Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4)(4)
She parted her lips to speak, but she wasn’t even sure what to say next. Did she go for lightness? For more catching-up-with-you chit-chat? Or plunge straight into the heart of why she’d wanted to see him? She was so accustomed to charging into situations fearlessly, to chasing after what she wanted, but all those skills escaped her in this moment, and she was a teabag steeping in a pot of awkward.
Fortunately, the waitress arrived and asked Michael if he wanted anything. “Club soda,” he said, and when the woman left Annalise tilted her head.
“So, you still detest coffee?” she asked, because that was a far easier conversation entrée than all the other things they could talk about.
“Evidently, I still do.”
“I never understood that about you,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. Funny that she and Michael had gotten on so well when they were younger—except on this. Their one bone of contention was over her passionate love of the deliciously addictive substance, and his disdain of it.
“It vexed you, I know.”
“I tried to get you to like coffee. I even tried to make espresso for you.”
“You were relentless,” he said, and the corners of his lips quirked up. That smile, that lopsided grin she’d loved... Okay, this was better. This was a slow and steady slide back into the zone.
“Remember when I hunted all over Vegas trying to find something like what they’d serve in a café in Paris?” she said, reminiscing, slipping back into the time they were together years ago.
Like it was yesterday, he picked up the conversational baton. “You even used your babysitting money to buy an old espresso machine at a garage sale,” he said, and the memory of her determination and his resistance made her laugh. “Remember that?”
Her eyes widened. “I do! It was a Saturday morning. I scoured the papers for garage sales, and hunted all around the neighborhood till I located the only one I could afford.”
“Found one for ten dollars.”
Annalise held up an index finger. “Ten dollars and twenty-five cents.”
“Ah, well. The quarter made all the difference,” he said, as the waitress brought his drink and he thanked her.
“I took it back to Becky and Sanders’s home that afternoon, and I thought I’d win you over. That if you had a proper coffee, made like we do back home, you’d be converted.” It was only coffee, but it was a thread that connected them to the distant past, when their lives were so much simpler. It was a far easier topic than the present, and certainly less painful than the words said the last time they saw each other, on that heartbreaking day in Marseilles after he’d sent her that letter that had torn her to pieces.
“Alas, I was non-convertible.” He took a swallow of the club soda. “So what brings you to town?”
“Work.”
He frowned and glanced from side to side, like he was sweeping the bar for trouble. “There’s a war in Vegas I’m not aware of?”
She laughed and shook her head. “I’m not a photojournalist any longer. Now I shoot fashion—lingerie and boudoir. I’m here doing the high-end catalogue for Veronica’s,” she said, naming the famous lingerie chain with which she’d nabbed a plum gig. “Some of the shoots are at the Cosmopolitan and around town. We did the Venetian Canals earlier today. Caesars Palace is tomorrow.”
“So this is you now,” he said, waving a hand at her. “Shooting barely dressed women in silk and lace instead of racing across the desert in a Humvee?”
She nodded. “From shrapnel to strapless.”
“What happened to make you leave?”
“Death happened.”
So did heartbreak and unfinished love.
He nodded in agreement, his expression turning somber. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to hear about Julien.”
Her throat hitched, but she fought past that goddamn lump. She’d cried enough to end California’s drought. “Thank you.”
More quickly than she’d expected—and she was eminently grateful not to linger on talk of Julien with this man—Michael led them out of this conversation, returning to safer ground. “You like fashion better?”
She glanced up at the ceiling, considering. That was a tough question. She’d loved the adrenaline rush of photojournalism, the thrill of chasing a story that didn’t want to be found, the chance to capture an image that would show her nation the truth of what was happening in the world, whether during her days in the Middle East, or covering breaking news across Europe for a French news agency. But the job became too risky and the costs too high, so she’d pivoted.
She had no regrets.
She met his eyes to answer. “Yes. I like fashion better now. I love what I do.”
They chatted more as she told him tales of the models and their over-the-top requests at shoots—from the imperious blonde who required celery sticks chilled to a crisp 65 degrees, to the willowy brunette who would only drink artesian water—and how it compared to the bare-bones style of hunting images in her combat boots, cargo pants, and photographer’s vest, in one of the most dangerous areas of the world.
“What about you, Michael? You’re not fronting a band. I didn’t see your guitar in any of your company photos,” she said, nudging his arm gently. His strong, toned arm. So firm. She was going to need a reason to nudge him again.