They should be exorcising the demon that had been unleashed, not arguing about why it existed at all.
Nostrils flared in frustration, he forced himself to stop thinking. He’d done too much thinking already. He followed the path Mimi had taken to her bedroom and stopped outside the door, fist raised to knock.
Before he could rap on the wooden panel, it opened. Mimi jolted in surprise. She wasn’t expecting him. He lowered his hand, keeping it balled into a fist at his side.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.” She folded her arms over her small breasts. “I forgot to grab a bottle of water. I like to keep one on the nightstand.” Her eyes flitted to the side, making him wonder if she was telling the truth.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you back then.”
He hadn’t wanted to send her home. He’d selfishly wanted to take her home with him and soothe her. Stroke her hair and tell her everything would be okay. But there’d been no way to know if anything would be okay. There’d been no way to know she wouldn’t wind up hating him for dragging her away from her life of pine trees and shorelines and into one teeming with politicians and oil tycoons. Keeping her at his side would have been about him, and he had forced himself to think of her—of who he’d have to ask her to become if she stayed.
She’d loved him then. He’d foolishly thought she’d continue loving him through her heartbreak. Long enough for them to see how his career would shake out. Long enough for her to decide for sure if she wanted to be a part of that life.
“I hate that I hurt you, but I had to—”
“Don’t. Don’t say that you had to focus on your career or your business or any other multitude of things that were more important than me at the time.”
His scowl hardened and not in his own defense. He had done that. But he’d done it to protect her. For her. Evidently she wasn’t ready to hear that.
“I can take care of myself, Chase. You don’t need to worry about me now. I’m a big girl, and I’m not afraid of bad publicity.”
“That’s because you haven’t been the target of it. You don’t know what they’ll say about you to get to me. I’d lose the election after the press learned I was beating the hell out of anyone who verbally attacked you.”
He’d expected at least a half smile in response to that, but he didn’t get one.
“I agreed to leave that day. It’s not like you tied me up and dragged me into the plane.”
“You only agreed to leave because I asked you to.” Regret wasn’t a familiar feeling, but it took residence in the center of his chest now. “I pushed you away.”
Her dark eyes swept up to meet his. “It would be a hell of a lot easier to blame you for everything, but the truth is...” She licked her lips before she finished. “I was starting to wonder if I was right about us or if I’d been caught up in the fantasy. I didn’t want to lose you, but I didn’t want to leave Montana. In the car when you were shattering me—and make no mistake, Chase, you shattered me—”
He winced, hating hearing it but knowing it was true.
“—I was courting second thoughts.” She laid her palm softly against his sweater and her warmth eased the sting of her words. “I can’t let you shoulder all the blame. The lion’s share maybe, but not all.”
Instinctively, he cupped her hand with his own. The speed of his breaths increased, his heart rate ratcheting up along with them, a thumping they could both feel.
“This is so dumb,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
He stepped closer, his other hand wrapping around one petite shoulder. He wasn’t sure if she meant that talking about their past was dumb, or considering kissing him was dumb. Either way...
He ducked his head, pleased when she lifted hers to receive the kiss he was angling toward her plush mouth. In the split second before he closed his eyes, he watched her lids sink and felt the soft tickle of her breath against his mouth.
Their lips touched, his firm and solid against hers pliant and giving. He gentled her open and stroked the tip of her tongue with his. A sigh of longing mingled with loss coated his mouth when he moved to deepen the kiss, and that was the instant Mimi pulled away.
She lowered from her toes to her heels, eyes still closed, hand still on his sweater—now bunching the material.
“Dumb,” she whispered again.
“Oh, I don’t know. It wasn’t so bad.”
That earned him the hitch of her mouth: the smile he’d been gunning for. He swept her dark hair aside, the waves silky and oh-so-touchable.
“I’ve been thinking of kissing you since the day I saw you at the supermarket,” he said.
Her eyebrows lifted like she was amused. “That would’ve been awkward.”