“I see you brought more food. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to fatten me up some more. Like the big bad wolf.”

He turned and gave her a very wolflike grin. “Everyone should enjoy food. It’s one of the main pleasures in life.”

Emma licked her lips at the word “pleasure” as it fell from his sensual lips. Jason certainly knew a thing or two about that subject. In only two days, she’d learned how much she’d been depriving herself all these years by not letting herself eat. Was being super skinny worth it? Really, what had it gotten her but hunger pangs? And a freezer full of unsatisfying Lean Cuisine microwave dinners.

“Besides,” he said as he spread a thick, soft, red-and-white-checked blanket on the grass, “I like watching you eat.”

Emma blushed furiously beneath his sensual gaze, remembering the way he’d licked the whipped cream from her cle**age in his living room the previous evening.

“Don’t you mean you like eating off of me?”

He grinned again, taking her breath away with his all male beauty. She’d never find another man like this.

Jason was powerful, intelligent, and irrepressibly sensual.

“That’s right,” he said. “Thanks for reminding me. I think I’ve got some more whipped cream in the basket for dessert.”

Emma shot him a seductive glance, hoping she could stall any serious conversations about her going back home and leaving him alone forever the same way she’d been doing it for the past several days. By distracting him with sex.