Read Online In Love Again by Megan Mulry - Free Book Online Page A

her imagination. Or this past week when she’d been doing quite a lot of her own flint-striking, thank you very much.
    He gestured toward one of the two metal folding chairs—dented and splotched with various paint bits—that sat next to each other at the long white plastic folding table littered with blueprints.
    “So,” Claire began, opening Bronte’s briefcase. The case seemed stupid now that she was here in Ben’s house. Like Claire was pretending to be a professional. She was such a sham. She looked up. Even if he was grumpy, his arms in that sweaty, rain-damp T-shirt were particularly distracting. He was looking around the room, looking more irritated than ever. She pulled her gaze away from his biceps. “Right. So where would you like to begin?”
    He smiled. And Claire’s stomach dropped straight out of her. That smile changed every single thing. The irritation. The temper. Those disappeared. The wet T-shirt… She wished it would too. Her heart started to hammer wildly, and she straightened the pile of papers she’d withdrawn from the leather case, as if straightening them would straighten her pulse. She hadn’t physically wanted someone in so many years; it was utterly bizarre. The push of adrenaline. The prickling along the nape of her neck. How foreign it felt, the most basic desire.
    If that’s even what it was. Maybe she was just nervous—her first job, her first meeting with a client—that sort of thing.
    LIAR!
    “Right,” Claire continued. “Uh…how about we go through the final paint samples…” She opened that folder and started to go down the list, avoiding his intense stare. “Maybe that’s one area in which your ex-wife doesn’t want something else entirely.”
    Ben’s smile widened. “Yes. She wanted something else entirely…” He paused and stared at Claire. It was unnerving, but she held her seat and refused to fidget. That much at least had been drummed into her by her mother with such frequency, she could sit perfectly still in the face of a firing squad if necessary. “Would you like some tea?” he asked after the long pause.
    “Yes, please. That would be lovely.”
    He got up and left her sitting at the plastic table. Claire tried to settle her shoulders and release the tension in her neck. Oh dear. They were alone in the house! So what ? Claire reminded herself. She was an almost-forty-year-old dowd. Whatever Boppy said about sticking to thirty-eight, Claire wasn’t blind. She was middle aged. Full stop. Whereas Ben looked like he had stopped aging sometime around twenty-five. The skin around his eyes might have crinkled a bit when he gave her that killer grin, but other than that, his body…oh dear. He looked perfect. She looked down at her spreading thighs, then quickly crossed her legs and sat up straighter.
    Ben returned a few minutes later wearing a dry, long-sleeved shirt and loose black exercise pants, carrying two mismatched mugs. He set one in front of Claire. “Cream and a hint of sugar, right?”
    Now it wasn’t just her stomach that was free-falling. Lower, out-of-use areas of her anatomy were beginning to tense and throb. From a silly cup of tea. A cup of tea that he remembered. Exactly. Precisely.
    “Yes. Just so.” Claire smiled up at him, but it was that thin meaningless smile that her mother had taught her to use at hospital ribbon cuttings. Ben’s smile vanished, and he looked stormy. His brow creased and he shook his head.
    “Okay. I get it. All business. Let’s go then.”
    Claire wanted it to be all business. Didn’t she? This was her first job. Ever.
    But, oh, his smile was so divine. What just happened? Where did his smile go?
    She was just being polite. Wasn’t that the appropriate way to be? Or was she being too stiff?
    Oh, dear. Why did he have to be so mercurial? She liked the remembering-the-cup-of-tea part. She liked the way his remembering made her skin tingle.
    But not too much.
    Oh, feck. She didn’t know what she