Page 30 of Twice as Tempting

“Sure. Fire away.”

“What’s your favorite movie?”

“Gone with the Wind,” she answered immediately.

“Rhett or Ashley?”

“Rhett!”

“How come?”

“Because he’s so much hotter than Ashley. The dark hair, those eyes, that smile…”

Damian chuckled. “Frankly, Scarlet…”

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d like it too.”

“I didn’t say I liked it, but I’ve seen it a few times. My mom’s a huge fan.”

“So, what about you? What’s your favorite movie?”

“Die Hard.”

“Now that sounds more like you.”

Damian smiled. “Bruce Willis is a badass in that film.”

While she was enjoying their exchange, Kelly wanted to go deeper than learning about his favorites. “Why’d you leave Michigan the first time?”

Damian’s smile instantly disappeared, and he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “I wanted to get away.”

“Yes, but why?”

He sighed, recognizing that she wasn’t going to drop the subject. “Broken engagement,” he replied cryptically.

Kelly’s eyes widened. She’d had no idea that Damian had been engaged, and why would she? They hadn’t taken the time to share their stories before. “I didn’t know…”

“Well, now you do.”

Maybe she should have let it go, but she couldn’t. He had piqued her curiosity, and once that happened, there was no stopping her. “What happened?”

Damian shot her a weary glance and then trained his eyes back on the road. “We met in high school, junior year. After graduation, she went off to MSU, and I stayed home. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life, but I knew that college wasn’t for me. During her second year, we got engaged, but we decided to wait until she graduated to get married. A few months later, she decided that we were too different. We didn’t have the same goals, or some shit like that. Anyway, I left for California shortly after.”

Kelly was flabbergasted. The idea of Damian having been engaged was hard enough to wrap her head around, but the pain in his voice when he told the story was equally mind-boggling. That woman must have really hurt him to cause him to leave the state. Was she the reason that Damian was still a bachelor? Who was this woman, and why did Kelly have the inexplicable urge to punch her? Or maybe I should be thanking her. If Damian had gotten married, Kelly wouldn’t be sitting next to him right then. She would never have known what it was like to kiss him, touch him, be with him.

Damian glanced over at her as if he were waiting for further questions. “So, that was it? You never saw her again?” Kelly asked.

“I heard that she got married a couple years later, but that’s all I know. It was a long time ago, Kell. I’m over it.”

But was he really? Kelly had her doubts, but she decided to keep them to herself for now.

“Here we are,” Damian said, sounding relieved as they pulled into the gravel parking lot in front of Jim’s Custom Cars.

The shop was a white brick building with two large roll-up doors and an attached office space on the right. The building was neat but unremarkable, and the marketing side of Kelly’s brain was already plotting ways to make the building stand out. Damian used a key to let them in the customer entrance, and there was enough light streaming in through the large glass windows for Kelly to get a good look at the office space. It was sparse but clean, and featured a high wood-paneled front counter, a small waiting area with a few hard plastic chairs, and a water cooler. A glass-topped table held an assortment of car magazines, many of which Kelly was familiar with from working at the bookstore. A functional gray metal desk and matching file cabinets were positioned behind the counter, and framed photos of various cars and trucks covered the back wall.

Kelly scanned the pictures with interest and then asked, “Are these vehicles that Jim has worked on?”

“Yeah,” Damian said.