Snowed In with Her Ex (6 page)

And she still cared about him now. She didn’t want that to be the case, but seeing Ian again had brought all those old feelings to the surface. In only a few short hours together, she’d been bombarded by her attraction to him and wrestled to keep herself at a physical distance. At the same time, her disappointment in his workaholic lifestyle was just as present. He was just as dedicated to the job now as he had been back then. But she couldn’t ignore her fierce protectiveness where he was concerned. Missy was lucky she’d never made it to the house last night. If all this had come to light with her here, Ian would have had to separate the women before someone had gotten hurt. And by “someone,” Bree meant Missy.

She entertained herself with fantasies of winning rowdy catfights. Eventually, she noticed the yelling had stopped. Bree didn’t know if he had hung up the phone or if his anger had finally run its course. Either way, she wasn’t going upstairs anytime soon. She flipped the television to a documentary on Pompeii and let her mind get lost in history instead of the eruption taking place upstairs.

About twenty minutes later, the dull thud of footsteps coming down the stairs roused her from the show. She turned down the volume and looked up in time to see Ian in the doorway. His face was stony and emotionless as he came over and dropped down onto the couch beside her.

Bree sat quietly and waited. He would talk when he was ready. She knew better than anyone that he didn’t like talking about his emotions. It might take him a while to be able to voice his feelings about what had just happened. Even Bree wasn’t sure she could find the words if faced with a betrayal of this magnitude.

“It’s true,” he said at last. His voice was steady and even. The yelling was done and now he was back to the even-keeled Ian she knew. “Missy is not having my baby.”

At least now he knew for certain. “I’m sorry, Ian. Is there anything I can do?”

“No,” he said dismissively. “Missy has done enough.”

“I’m surprised she admitted to it.”

Ian chuckled bitterly. “She didn’t want to, I’m sure, but it’s the kind of lie where you’ll get found out eventually. I’d done my part by rationalizing away all my doubts, but eventually she would have had to start showing. Eventually, she’d have had to give birth to this baby.”

That was a hell of a lie to pull off. Had she really thought it through? “Did she tell you what she intended to do? If the story hadn’t hit the press, she couldn’t have kept the lie going on much longer.”

“She said she was hoping that we would stop using protection and she would actually get pregnant. If that didn’t work, she was going to pretend to miscarry after the wedding.”

Bree shook her head. “With so many women suffering through the reality of losing a child, I can’t imagine her faking something that terrible.”

“That’s because you don’t know the real Missy Kline. All anyone sees is the sexy blonde in music videos and on album covers. I’m sure people think she might be spoiled or a diva. But the truth is that she’s ruthless, especially when it comes to her career. She learned it from her viper of a stage mom.”

“Is that why she did it? For her career?” Bree’s career meant everything to her, but she had a limit of how far she would go to be successful. Most people did.

“That’s not what she said at first. When I confronted her, she cried and wailed that she thought she was losing me. She said she did what she had to do to keep us together because she loved me too much.”

Ian looked down at his hands folded in his lap. “That was absolute crap. I know what it feels like to have a woman love me and it was nothing like that. She barely knew me. She certainly didn’t love me. Missy has never been interested in anyone but herself. The truth was that her last album tanked and she was scrambling. I had no intention of renewing her contract and she’d burned too many bridges to jump to another label easily. That’s when her whole demeanor changed. She was buttering me up, using sex to get her way. I knew that much. What I didn’t know was that she’d realized it wasn’t working. Before I could end it, she’d cooked up the fake pregnancy to keep it going.

“That just turned into a publicity gold mine for her. Celebrity weddings and babies are big news. She started this whole charade to save her career, and it worked better than she’d ever imagined. The publicity about the engagement and the pregnancy boosted her mediocre songs to the tops of the charts. She’d sold the exclusive rights to our engagement and ceremony photos to
Celebrity Magazine
. The wedding was even going to be televised. Did you know that?”

She didn’t. Natalie might have mentioned it, but Bree had spent last Monday in a daze after finding out about Ian getting married. “Sounds romantic.”

“Doesn’t it? Every step she took was cold and calculated. She was going to revive her career so I would resign her. And if not me, she would see to it that she made enough headlines to get some other label to do it.”

“The whole thing sure backfired on her, though. Who’s going to sign her now?”

“I don’t care,” Ian admitted. “It sure as hell won’t be my label. The wedding is off and the minute she’s fulfilled the final obligations of her contract, I never want to see her pinched face again. If anyone else is dumb enough to offer her a record deal after all this, they deserve what they get.”

They sat in silence for a few moments, absorbing everything that had happened in the past hour. Apparently being held hostage by a blizzard was just the beginning. Finally, Bree spoke. “Well, I’m sorry about all this. There’s nothing I can really say or do to make it better, but I wish that I could.”

Before she could stop herself, she reached out and clasped his hand in her own. She expected him to accept the brief gesture of comfort and pull away, but he didn’t. He tightened his grip on her fingers, sending a surge of emotions through her. She probably wasn’t the best person to help Ian through a moment like this, but she was the only one here. She wanted to hug him. Comfort him. But was that dangerous with their biggest barrier suddenly removed?

“Thanks, Bree,” he said, running the pad of his thumb over her skin. “I guess I should be happy the snow kept Missy from getting here. Can you imagine the three of us trapped in the house when this happened?”

She shuddered, but she wasn’t sure if it was his words or his touch. “I would’ve had to cut a bitch,” she said with a sly smile to help lighten up the situation. “Seriously, I know how important being a good father is to you.”

Ian nodded. “I keep telling myself that everything works out for the best. A part of me is relieved. A part of me is so giddy to break things off with Missy that I want to skip through the house. At the same time,” he added, a sadness creeping into the green depths of his eyes, “even though I didn’t want Missy to be the mother of my child, I wanted that child just the same. Even though he or she was never real, it felt real.”

“Of course it did. And you should give yourself the time and space to grieve for the baby, imaginary or not. You can’t just blink and have the whole situation suddenly not matter anymore.”

“Thanks for understanding. You’re right, and that’s how I need to think about it. I’m glad I’m here instead of back in Nashville. I think some people there would just pat me on the back and say to get over it because none of it was real.”

“It was to you. So take the time you need. Do what you have to do. I think you should take advantage of the peace and solitude here to deal with all this. That way when you return home, you’re ready to face the fallout.”

Ian looked at her with a furrowed brow. “Peace and solitude? I don’t even know what that is, much less how to take advantage of it.”

“I’ll tell you what it is. And how to get it. You made fun of me last night, but unplugging is the best thing you can do right now. You start by turning off your computer and your phone. Forward your business calls to your assistant if you have to, but you don’t want the press and well-meaning friends pestering you about all this. Give yourself pure radio silence.”

“Turn it off,” he repeated, although he didn’t sound convinced.

“Yep,” Bree said with an encouraging smile. “It’s easy. I’ll show you how.”

Six

S
ilence wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Bree had sold the idea to him like it was the greatest thing in the world. Not true. Without technology to distract him, Ian found he was uncomfortable with his own thoughts. Bree had given him his space and he was drowning in it.

Less than an hour after unplugging from the world, he was suiting up for the cold and heading outside. He had too much nervous energy and too many thoughts swirling around in his head. When he was younger and had the same problem, his mother would give him a physical task.

Then, and now, there was nothing that some hard labor couldn’t fix.

In the garage, he grabbed the snow shovel and a plastic tarp, then headed through the house to the front door. He opened it carefully, leaving a preserved wall of snow going about three feet up the doorway. He spread the tarp down on the wood floor to protect it from snow that might fall inside and melt.

This was as good a place to start as any. From inside, he thrust the shovel into the top few inches of snow and hurled them to the side of the porch. Then he grabbed a second scoop and flung it to the opposite side. Again and again he shoveled until he was able to step out onto the porch and close the door behind him. From there, he lost himself in the physicality and monotony of the work.

It took more than an hour to make a good path down the front steps to the road. It took another hour to clear in front of the garage doors and excavate Bree’s SUV. They wouldn’t be driving anywhere anytime soon, but if the snow started to melt then refroze in the night, it could turn to an icy shell around her car and damage the paint job. Maybe even crack her windshield.

The work had done wonders for his outlook. His arms and shoulders ached, but he had powered through the stages of grief in a rapid-fire assault on the snow in his driveway. The anger, the disbelief, the disappointment, the relief and the associated guilt came and went with every shovelful of snow. Two hours and three blisters later, Ian finally felt the mysterious sense of peace that Bree had mentioned earlier.

Resting his arms on his shovel, he admired Mother Nature’s handiwork. He normally didn’t come up here when there could be snow, so the sight of the familiar landscape transformed into a winter wonderland was stunning. The sun made the piles of snow sparkle like they were coated in a dusting of glitter. Icicles hung precariously from tree branches and the rooflines of houses in the distance. The chimneys of his neighbors puffed towers of gray smoke against the bright blue sky.

It was perfectly silent. No cars driving down the road in the valley below them. No people talking or walking around. Even the animals were deep inside their dens staying warm. He felt a sense of inner calm being out here that he’d never expected to find, especially after this morning.

When it was all said and done, he couldn’t be angry anymore because he’d been given a second chance. A chance to marry a woman he really loved. To start a family with someone he cared about. It was a life he really hadn’t given much thought to until Missy had reeled him into it. And now that he was free of her deception, the idea of a family—one the way he imagined—brought on an overwhelming feeling of hope.

That sense of hope was shattered as he felt something cold and soft slam into the back of his head.

Ian turned around to the sound of a feminine giggle and discovered Bree on the patio. She was armed with several snowballs and ready to go to battle. An innocent grin spread across Bree’s face, but there was a wicked glint in her eyes. “It’s a snow day,” she argued.

“Aren’t we a little old for a snow day? I don’t recall hearing school was canceled.”

She wasn’t deterred. He recognized that determined lift of her chin. She had strong-armed him into turning off his gadgets and now she was going to bait him into having some fun.

“You need something fun to distract you from all this crap. It doesn’t matter if we’re eight or twenty-eight, we’re going to play in the snow.” She chucked another snowball at him and this one landed squarely on his chest.

“Oh, it is
so
on!” he shouted. He used his shovel to fling a huge lump of snow at Bree. It sent her scattering off the porch, giving him time to make a few snowballs to defend himself. He took a defensive position behind her SUV. She hunkered down behind a tall drift by the porch.

They lobbed attacks back and forth. Bree got him in the head once, but he fired back and nailed her in the rear end when she bent over to make more snowballs. She squealed in mock rage, kicking off another round of assaults. Ian was getting frustrated, though. They could go like this for hours. It was time for some hand-to-hand combat to make things more interesting.

With a commando-like roar that would’ve made John Rambo proud, Ian charged through the snow and tackled Bree into a drift. With a cry, they sank a good foot into the snow. Once she recovered, Bree playfully fought beneath him. They rolled around, burying themselves in a dusting of white powder and making the most distorted snow angels ever conceived.

At one point, she was able to push Ian off of her and he fell backward into more snow. She started frantically burying him as though they were on the beach, until he rose up, ruining all her hard work and tackling her into fresh powder beside them.

Laughing and exhausted, they finally stopped fighting. Ian couldn’t help smiling as he looked down at Bree, pink-cheeked and grinning with the snow at her back. She looked so beautiful in that moment with her messy blond braid dusted in white powder. Not the perfectly airbrushed and digitally altered perfection of his former fiancée, but
real
beauty. Flawed and lovely.

He wanted to kiss her again. Last night had whet his appetite without giving him enough to feel satisfied. And he realized at that moment, he could. Without guilt. He wasn’t engaged. The mother of his “child” was nothing but a manipulative liar. Missy would probably keep the six-figure engagement ring he’d bought her, but it was a small price to pay for freedom. All the thoughts about Bree that he’d beaten himself up over in the past twenty-four hours were no longer off-limits.

Bree looked up at him, her bright blue eyes wide and inviting. Her lips were parted softly, her frozen breath escaping her lungs into the cold. He watched intently as her tongue snaked across them. She wanted him just as much as he wanted her. It could happen. He could have everything he’d fantasized about since she’d stepped out of her car yesterday. He just had to careful. He’d learned not to give anything more than his body to a woman. Because this was the woman who had taught him that lesson, he had to be doubly careful. He could make love to Bree while they were in the mountains as long as he remembered they would never work in the real world.

“I’m not engaged anymore,” he said, stating the obvious.

“I know,” she said, her voice breathy.

“Last night we had a million reasons why kissing was a bad idea. I hated to let you go, but I knew it was the right thing to do. Today, I can’t think of a single reason why I can’t kiss you again.”

This was her chance. If she didn’t want him—if she still believed he was just a thoughtless, self-destructive workaholic—she just needed to say no and he would respect that. But damn, he didn’t want her to say no. He wanted her to say that she wanted him
despite
the fact that he was a thoughtless, self-destructive workaholic. That she couldn’t focus on anything but how much she desired him. In the here and now, none of that other stuff mattered.

“Neither can I,” she said with a soft smile.

Barely a second after the words escaped her lips, his mouth was pressed against hers. Bree wrapped her arms around his neck, tugging him closer. He reacquainted himself with her, letting his tongue and his hands roam across the familiar yet different territory.

Bree made soft sounds, her fingertips gently pressing into him and urging him on. The noises she made were such a turn-on. They reminded him of heated nights on an uncomfortable twin dorm mattress. Of nights when school, his music, food...nothing was more important than making love to Bree. There was no day so stressful that losing himself in her couldn’t fix it.

He longed for that comfort again. Ian hadn’t had a day this bad in a long time. He wanted nothing more than to find relief from the worries in his mind by forgetting everything but how Bree liked to be touched.

His body stretched along the length of hers, every hard inch of his desire very obviously pressing into the soft curve of her belly. Her body undulated beneath him, the tight fabric of her jeans creating a delicious friction. An aching throb of need was growing more and more intense. If they didn’t go inside right now, he was going to make love to her in the snow.

He had no interest in getting frostbite on sensitive parts he might want to use again later.

Bree broke the kiss. “I’m getting cold,” she said, nearly reading his mind.

“That’s funny. I’m burning up.” And he was. Every inch of his skin felt as if it was doused in kerosene and set ablaze by the heat of her touch. Of course, he wasn’t the one lying against the snow.

Bree leaned up to kiss him again, a smile curling her lips. “Well, then take me inside so we can strip out of these wet clothes and you can warm me up.”

* * *

Bree had lied when she’d said she couldn’t think of a reason why Ian couldn’t kiss her. Well, at least physically there were no barriers to him doing whatever he liked, kissing included. It was more like reasons why he
shouldn’t
kiss her. There were plenty of those, starting with the most recent and obvious one—that he was emotionally rebounding—and ending with all the reasons they broke up in the first place.

Until this morning, she hadn’t had to give the idea of her and Ian much consideration. There was an attraction there—their chemistry had always been off the charts—but nothing would come of it. He was engaged and starting a family, and she was a professional photographer who didn’t intend on making a habit of sleeping with clients.

With his relationship with Missy imploding this morning, the major barrier to their physical impulses was gone. But that didn’t solve everything.

Handsome or not, Ian was still a workaholic. He still had his business to preoccupy his time. Being trapped here in the mountains had put his impulses on hold, but it wouldn’t last beyond the blizzard. None of this would. The minute they returned to Nashville, everything would fall apart. At best, she would get two, maybe three days with Ian. And she knew that.

But in that moment, when he looked at her with eyes blazing with desire, she didn’t care. None of those reasons mattered anymore. She would deal with the ending of their relationship when they got to the end. But she wasn’t going to let herself ruin the beginning worrying about it.

Not when she was standing in Ian’s bedroom, each of them slowly slipping out of their cold, wet snow gear. His dark green eyes never left hers as he tossed his gloves on the bathroom floor and shrugged out of his coat. Bree did the same, only Ian reached out to take her clothes from her.

They’d left their boots on the porch, so it was easy to take off her socks and then peel the wet jeans from her body. It was at that point that Ian froze in place, watching her undress. Despite how much she wanted out of those cold clothes, she was going to take her time. She turned around, giving him a full view of her rear end as the denim peeled away and exposed the pink satin bikini-cut panties she wore beneath them.

Ian groaned aloud as she bent over and stepped out of the pants. She followed it with her long-sleeved shirt. When she turned back around wearing nothing but her bra and panties, Ian was standing exactly as she’d left him.

Walking over to him, she pulled his sweater up and over his head. He cooperated with a smile until she reached for the button of his jeans. Then his hand came to hers, covering her fingers and keeping her from going any further.

“You get into bed and under those covers,” he said. “Your skin is like ice. I’ll start a fire.”

Bree pouted for a moment but had to admit that was an excellent idea. She sauntered over to the bed, slipping off the last of her underthings and crawling beneath the heavy down comforter. It was like slipping into a warm bath. She sighed as she snuggled down into the luxury linens.

Ian quickly went to work building a fire. In only a few minutes the fireplace just beyond the foot of the bed roared with flames. That done, he finished undressing and disappeared into the bathroom. Bree waited patiently, unbraiding her hair and combing her fingers through the blond waves left behind. He returned a moment later with a handful of foil packets.

Bree was surprised to see the physique he hid beneath those bulky sweaters he wore. Back in college, he’d been tall and lean but not particularly athletic in build because he spent most of his time playing guitar. Given that for the past ten years he’d mainly sat at a desk, she’d expected him to have a head start on middle-age spread.

Instead, she was rewarded with a hard, lean body with thick muscles twitching beneath his skin. He had more chest hair now; the dark sprinkle across his pecs narrowed to a trail down his belly. At that point, her cheeks flushed. His desire for her was no secret. Her palms tingled with the need to touch him, but he was just out of her reach.

He paused at the edge of the bed, holding up one of the condoms. “I’m trying to fight the urge to wear three of these at once. I’m feeling a little paranoid. Please don’t take it personally.”

“One is perfectly effective,” Bree said, “as long as the woman in question isn’t after anything but your body.”

Ian’s dark brows went up. “Bree, are you just using me for my body?”

“No,” she said with a sweet shake of her head. “I fully intend to, of course, but at the moment you’re out of reach.”

Ian laughed and tossed the condoms onto the nightstand. “I feel so cheap.” He eased back the blankets and slipped in beside her. His skin was blazing hot as he brushed against her. How was it possible that the man could produce so much body heat?