Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Ava was just as firm. “No, we are not—” She hit the word hard. “—a couple.”
They gathered up everything, the lanky kid looking at the plastic bags in their hands. He called, “You need reusable bags. We have them for sale here.”
Ava looked back at him, holding up her arm with two bags slung over it. “We can reuse these, thank you very much.”
When they were out of earshot, Ransom asked, “Did you ask for a room with a bathtub so you can use your new Epsom salts?”
She huffed out a breath, stabbing the elevator button. “You must be joking. He would have changed everything again and given us one room because it was the only one with a tub.”
And that, Ransom thought, wouldn’t have been a bad idea at all. In fact, he would have very much enjoyed imagining her in the tub.
* * *
As she stepped into the elevator when it arrived, her cheeks were hot and her blood was up. “How could he think we’re a couple?”
Ransom’s mouth curved in what might have been a smile, as though the situation hadn’t bothered him at all. Of course, he hadn’t tried to help either. “Why wouldn’t he think so?” he asked mildly.
Ava fumbled a bit. “Well, because…” And really, there was no answer to that.
Of course, Ransom pushed. “Because why?”
She pursed her lips, “You know why.”
It was the same circular conversation she’d had downstairs with the clerk. And Ransom continued it. “No, I really don’t.”
She sputtered out a breath before saying, “Do I really need to refresh your memory?”
Abruptly, Ransom turned serious, all the humor draining from his face. “I don’t need you to explain.” He held her gaze, his eyes dark with something she was afraid to analyze. “I know you left me because I was a complete jerk.”
The confession left her speechless until the elevator arrived on their floor and he stepped out. He was actually admitting he’d screwed her over? She couldn’t let acknowledgment of this moment go by. “Yeah, you were.”
She counted down the room numbers until they reached hers. Before he could stop her, she flashed her card key in front of the lock and opened the door. With a curt, “Good night,” she closed it behind her.
Only then did she sag against the door, having left that very important conversation hanging.
She didn’t want to address it. This was a business deal between them. She didn’t want any other kind of relationship. She didn’t want to take blame or cast blame or even accept that he was taking the blame.
Finally pushing off the door, she walked to the bed and dumped all her Supermart bags on it.
And then she turned.
Ransom stood in the doorway of the connecting room, his hands braced on the doorjamb as he leaned in slightly. The darned clerk still hadn’t gotten it right.
Ransom said softly, in a voice that made all her nerve endings tingle, “We weren’t done with our discussion.”
Hand on the doorknob, she said, “Yes, we were.”
Then she closed the door in his face, hoping he’d stepped back before it hit him, and locked it with a resounding click.
* * *
Ransom stared at the closed door. He’d stepped back just in time to avoid having his nose smashed.
“She closed the door on me again,” he lamented metaphorically as well as literally. Obviously, she wasn’t ready to hear what he had to say.
Stretching out on the bed, staring at the ceiling for long minutes that might have turned into an hour, he thought he heard water running next door.
Damn. She had a bathtub. She was taking a damned bath. In sweet-smelling bath salts.
He slept like crap, his mind turning everything over and over, not just what he’d admitted—that he had been a complete jerk—but that bath. And the connecting door. He didn’t have to go outside to get to her room. He could just knock on that door.
Of course she wouldn’t open it.
And it wasn’t just the conversation he wanted to continue. He wanted to look at her. He wanted to close his eyes and breathe her in. Wanted to put his hands on her. Taste her.
It was time for a cold shower if he was to get any shut-eye at all. He needed a big bucket of cold water to tamp down all his thoughts.
He stayed under the cold spray until his teeth chattered.
Back in bed, though, he found the cold shower hadn’t done its job. He was still thinking of pounding on that connecting door. And if she opened it…
* * *
Dammit, she hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep. That connecting door kept calling to her.
Ava had taken a bath, because thank goodness there was more than a shower in the room even without asking the clerk for it. She’d popped a can of the iced tea and opened the bag of Oreos, allowing herself two. Okay, three. She’d thought a bath would help relax her, even make her sleepy. But then she remembered other baths, ones she’d taken with Ransom, and what happened.