From This Day Forward (The Wedding Belles 0.5)(4)

Jason leaned forward, happy to meet her confrontational posture. “Easy there, Red. You missed your chance to let me explain that when you ran away and then dodged my phone calls for a month.”

It still burned.

And Jason had never been the type to lick his wounds.

Not when an endless string of foster families had kicked him to the curb. Not when his biological mother had reappeared out of nowhere, only to disappear when she realized that playing mom to a surly thirteen-year-old boy wasn’t as “fun” as she’d expected, throwing him back into the loop of temporary families all over again. Not even when his Army Ranger career had ended in the blink of an eye, when an Afghan car bomb killed several of his friends and destroyed Jason’s knee in the process.

But Leah’s desertion . . .

That had stung.

Not only because he’d thought they’d had something, but because she’d made it very clear that Jason Rhodes wasn’t worth even an ounce of complication. He was used to it by now. Mostly. But damn if this woman didn’t ignite a temper he didn’t even know he’d had since the day he’d laid eyes on the stunning redhead in a photography shop on Eighteenth and Sixth.

Jason had been helpless against her pull on him, and before he could register his intention to talk to her, he was standing in front of her, asking her to grab a cup of coffee.

Coffee had led to a good-natured debate on the merits of Nikon versus Canon cameras. Which had led to lunch. Which had led to dinner.

Which led to the hottest affair of Jason’s life.

Nothing had burned hotter than him and Leah together.

And nothing had been quite so cold as the year that followed, when Leah had iced him out of her life entirely.

Until now.

Now she would be within arm’s reach for the next three days, and for the life of him, Jason wasn’t sure what he wanted to do about that.

Or rather, he did know, but his body and his brain had very different plans in mind. His body was demanding he take her by the hand, drag her to one of their respective rooms, and put his hands on every inch of that pale, smooth flesh.

His brain wanted to punish her. Wanted to swipe at her the way she seemed determined to swipe at him, as though they were two enemies on the grade-school playground.

As for his heart—f*ck his heart. Damn thing had done nothing but gotten him into trouble.

“Look, Rhodes—”

He held up a finger to halt whatever stick-up-the-ass comment she was going to fling his way and crossed toward the small bar cart in the corner of the room. He splashed some bourbon in a glass for himself before pulling the white wine bottle out of the ice bucket and crossing back to her.

Leah didn’t protest when he refilled her glass—she even managed a surly thank you.

When he sat back down, he lifted his glass toward her.

She rolled her eyes. “What do we possibly have to toast to?”

“How about the fact that we’ve made it nearly five minutes without you losing that darling temper of yours and throwing water on my crotch?”

Leah gave him a withering look. “That’s what you want to toast to? The fact that you have a dry crotch?”

“Well, I’d toast to your dry crotch, but I don’t know that you have one—do you, Red?”

“That’s lovely,” she said, taking a small sip of her wine. “I’m sure former President Preston is going to be just thrilled when he learns he hired the country’s crudest manwhore to photograph his daughter’s wedding.”

“Is that why you accepted the job?” he asked, enjoying the way the smoky bourbon mingled with the cinnamon aftertaste of his Tic Tac. “Fame?”

“Honestly?” Leah lifted a shoulder. “Yeah. I mean, I had a free weekend, so I likely would have jumped at any job that Alexis threw my way, but only one this high profile—and high paying—could coax me into working alongside you.”

Jason sat back and smirked. “I love that Alexis didn’t give you any warning.”

A little line appeared between Leah’s angular eyebrows, and he knew it pissed her off royally that she’d been blindsided at brunch last weekend, whereas he’d come in with a bit of forewarning.

“She was trying to before someone had to go and show up early,” Leah muttered.

“Maybe she just knows that if given the chance, you’ll avoid hard situations. You’re a runner,” he stated simply, idly spinning his glass on the table.

She touched her fingers to her temple, eyes closing for a moment. “Can we just . . . not? Can we not do this? For the rest of the weekend can we just avoid each other as much as possible and limit our conversation to who’s going to photograph what?”

Jason felt a stab of anger low and hot in his stomach. After a year, he should have written her off—he should have been able to put their fling behind him.

And yet seeing her now, that familiar red ponytail that he’d used to wrap around his fist to pull her to him . . .

He fished out another Tic Tac. Studied her.

“I’ll leave you alone for the rest of the weekend,” he said slowly, hating the way her eyes flashed in relief at the thought of not having to deal with him. “If—”

Just like that, her relief turned to wariness, and he felt an odd thrill, knowing that he could still do this to her. That he could still unnerve her as easily as she unnerved him just by breathing.