He pinched the bridge of his nose again. “I’m sure given time I can convince her to see me in LA, just getting together once a week or so to start. But at the moment she’s in full retreat, and I need a chance to change that momentum.”
His head dropped back and he closed his eyes. “But fuck, I don’t think she’ll even talk to me now.”
Drawing in a breath, he straightened up and looked over at his sister. “Maybe I should leave it alone. Leave her alone. For God’s sake, when I checked into the resort I was no more interested in coupling up than she was.”
“Okay.”
“I could go back home and go back to the very comfortable status quo.”
“Okay. But do you really want that?”
He hesitated.
Jojo skewered him with a narrow-eyed look. “Do you really want that because you have a true aversion to marriage and would be content that your future connections to others would solely exist of your online fantasy football leagues and those people you come across during your early morning runs at the zoo whom you know merely by sight but never by name?”
He grimaced. “What do you think I really want, Dr. Freud?”
She ignored the poke. “After Simon died, I was desperate to feel something,” Jojo said. “While it seems to me that you’ve spent the last five years not wanting to feel anything.”
Alec let that sink in and the more he thought about it, the more he couldn’t deny it. “Something’s changed, though.”
“Lilly’s the change,” Jojo said, jumping to her feet. “A change you want to explore, at the very least. So let’s not waste time. Let’s track her down and get you a chance to employ the full powers of your manly persuasion.”
“She’s going to resist.”
“Leave that to me.” Jojo whirled to step through the sliding glass doors. “I’ll suggest some sort of innocuous group activity—”
“Wait.” Alec caught her arm. “Is it wrong to be scheming about my woman with my sister?”
“No, because I have a much more conniving personality than you. But if you object, there’s always Mom—”
He groaned. “Let’s go to Lilly’s bungalow.”
On the way there, Alec tried to tamp down his growing tension. At his side, Jojo strode with confidence, arms swinging. She loved a project, and it was great to see her pull out of the divorce doldrums with fixing his dilemma as her goal, but he was unaccustomed to giving up control to anyone.
“Jo,” he said, as they neared the door. “We need to approach this cautiously.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, with a flick of her hand. “I’ve got it. You just follow my lead.”
She knocked on the wooden surface with authority. Alec slid his hands in his pockets, wiping his face free of expression. It wasn’t as if the next few moments were going to decide his future or anything.
And they weren’t, he told himself, listening for footsteps. Exploring. Jojo had been right about that. He wanted to merely explore the possibilities with Lilly.
More at ease at that thought, he watched the door swing open.
Audra. Her cool blonde beauty looked as if it had been etched like lines onto glass—something easily shattered.
Now understanding Lilly’s concern and sending out a vicious curse in Jacob’s direction, Alec stepped forward. “Hey. How are you?”
She gave him a game smile and let him kiss her cheek. Then her gaze turned to his sister. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Audra—”
“Jojo.” She reached out to shake hands. “Alec’s sister. We thought we’d stop by for a quick visit.”
Good manners ensured them an invitation, he guessed, admiring his sister’s quick-thinking.
“How nice,” Audra said, as polite as predicted. “I ordered a carafe of fresh coffee just ten minutes ago. Would you like some?”
Throwing him a brief, triumphant look, Jojo scurried over the threshold, chattering brightly about nothing as she followed the other woman into the living space. Alec trailed behind them, noting the bedroom doors on either side were closed. His gaze focused on one—he could swear Lilly’s perfume drifted from that direction.
He had to see her, he thought suddenly, the need elemental, as imperative as his next breath. She was his.
If he called out, would she emerge, or would she stubbornly stay locked away from him? Frustrated by the thought, he remained rooted to the floor, muscles locked as he tried becoming accustomed to this new, searing possessiveness.
Damn it, they belonged together!
But a mere few feet might as well be an ocean if she refused to acknowledge that simple truth. Frustration filling his chest, he stared at the barrier between them as if his Superman glare might burn it away.
Better, wouldn’t one good boot bring the whole fucking door down?
“Alec!”
His sister’s voice yanked him from the Neanderthal era and back to the present. Glancing over, he could see her giving him big eyes in which he read as a clear warning. Be cool, bro. Be cool.
He forced himself to relax. “Yeah?” he said, hoping he sounded normal.
Jojo pointed to the nearby flat screen, the picture paused mid-action, with what looked like an arm holding a lethal cudgel about to strike. “Audra likes the same kind of TV series as me. British mysteries in which vicious domestic murders are solved by police officers in rumpled clothes who have their own tortured personal lives.”
“Uh…” Alec glanced at the screen again, then back at the women. “Okay.”
Smiling, Jojo leaned toward Audra, her manner conspiratorial. “He’s got that bitches-be-crazy look on his face.”
Alec frowned. “I’ve never—”
“But what does he know? Maybe it’s part of the Heartbreak Hotel recipe for happiness,” his sister went on. “Bleak TV leading to—”
“Heartbreak Hotel?” Audra asked, her expression bewildered.
“You didn’t know?” Jojo helped herself to a seat on the nearby sofa. “The resort doesn’t publically acknowledge it in their own marketing materials, but it’s known as the place to go to get over romance gone wrong. Maybe it’s the ocean, the meditation classes—”
Audra blinked. “I haven’t left our rooms.”
Jojo threw up her hands.
