From Ex to Eternity (Newlywed Games 1)

“I think it’s you who’s different,” her sister commented wryly. “I still remember what you said to me after your first date with him. Do you?”

Of course she did. It had come back to haunt her often enough. “I said I was going to marry him.”

A premature statement to be sure since she’d only just met him. But he’d been exactly what she wanted in a husband. Successful, handsome, attentive.

Correction. What she’d thought she wanted in a husband. The past two years taught her the folly in her wish list. She needed a mate with the ability to stick with her through the bumps, as well as the actual desire to be a husband. Oh, and most critical—she wanted a husband who loved her and one she loved back unquestionably.

“Yep. You were really focused on getting married. Every guy you met got the Husband Test. Your man Mitchell was the first one to pass.”

That was uncomfortably true. Had she forced their relationship because of her goals instead of letting their feelings evolve naturally? Her throat tightened.

Of course she had—that’s how they’d gotten engaged and almost married without really knowing each other. Or being in love. They’d both let the pregnancy cloud their judgment. “Yeah. What’s your point?”

“You haven’t said a word about getting married in two years,” Meredith said quietly. “That’s what’s different. You seem a lot less fixated on the outcome and more into the experience of the moment. It looks really good on you and in the long run will probably be a lot better for your state of mind. That’s all I meant.”

Cara mulled that over the rest of the day, studiously avoiding Keith as she’d done yesterday, but for a different reason this time. Yesterday, she’d still been lying to herself about whether she thought of Keith as her lover in every sense of the word. Today she knew it was too late to stop that train—and too impossible to be near him without blurting out everything on her mind.

Her sister’s revelations weighed on her heavily. Meredith thought Cara was doing the right thing by falling head over heels into Keith without worrying about whether he’d marry her or not. It was exactly what this affair was supposed to be about.

And on the surface, it was. At least as far as everyone else knew. The problem lay underneath, where Cara had discovered marriage wasn’t her ultimate goal after all. She wanted that and more, far more. She wanted that man Keith had been last night when he held her hand as she talked through the difficult aftermath of the miscarriage. She wanted the man who encouraged her to take her pleasure and thought it was sexy that she ran her own business.

She wanted that man to love her. And she feared a rolling stone like Keith would never be capable of that even if she gave him twenty years to get there. This was a short affair, made possible only by these special circumstances.

When Keith texted her that night, she almost didn’t go. But she’d missed him and the two brief glimpses she’d gotten of him across the property as he strode off to do some Consulting Wizard task hadn’t been enough to sate her. Plus she couldn’t quite get the hot tub off her mind. She should enjoy her fling to the fullest, right?

In the end, she threw on his shirt without any underwear because she liked the feel of it against her bare skin and wore the trench coat over it. A similar look had benefited her greatly last night. But when she got to Keith’s room and used the key he’d given her to let herself in, he was hunched over his laptop, an open longneck beer in his left hand as he pecked at the keyboard with his right.

He glanced up but didn’t otherwise move from his spot at the table, where it appeared he’d been for some time. “I’m almost finished here. Give me a minute.”

The tired smile he aimed in her direction melted the ice she’d scarcely been aware surrounded her heart.

“You look like a man in sore need of a shoulder rub,” she said instead of a flirty comment designed to get him away from the computer. Which she had no doubt would have worked but wasn’t what he needed.

“I’m in sore need of you, period,” he muttered to his laptop screen.

She stood behind him and kneaded the knots in his neck and shoulder muscles while he read a report with multicolored graphs and pie charts.

“That feels amazing.” Ditching his beer, Keith groaned and leaned into her fingers, head tipped back slightly. “I didn’t know my neck hurt so bad until you started doing that.”

His head rested between her breasts and his lashes fluttered closed, and it was so sexy she couldn’t help herself. Screw work. “Would you like me to find out what else needs attention? I’d be happy to take inventory. And yes, I mean that exactly the way it sounds,” she added in case he was too tired to connect the dots.