was already serious before you kissed me, Ian.”
“I didn’t know. I had no idea you... It never occurred to me you had feelings for me,” he said. “Except attraction. That I’d noticed.”
“You look as good in your suits as out of them and that’s saying something.”
“Let me take you out tonight,” he said. “Dinner. Then you can come back to the house and help me with the fireplace. We’ll hang out. It’ll be fun. It’ll be normal. We can end things on a good note instead of feeling shitty about what happened.”
“Or didn’t happen.”
“Or didn’t happen, yeah.”
“Do you even like me?” she asked. “As a person, I mean. I insult you, I welded truck nuts to your car, I scare the newbies and I make eighteen dollars an hour while you make eighteen dollars a minute.”
“Dad makes eighteen dollars a minute. I make low six figures. I’m on salary, you know. I don’t own the company. I just run it. If I screw up, I get in trouble or get fired just like anyone else who works for my father.”
“Except the rest of us aren’t senator’s sons who are going to inherit the family business someday no matter how badly we screw up.”
“Dad’s only a state senator.”
“And your ski chalet is only a fixer-upper.”
They were silent a long moment. She knew he was waiting for her to bend a little, to say yes to dinner, to say yes to ending on a good note instead of on this...whatever this was...this awkward painful note.
“I’m going to miss you,” he said. “You keep me honest.”
“I insult you. Often.”
“Somebody has to, right?” he asked. “Everybody else sucks up to me.”
“That’s the damn truth,” she said.
“Please? Hang out with me tonight. Take a look at this thing in my house and see if you can fix it. Then we can go to the brewery. My treat. A thank-you for your help. We can pretend to be friends for one evening, right? Then maybe eventually we won’t have to pretend?”
“Why do you want to be my friend?”
“You carry a blowtorch in your backpack and I had to pay five hundred bucks to get those fucking truck nuts off my bumper,” he said, meeting her eyes finally. It was his eyes that had gotten to her first—a blue so bright you could see the color from the other side of the room, the other side of the world. “Of course I want to be your friend. It’s safer than being your enemy.”
She smiled, because she had to after an admission like that.
“Please, Flash. One apology dinner. I’m even buying.”
Ian was strong and smart and it meant a lot to her that he wasn’t ashamed to humble himself a little. A real man. He wasn’t afraid of her even if he joked he was. Which is why she shouldn’t be doing this, having this conversation with him, thinking these thoughts. She cared too much about him already. He’d crushed her before and he could crush her again. She absolutely should not spend any time alone with him ever again, not if she didn’t want to get hurt like before, and God knows, she didn’t want to get hurt like before. She was still hurt.
“I’ll go get my torch,” she said. “But you better make good on the brewery or your fireplace screen won’t be the only thing I solder to the floor.”
“You’re sexy when you’re threatening permanent damage to my genitals,” he said.
She patted his shoulder.
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
IAN WATCHED FLASH walk back into the office to retrieve her equipment. Dammit, what the hell was he thinking? He was thinking he wasn’t over Flash, that’s what he was thinking. And he needed to be over her. He really needed to be over her.
And under her.
And all around her.
And inside her. He needed that more than anything else.
“Pathetic, Asher. Just pathetic,” he muttered to himself as he fished around in his coat pocket to find his keys. Begging for crumbs from this woman when he wanted to feast on her. But he’d fucked it up with her so badly he knew she’d probably never lower her guard around him again. Not enough to give him anything but hope. Certainly not her love, which is what he wanted. Nothing else would do. And yet he knew it was over, all the way over. He’d had some hope when she welded metal testicles to his bumper. Only a woman with very strong feelings for him would pull a prank like that. But after that, nothing. Even the silent treatment would have been better than what he’d gotten from her. She’d treated him like she treated everyone else—with a mix of dark humor and utter disdain. He didn’t want her to treat him like she treated everyone else. He wanted to be special. But this was Veronica “Flash” Redding, and if making men feel like they were nothing special was a game show, she’d go home with one million dollars and a brand-new car.
And today she’d quit her job. Which meant he’d likely never see her again unless he did something hasty, drastic and stupid like beg her to help him fix up his house in the hopes of buying a little more time with her. Maybe he could talk her into forgiving him. Maybe he could talk her into another night. Maybe he could talk her into welding metal wings and flying them to the sun. He was dreaming too big here. Unlike him, Flash was already out there dating other people. He hadn’t gone on a second date since his one night with her. Why? Because he liked women and didn’t want to be an asshole to them, and only an asshole would take one woman out on a date while thinking about a different woman the entire time. A woman with punk red hair, a perfect face and a body that fit his so well he could believe she’d been sculpted to fit him. She wore loose canvas pants every day to work and T-shirts with no sleeves that showed off both her strong shoulders and the tattoos on her biceps. She wore that distressed bomber jacket every day of her life, no matter the weather. Brown leather, not black leather because Flash wasn’t trying to look cool—she just was cool. Too cool for him.
But still...he had to give it one more shot with this woman or he’d regret it the rest of his life.
Flash emerged from their office into the parking lot, a heavy-duty army-green duffel bag over her shoulder. With any other woman he would have taken the bag from her and carried it. But he’d learned the hard way not to try that with Flash. It wasn’t the implication she couldn’t carry a heavy load that pissed her off when he’d tried to be gentlemanly one day. She just didn’t want anyone else touching her tools.
“You want to ride with me?” he asked. “Mine handles in snow better than yours.”
“I have chains if I need them,” she said. “This isn’t my first winter on the mountain, remember?” She opened her truck door and put her bag on the passenger seat.
“My new place is a little hard to find so follow me close. If you get lost, call my cell.”
“I won’t get lost,”
