All the Lies We Tell (Quarry Road #1)(3)
“Not Dina.”
Her back stiffened, and she almost dropped her mug but managed to settle it onto the top rack before she did. When she heard the clink of his mug on the counter, she said, “Ilya. Don’t.”
He moved up behind her and put his hands on her hips. His fingers squeezed her lightly. His crotch pushed against her ass. She tensed at the gust of his breath on the back of her neck. He had not touched her that way in years.
“Allie . . .”
“I said ‘don’t,’” she repeated firmly, willing her voice not to shake. He couldn’t see her closed eyes or the way she sealed her mouth tight to keep herself from crying, her tears as unexpected as his come-on had been. “Stop it, Ilya. It’s not going to work. I’m not one of your pickups, okay?”
His fingers gripped tighter for a second or so before he stepped back, putting distance between them. His voice, low and rasping, tried to turn her, but she kept herself facing away. “I know that. I just thought . . .”
“You want what you want,” she told him as coldly as she could, which was barely lukewarm, because this, after all, was Ilya. Her worst mistake. The one man who had never been meant for her.
He snorted soft laughter that had no humor to it. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“It’s getting late. Are you coming in to the shop today?” She didn’t turn. Didn’t look. She breathed through the threat of tears and forced them away.
After half a minute or so, she heard him sigh. “Well . . . yeah. Of course. I’ll stop in before I head over to the Y for the beginner classes.”
Carefully, she closed the dishwasher and rinsed her hands at the sink. The beginner sessions consisted of a bunch of paperwork, a few lessons on technique, and some preliminary work in the pool. The advanced sessions were all in the water, and they’d also take place in the pool since Go Deep didn’t allow winter diving. All of them were Ilya’s responsibility.
She turned to face him. “Don’t forget the advanced sessions later this afternoon—both of them. You need to get them all their certification before you take them on the trip.”
“Yeah. I know. It’ll happen. Don’t worry about it.”
“They’ve all put down deposits and bought their flights. I’ve paid the hotel. We can’t afford to be late on any of this—”
Ilya nodded, his normally open expression unreadable. He glanced down at his boxers and seemed uncomfortable, at least in the way his gaze cut from hers. He scuffed a bare foot along the faded linoleum, then looked over at her sink.
“Hey. Your faucet,” he began.
Alicia cut him off with a small wave. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll call someone to come and deal with it. It’s not your problem. We’re not . . . it’s not your problem.”
He nodded slowly. “Okay. Sure. But you know I wouldn’t mind.”
She looked him in the eye, both of them full of words that neither of them seemed willing to say. “I’m going to be late. We have a delivery scheduled. I need to be there for it.”
“Sure. Right. Yeah,” he said and backed away. “I’ll see you there in half an hour.”
That meant easily an hour or longer, but Alicia didn’t say so. It would start a fight and not change anything, in the end. Ilya would still be there late, and she would still be irritated, and around and around they’d go. Instead, she smiled and nodded and showed him to the front door. She closed it after him and leaned against it, eyes closed, breathing in and breathing out. Most of the time it was so easy not to love him anymore, she thought as she shook it all off, got her chin up. Most of the time it was so easy, but sometimes, it was so, so damned hard.
CHAPTER TWO
Ilya didn’t have to erase the blonde’s number from his phone, because he hadn’t even typed it in when she gave it to him. He’d meant for her to be as easily forgotten as all the women had been in the past few years. This one, though, had left her scarf on the dining-room table. He hadn’t even remembered her wearing a scarf.
Now he lifted it to his face, breathing in the scent of her perfume, to see if that would help him remember her name. Amber. Her name was Amber. Well, he could put the scarf in his “Lost and Found” box, and if they ever hooked up again, she could sift through the discarded lingerie, sunglasses, and lipsticks. One day he was going to get rid of all that junk, those mementos of his wild nights out, but for now he tossed the scarf on top of everything else and slid the cardboard file box back into its spot on the shelf in the front closet above the winter coats.
Stripping out of his boxers on the way to the shower and kicking them in the general direction of the pile of dirty laundry near the basket, he thought about running out onto the front lawn totally naked for a few minutes just to get Dina Guttridge’s motor running. If she had a hissy fit about him doing a few downward dogs in his boxers, she sure as hell wouldn’t like him doing it in the nude—but ultimately, it wasn’t worth the hassle. Sooner or later, he figured she was going to quit spying on him and get over the fact that once a few years ago they’d had a couple of glasses of wine while her husband was away. Not much had happened. A little making out, a little finger banging. As far as Ilya was concerned, it was only cheating if someone came. It had been a mistake, though, and not because she was a married woman living next door to his ex-wife, with whom he still owned a business and worked with every day. Nope, he should never have fooled around with Dina, because she was flat-out crazy for the D, and she couldn’t seem to get it through her head that Ilya was not interested in being anyone’s side piece—at least not more than once.