Dream Lake (Friday Harbor #3)(30)

“I could never hate you,” she protested.

The kitchen door opened as someone came in. Chris’s arms loosened. Zoë glanced at the doorway, expecting to see Justine.

Alex Nolan stood there, hard-faced and unsmiling. In the confines of the kitchen, Alex looked bigger than Zoë had remembered him, and meaner, and she could almost swear that those moments when he’d held her at the lakeside cottage had been nothing but a dream. As his wintry gaze raked over Zoë, an unmistakable tension inhabited his stillness.

“Hi,” Zoë said. “This is my ex-husband, Chris Kelly. Chris, this is Alex Nolan. He’s going to do the remodeling for the lake house.”

“That hasn’t been decided yet,” Alex said.

Still keeping an arm around Zoë’s shoulders, Chris reached out to shake Alex’s hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Alex returned the handshake in a businesslike manner, his gaze returning to Zoë. “I’ll come back another time,” he said brusquely.

“No, please stay. Chris was just leaving.” Seeing the accordion-pleated folder in his hand, Zoë asked, “Are those the plans? I would love to see them.”

Alex returned his attention to Chris. Although his expression betrayed nothing, a sense of hostility seemed to char the air. “You live on the mainland?” he asked.

“Seattle,” Chris said equably.

“Got family here?”

“Just Zoë.”

The reply was followed by a silence as prickly as a dead juniper bramble.

Removing his arm from Zoë, Chris murmured, “Thanks for breakfast. And … for everything else.”

“Take care,” she said softly.

A metallic jingle cut through the air. Alex was fiddling with his car keys in a show of impatience.

Chris exchanged a private glance with Zoë, his brows drawing together as if to ask silently, What is his deal?

Zoë wasn’t entirely certain. She gave Chris a bemused little shake of her head.

Her ex-husband left the kitchen, closing the door carefully behind him.

Zoë turned to confront Alex. He was more casually dressed than she had ever seen him, in a gray T-shirt and paint-stained jeans. The worn attire looked good on him, the denim clinging loosely to the hard lines of his body, shirtsleeves taut over sturdy arms.

“Would you like some breakfast?” Zoë asked.

“No, thanks.” Alex went to set his wallet and keys on the table. He removed a sheaf of paper from the folder. “This won’t take long. I’ll point out a couple of things and leave the drawings with you.”

“I’m not in a rush,” Zoë said.

“I am.”

A frown knit between her brows. She came to stand beside him at the table, while he spread out meticulous floor plans, elevations, and interior renderings.

Alex spoke without looking at her. “Later I’ll bring some catalogs so you can look at finishes and fixtures. How long have you been divorced?”

Zoë blinked in confusion at the abrupt question. “A couple of years.”

He showed no reaction other than a deepening of the brackets on either side of his mouth.

“We’d been best friends since high school,” Zoë said. “As it turned out, we should have just stayed friends. I haven’t seen Chris for a long time. He just showed up this morning out of the blue.”

“What you do with your ex is your own business.”

Zoë didn’t like the way he’d worded that. “I’m not doing anything with him. We’re divorced.”

His shoulders hitched in a taut shrug. “A lot of people have sex with their exes.”

She blinked in consternation. “What’s the point of sleeping with someone after you divorce them?”

“Convenience.” At her uncomprehending stare, Alex elaborated, “No dinners, no pretenses, no manners. It’s the equivalent of a takeout meal.”

“I don’t like takeout meals,” Zoë said, affronted. “And that’s the worst reason I’ve ever heard to have sex with someone, just because they’re convenient. That’s … that’s swallop.”

He arched a brow, his stony belligerence seeming to fade. “What’s swallop?”

“Something reconstituted. Always terrible. Like dried potatoes, or processed canned meat, or powdered egg product.”

One corner of his mouth twitched. “If you’re hungry enough, swallop isn’t so bad.”

“But it’s not the real thing.”

“Who cares? It’s a bodily function.”

“Eating?”

“I was referring to sex,” he said dryly. “But not every meal—or sex act—has to be a meaningful experience.”

“I don’t agree. To me, sex is about commitment, trust, honesty, respect—”

“Jesus.” He had begun to laugh quietly, not in a nice way. “With standards like that, do you ever get laid?”

Zoë stared at him indignantly.

As Alex looked back at her, his amusement dissolved. He braced his hands on the table on either side of her, their bodies close but not touching. Her breath shortened, and her heart began to beat in a wild staccato.

His face was right above hers, the touch of his breath cool and sweet, like cinnamon gum. “Haven’t you ever had sex just for the hell of it?”