She must have somehow missed the announcement that Missy was eight weeks pregnant. Missy had gushed about their newly forming family to anyone who would listen—from her two million Facebook fans to the journalist at some tabloid magazine. Ian didn’t think there was a person left in the United States who didn’t know about his personal business.
They would wed in March at a venue in Nashville that Missy had chosen. Ian had not been involved with the details. He had told himself, and Missy, that he was busy with work so she could plan whatever she liked. It was her big day, after all. The truth was that he was still coming to terms with all the new developments in his life. But he was hoping to turn that around.
He wanted this baby to be welcomed into a happy, loving family and he was willing to make the effort to turn that into a reality in the next seven months. It would take work on both their parts. Missy wasn’t the easiest woman to be with. She was demanding, spoiled and used to people constantly telling her how wonderful she was.
They weren’t a love match by any stretch of the imagination, but Ian was beginning to think love and the trappings that went with it were just a myth, anyway. Any marriage took work. Their situation might not be ideal, but she was going to have his baby and they were getting married.
He should make the most of a complicated situation. A romantic weekend together was just what they needed to stoke the fires. After all, plenty of men would love to marry Missy Kline. Her sultry voice and hard body had been a staple in Top 40 radio for the past few years. She was the star of Ian’s record label.
At least she had been. Her most recent record hadn’t done that well, but Missy wasn’t worried. She had the wedding and baby to keep her relevant. Her manager had arranged to sell the exclusive story and pictures from their wedding to some magazine. They were working on making their upcoming ceremony into some television special. It was going to be invasive, and Ian hated the idea of the whole thing, but Missy was pretty business savvy. They couldn’t pay for this kind of publicity. The day their engagement was announced and photos of her ring hit the gossip blogs, her latest song hit the top ten on iTunes. As her label, he couldn’t complain. As her fiancé, he wasn’t as thrilled.
This weekend they would take their engagement portraits and project the image of the happy power couple to the world. Then they would spend the next few days together trying to make it into a reality. A crackling fire, a stunning view, hot cocoa on the deck while snuggled under a blanket together... It would be a romantic music video come to life. He hoped.
Right now, he couldn’t guarantee that any of it was going to happen. Missy had said the snow would be romantic. He had no doubt she’d changed her mind by now.
Frowning, Ian walked to the front door, opened it and stepped out onto the front porch. The snow was sticking in earnest now, piling on the grass and creating a solid blanket across the road. You couldn’t even see the p
avement. Or the layer of ice likely forming beneath it. In the South, it was rarely snow that was the problem. It was the ice that sent you skidding into ditches and sliding backward down hills.
As he watched the snow fall, a little white SUV rounded the corner and headed in his direction. His house was the last on the winding path, so once the car passed his closest neighbor he knew it had to be the photographer. If the photographer could make it from Nashville despite the weather, maybe Missy would make it in from Atlanta. At the very least, he knew the roads hadn’t closed yet.
The SUV pulled up by the steps to the front porch. Ian pasted on his smile, readying himself for a day of Academy Award–winning acting. He took careful steps down the stacked stone stairs to greet the photographer and help bring in any equipment.
A woman in a tight pair of jeans and a fitted turtleneck with a fleece jacket over it got out. She was dressed for a January day in Nashville, not the mountains. The snow had obviously been a surprise for her, too. She had no heavy coat, no gloves and no scarf, and her red Converse sneakers would offer about as much traction on ice as baby oil.
At least she had a hat. Her long blond hair peeked out beneath the knitted cap pulled down over her head. She was wearing wide, dark sunglasses, so he could see very little of her face, but for some reason, she seemed familiar to him.
The woman slammed her car door shut and slipped off her sunglasses. “Hi, Ian.”
In an instant, the face, the voice and the memories slammed together and socked him in the gut. It was Bree. Briana Harper. His freshman romance. The one who distracted him from his classes with her young, firm body and adventurous spirit. The one who dumped him at the lowest point in his life.
Ian swallowed the lump in his throat. “Bree? Wow. I had no idea you were, uh, that you would be...”
Bree winced and nodded. He could tell from the visible tension in her neck and shoulders that this was equally awkward for her. She was strung tight as a drum, and the familiarity of their past urged him to reach out and massage her neck the way he used to. But that was just nostalgia talking. He sincerely doubted touching Bree would help this situation.
“You didn’t know I was coming?”
“No, I...left all the details to Missy. She didn’t mention who the photographer would be.”
“I knew that I should’ve said something,” she began, “or given you some kind of warning in case you didn’t know, but I’d hoped not to make a big deal of it. My business partners didn’t know you and I were acquainted.”
Acquainted. That was one word for it. Touched every inch of each other’s bodies was another way to phrase it. Once the shock of her arrival faded, Ian let his curious gaze run over the rest of her once-familiar curves. There were more than he remembered, but they’d practically been kids then, still teenagers. Now she was a full-grown woman in a pair of jeans that looked painted-on.
“Is this going to be a problem for you?” she asked. “It’s not for me. I intend to keep this very professional. Your fiancée doesn’t even need to know we’ve met previously, if that’s what you prefer.”
“Yes, that’s probably for the best.” Although Missy claimed she had little competition, she was at the same time insanely jealous. She had made headlines for starting catfights in night clubs and industry parties. She’d snatched the extensions out of her supposed rival’s hair for just talking to her ex-boyfriend at a promoted event in Las Vegas.
Ian hadn’t given Missy any reason to be jealous, but he knew how easily that switch could flip in her. The last thing he needed was Missy throwing a fit about the photographer. They needed these pictures done and released to the magazine for the scheduled issue. They couldn’t wait for someone else to come up here and replace Bree.
That is, if anyone else could even make it up the mountain. The snow was falling faster than ever now. “We’d better get your things inside,” he suggested.
Bree nodded. When she turned to head toward the back of her car, her shoe skidded on the slick pavement. Her eyes widened and her arms shot out for something to steady her, but it was Ian’s lightning-fast reflexes that saved her. He reached out, his arms encircling her waist and tugging her up and against his body.
Ian instantly knew he’d made a mistake. The whole length of her was pressed into him. The scent of her favorite lotion mingled with the baby shampoo she’d always used. The familiar combination rushed to his nose, bringing back flashes of hot nights in his dorm room and in the back of his car. His entire body tensed, the cold unable to dampen the sudden arousal that being near Bree had so easily caused.
Bree clung to him, her ivory cheeks flushed pink from the cold and a hint of embarrassment. Her baby-blue eyes met his for a moment and the connection between them snapped like a current flowing freely through a copper wire. It had always been like this. Even minutes after he’d had her, he’d want her again. Back then, if she wasn’t in his arms, she was all he could think about.
He tore his gaze from hers, letting his eyes settle on the pink pucker of her mouth. That wasn’t much better. Her lips had been the softest, most welcoming lips he’d ever encountered, before college or since. Kissing Bree had been one of the divine pleasures of his life. Losing that had been almost as hard as losing his music.