again, he probably had been crushing on her because she was forbidden fruit. And that made her sad, because she wanted Ethan to be the perfect man she always imagined him to be.
He strode toward the door and then hesitated. “The balcony overlooks the pool and grounds. It connects to the other rooms,” he said.
“Where is your room?” she asked.
“Two doors down,” he said before leaving and closing the door behind him.
She stood there in the nicely appointed room, trying very hard not to feel like she was lost. It had been a long time since she’d had this feeling, but she was flashing back hard to the foster homes of her youth and feeling adrift, like she wasn’t sure where she was going next. She was on her own again. She’d gotten used to being part of a family with Mason, and she knew that it had been a false feeling. He’d liked the noncommittal state of the relationship, and she’d been able to fool herself that it was something else. Something more. And she promised herself she wouldn’t do that again.
* * *
Rubbing the back of his neck, Ethan entered his study and closed the door, leaning back against it. His brothers were all settling down and getting their lives together, but what did he have in his life that mattered? One thing was his job, the career he loved and would never give up. And the other was a woman who thought of him as her friend.
Hell and damn.
He walked to his desk, sat down in the big leather chair his mom had helped him pick out, and glanced down at the photo of him and his brothers that had been taken at Nate’s wedding. His life always looked ideal, perfect from the outside. And that had made him struggle.
He knew his weaknesses and never shied away from them. So he knew ignoring this thing with Crissanne wasn’t the solution. He had to face it, deal with it and then let it go.
He’d texted Bart earlier to let him know that Crissanne was here. Ethan wondered if they’d met and introduced themselves yet.
He left his office, following the sound of music playing to the kitchen. Not Bart’s usual MO, but perhaps he’d been charmed by Crissanne, too. There was something about her, a sadness lurking in her eyes, that had always made Ethan want to cheer her up.
But Bart wasn’t in the kitchen. It was just Crissanne, singing to Jack Johnson while she sat at the island typing on her laptop. Her back was to him, and he stood there watching her.
He tried to tell himself it was sweet, that there was nothing remotely sexy about her as she worked. Yet she still tempted him. He decided then and there that the only solution to this was to try to think of her like one of his sisters-in-law.
She glanced up from her work and turned slightly. When she saw him standing in the doorway, she stopped singing.
“Sorry,” she said. “I guess I got carried away and was singing out loud.”
“You were,” he said. “I liked it.”
“You did?”
“You don’t sound nearly as bad as Hunter. That boy has a lot of talents but singing isn’t one of them,” Ethan said, thinking of his younger brother, the former NFL football player.
“Your family always sounds so...”
“Big and annoying?” he asked.
“Nice,” she said at last. “I don’t have any siblings.”
Ethan leaned back against the countertop. “They can be a pain in the backside. I can’t tell you how many times I wished I were an only child.”
“But you don’t still feel that way?”
He shook his head. He was glad he had his brothers and that he lived so close to his family.
“I was thinking while you are here, you might want to do a feature on Cole’s Hill for one of those travel blogs you write for in addition to doing your vlogs. We have the SpaceNow and NASA Cronus training facility here now. I marked them on a map for you while I was in my office,” he said, going over to the desk in the kitchen and picking up the map he’d drawn for her.
He handed it to her and she arched both eyebrows at him. “You seem to have put a lot of time into this.”
“It didn’t take much time,” he said. “I figured you’d want to keep busy. I know that’s how I felt in the past when my relationships ended.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “I thought you were the one-night man.”
“No need to ask where you heard that,” he said. Mason always called him that. “I’ve had a few relationships that lasted longer.”
“I kind of want to dig into that and find out why you never let yourself get involved for longer,” she said, then winked at him. “But that would be too prying.”
“It would be,” he agreed. He’d have to make up something if she did try to probe more deeply, because she was the reason he’d never gotten involved with anyone for the long term. It had never seemed fair to get involved with one woman when he was obsessed with another one.
She gave him one of her sweet smiles and then came around the counter and hugged him. He held himself stiff at first but then put his arms around her and hugged her back, even knowing that he shouldn’t. He closed his eyes and breathed in the flowery scent of her hair, and then forced himself to step back.
“I’ll let you keep your secrets for now,” she said.
“Should I say thank you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Ready to go to dinner?”
She nodded. “Let me get my bag and phone.”
She walked out of the room and again he watched her go, knowing he was fooling himself pretending to be her friend. He was good at arguing a point in court and convincing juries to believe his point of view, but he’d never been able to bluff himself. He had always been very aware of his own weaknesses and if he was being completely honest, Crissanne felt like a dangerous vulnerability. There was no way he was going to ever be able to look at her and not want more, not want to feel her lips under his and not want her body twined with his all night long.
The Peace Creek Steakhouse was conveniently located near the downtown area of Cole’s Hill. When Ethan was growing up, his family would rent the wine room in the back to celebrate major accomplishments. As he and Crissanne stood in the foyer waiting to be seated, he remembered how he’d get money from Babs, one of his parents’ housekeepers, to get mints from the machine in the front of the restaurant and how he and his brothers would all scramble to be the first one there.
It was in his childhood that Ethan learned to argue with his words and not his fists. He was never going to be stronger than Nate, who was two inches taller than Ethan. But Nate could be distracted by anyone who didn’t share his point of view. Of course, some of those early arguments
