to apologize, but for some reason, hearing the words annoyed him. Their breakup had been ridiculous, the result of their immaturity, and he ached for what could have been. He didn’t want to go there. Couldn’t go there. So he gave her a sardonic smile. “You can make it up to me, you know. We might as well do something while we’re stuck in here.”
“I don’t have a deck of cards with me,” she said, even though she clearly knew what he was suggesting. Her eyebrows rose and she gave him a smile.
“I was thinking of something a little more hands-on. For old times’ sake?”
But Kristine just laughed. “Seriously? Here I just thought we could chat over coffee. Nothing about your suggestion is a good idea, if you weren’t joking, which I’m pretty sure you were.”
Actually, he wasn’t. But she was right. It would be a terrible idea to go there again. It might be amazing, and then he would be further ruined for other women; or it might be awkward, and then they really wouldn’t be able to look each other in the eye. Because the truth was, he would enjoy establishing some sort of adult friendship with Kristine.
“Well, you do know me. Full of jokes 24/7.” They both knew that was the furthest thing from the truth. Lots of adjectives could be used to describe him, but funny was not one of them. “I’m sure I could find better uses for my tongue than cracking jokes, though.” It wasn’t appropriate, but hell. There were no guidelines for proper behavior when locked in a storeroom with your ex.
Her eyes widened. “As much as I appreciate your wit, we’re trapped in here, and I’m starting to freak out because I don’t think the air quality is great.”
The air quality? He was picturing his mouth on her breast and she was preoccupied with stale air? Okay, so fooling around wasn’t going to happen. It had been a long shot. He shouldn’t even want to have sex with her, but there was no denying he did. He wanted to take her against that door hard and fast, then do it all over again, nice and slow the second time, driving her to the brink over and over until she whimpered with need and pleasure.
But she was wrong if she thought he was using sex as a distraction from discussing their impending divorce. The two had nothing to do with each other. He could still crave her physically even though their relationship was long over. The truth was, he was starting to think he wouldn’t be able to move on with his life until he purged the sexual memory of her from his head and from his cock.
If he ever wanted to move on and have a quality relationship with another woman, he needed to relegate Kristine and her body firmly to the past.
And he could think of only one way to do that.
But he needed to figure out how to convince her of that fact without sending her running for the hills again. Even trapped in this room, if he spooked her, she’d likely crawl up the metal shelving to escape him. No, it wasn’t going to happen here, in this room. But he had every intention of taking her up on that cup of coffee to discuss their divorce, and he had every intention of that meeting ending up with them in bed.
Unless she was dating someone, which was why she suddenly wanted the divorce. There was an unpleasant thought.
“No panicking. You’re not going to suffocate. There’s a decent-size window. This is no big deal. I’ll call my assistant and we can wait for him to get here. Or I’ll just lift you up and you can crawl through the window if you’re feeling impatient.”
“What? Are you insane?” Kristine eyed the window and snorted. “As you are well aware, I am not a tiny woman. My hips will never fit through that opening.”
He was definitely acquainted with all of her delicious curves, and he was positive her hips would fit. “Of course they will. Come on, you got this, no problem.”
“Call your assistant.”
He was already hitting Michigan’s name on his phone. “Hey, yes, can you return to Collective? The event coordinator and I somehow got locked in the storage room. I’m assuming the door can be opened from the other side, but just in case, maybe you should call a locksmith on your way over because I’m not even sure how the door got locked in the first place.”
“You’re locked in a storage room? With your wife?” Michigan sounded very nervous.
Kristine was eyeing the window suspiciously.
“Yes. Where are you? How soon do you think you can get here?”
“It’s rush hour. I’m in some heavy traffic. I have to get off the highway and turn around...probably twenty minutes. Minimum.”
“No problem, thanks. Call me when you’re here.”
He hung up the phone. “Twenty minutes at least. He has to turn around and traffic is heavy this time of day.”
“I guess that’s the simplest thing to do. Calling the police would probably be a waste of law enforcement resources, wouldn’t it?” she asked.
“Definitely. This is a nonemergency.”
Kristine had perched her bum on the very edge of the metal shelf. She looked uncomfortable and unbelievably sexy, her tenuous position causing her breasts to spill forward out of her sweater. “So why now?” he asked her.
“Why now, what?” She looked at him blankly.
“Why a divorce now? Are you engaged to be married to someone else?”
She wobbled on the shelf and grabbed it for better balance. “No. Not at all.”
“Then why?” There had to be a catalyst. She didn’t just wake up one day and think she needed a divorce. He certainly never had. Initially, he had been too raw to even consider it, then he had felt stubbornly that it was her responsibility since she was the one who had technically walked out. Eventually, it had just seemed unnecessary, and a task that fell by the wayside when he had seven thousand other things to do on a weekly basis.
If he were brutally honest with himself, he had assumed Kristine would seek him out when she got into a scrape. She had always needed him to bail her out of one disaster after another, and he had thought it was his ace in the hole. She would need him.
But she hadn’t.
Kristine pursed her lips. “It was pointed out to me that not everyone is okay with dating a woman who is technically married.”
Ah, so that was it. “A stickler, huh?” Sean didn’t blame the guy. It was a little weird, but damn, it had been ten years. It was a marriage in the courthouse records only. “We haven’t even seen each other in a decade.”
“I know. I explained that, but he thought it was too revealing that we haven’t divorced.”
“Or more likely lazy,” he said. Then, because he was curious, nothing more, he asked, “Did you love him?”
She shrugged. “No. There wasn’t time to love him. A month into dating, and he ditched me when he found out my legal status.”
“Why didn’t you tell him right away?” Sean asked, a little astonished. “I tell women on the first date. No one ever cares.”
Kristine snorted. “Of course they don’t. You’re wealthy
