“I needed to see you.”
“After all these years? Or because you’re in trouble and you need something. Am I a last resort, a last-ditch effort?” She stood there, her body vibrating with anger, refusing to let me in. There was a time when she wouldn’t have let me leave.
“Please, just let me in.” I hovered close, the cherry of her lip balm burning my nostrils and making my dick hard.
This wasn’t the time for that, though. My hand itched to run its fingers through her silky hair. It was longer and thicker. Her breasts rounder, fuller.
“Aston ... I don’t know. I’ve spent the last two weeks agonizing over the news, but now that you’re here, I’m speechless. Honestly, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
I’d had enough and decided to make a move, slipping by her narrow frame and through the door. “I’m coming in,” I said with my hands in the air, an all-too-familiar gesture lately. “I can’t stand outside your house and have a private conversation with you.”
Giving in, she closed the door behind me. “Did Mike tell you where I live?”
“Yeah.” I lied, pretty sure that now wasn’t the time to tell her I’d employed a private investigator since Mike and Milly’s wedding, whose main responsibility was keeping tabs on her.
My dad thought my PI was being paid to keep an eye on untrustworthy employees and shady sales reps. I’d thought those half-assed jerks were a rarity. Clearly not, in light of my current predicament.
“Let’s sit,” I said with a wink.
“Not now, Aston. It’s been a long time ... years of nothingness. You abandoned me. You can’t just barge back in here and act like we’re back on the seventeenth hole, winking and flirting.”
She started walking toward the back of the house, a small Craftsman-style house. A starter home, by any definition, and nothing like any of the houses I’d lived in lately. To Bexley, it was probably a palace. It looked comfy, lived in by her and her kids. A pair of socks was balled up in the corner, and remotes were scattered on the coffee table.
“So, would now be an inappropriate time to ask if you have underwear on underneath those pants?”
She spun around and glared. “Don’t be crass, Aston. It’s beneath you, especially considering you’re the one with a criminal indictment. Your confidence and flirting may have worked on me when I was eighteen, but I’m a grown woman now.”
What did she expect? I’m a man staring at the woman of his fantasies, all lush and improved since the last time I laid eyes on her—in person.
Impatient, I forced myself to wait to speak.
“Yes,” she finally spit out.
“Yes, now would be inappropriate? Or yes, you’re wearing panties?”
“Aston, seriously, what do you want?” She leaned a butt cheek on the arm of her couch and crossed her arms over her chest.
Bad move on her part.
I chose to behave and not point that out. Instead, I skirted around her and sat down.
“Sit,” I said.
For some reason, she actually listened. She sat there, hands in her lap, dutifully on the other end of the couch.
“I’m in trouble.”
“I’ve seen.”
“I didn’t do it.”
She waved her hand back and forth. “I don’t want to know about any of that. I don’t want to get mixed up in this. Does your father know you’re here? How about your wife?”
I shook my head. “That would be a negative. And she’s my ex-wife.”
That got a reaction. Bexley’s shaky hand rose to shove her hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Really?” I raised my left eyebrow ... a move that used to make her wild, but she sat there unaffected, still and silent.
