Unfinished Business. Inglath Cooper

that the reality in which she’d been living wasn’t reality at all.

      “They’re done for the night.” Culley was back, sliding onto the leather seat beside her.

      “Are you sure I didn’t mess up your plans?”

      “We’d done about all the male bonding any of us could handle. They’re going back to the hotel to call their wives.”

      She smiled. “I was just thinking about that afternoon when we were fifteen, and I made you kiss me.”

      He raised an eyebrow. “A real hardship.”

      The words hung there for a moment, charged the air with something that felt a little dangerous. “That changed everything between us,” she said, surprised by her own directness.

      He was silent, and then said, “It scared the devil out of me.”

      “You?”

      “Yeah.”

      “Why?”

      “You want honesty?”

      She nodded.

      “Because after that, I knew we couldn’t be the same kind of friends anymore. Looking back, it all seems pretty innocent. But I never forgot that kiss.”

      She thought about her response for several seconds before admitting, “Neither did I. I told myself every girl is a bit intrigued by the guy who makes it clear his heart isn’t up for grabs.”

      “And I was one of those guys?”

      “I’ll say.”

      “Was not.”

      “Were, too.”

      “On the basis of?”

      “Dating in nearly alphabetical order three-quarters of our class.”

      “Exaggeration.”

      “Barely.” She felt a flutter of something very much like happiness. Were they flirting with each other?

      Culley smiled then, sheepish. “That was sure another lifetime.”

      “So you’ve changed?”

      “The most boring man you’re likely to ever know.”

      “Your patients are probably eighty percent female.”

      “Ouch. Another arrow to the heart. Totally unjustified.”

      Addy gave him a doubtful look, hazy though it was, having been filtered through a second glass of red wine.

      Silence hung between them then, while the beginnings of an old connection took hold. They sat there, locked in the moment, while beside them the fortieth-anniversary couple got up and headed for the doorway, arms around one another’s waists.

      Warning signals blared in Addy’s ear. Here she sat shoulder to shoulder in the booth of a seductive hotel bar with an alarmingly attractive man who had once been a very big part of her life.

      Time to go, Addy.

      She glanced at her watch. “Twelve-thirty. I didn’t realize it was so late. I better get going.”

      He caught the waiter’s attention, asked for the bill, wouldn’t hear of splitting it. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you up.”

      “That’s all right, really. I’ll be fine.”

      “Oh, no. I insist. You’ll tell your mama about my bad manners, and then I’ll have to hear about it from my own mom for weeks.”

      Addy smiled. “Fair enough, but just to the elevator.”

      CHAPTER FOUR

      ONE OF THE lobby elevators stood empty and waiting. Addy popped on a polite this-was-really-terrific smile. “Thank you,” she said. “It was great seeing you.”

      “I’ll see you to your door.”

      Before she could think of a reasonable-sounding protest, he took her elbow and steered her inside. She pushed the button for her floor, then stood awkwardly to one side, Culley to the other.

      The danger alarms were going off again, awareness surrounding them like a force field.

      The elevator slid to a stop, and they stepped out. Her room was at the end of the corridor. “You don’t have to go all the way,” she said, even though something inside her screamed too late. “I’ll be fine.”

      “Addy, I’m not going to leave you standing out here in the hallway,” he said and took her elbow once again.

      To insist otherwise would have been silly—for heaven’s sake, he was just being polite—and she could not deny that his hand on her bare arm made her feel protected and secure, temporary as it was.

      At her room, she pulled the key from her black leather clutch. He took it from her, but didn’t open the door.

      “I’m really glad we got to see each other,” she said. “This night ended up very different from what it started out to be.”

      His blue eyes were steady, intense, some emotion there clearly at war with itself. “For me, too.”

      The elevator dinged, opening on the floor once more. The married couple from the bar stepped out and headed to the opposite end of the hall, their voices low, hushed, intimate. The key clicked in the door lock, a soft rush of laughter following.

      The air in the hallway was suddenly thick. Addy drew in a quick breath, mesmerized by the man standing before her with questions in his eyes. She had no answers. Only knew herself to be spellbound by the moment and a very real desire to invite him into her room.

      The thought was shocking in its clarity. She’d been married for eleven years. And she had been a faithful wife. By thought and deed. She’d had colleagues call her old-fashioned because she hadn’t bought into their so-what’s-the-big-deal-about-an-office-affair outlook, which they pushed like an illegal but socially acceptable substance. Addy’s was a live-and-let-live philosophy, but she had never bought into that kind of casual.

      Culley reached out, brushed her cheek with the back of his hand, the touch gentle, tender, yet at the same time, tentative, uncertain. “I’d take the hurt away if I could, Addy.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek then, just a whisper of contact against her skin. Consolation had been his intent. Of that, she was sure. But the gesture pulled at something inside her, stirred up longings for something very different. Something that might make the awful ache inside her disappear.

      “I should go,” he said.

      “You should,” she agreed. Seconds passed while she grappled with the opposing forces of reason and need. Reason lost the struggle. “But I don’t want you to.”

      She slipped a hand up his chest, rested it there with deliberate intent.

      “Addy.” Her name came out with ragged edges and a reluctance impossible to miss. “You’re hurting.”

      He hadn’t moved, and yet she could hear him backing away. He was right. She was hurting. Had been hurting for so long now that she was tired of being in this place, wanted very much to feel something different. Was that why she wanted him to kiss her? Did that explain the fact that if he turned around and left her here alone, she felt as if something inside her would break into a thousand pieces?

      “Tell me to leave, and I will,” he said.

      Before them lay two turns in the road, one the end of which she could clearly see: friendship, run-ins every few years. The other road was hidden and nothing could be seen beyond the immediate.

      Addy wanted immediate. Nothing more than that. Just here and now. Just this night. Because more than anything she wanted to feel something. To want and be wanted.

      “Stay,” she said.

      An inch of