Page 9 of Seductive Hearts

ROSE

“Honey? Are you okay?” Only then did I realize Mom was staring at me with a concerned expression. “Are you feeling all right?” she asked while her brows drew together.

I knew that look well. It was one of her favorites.

“I’m fine,” I lied, raising my voice to be heard over the Friday night dinner crowd. “Distracted, is all.”

“I’m glad you had the time for dinner with your old mom.” She lifted her glass of merlot my way, showing off her toned arms. “And I respect the hell out of you for working so hard. Your dad is ready to burst. He’s so excited to watch you put this new store together.”

If anything, I was relieved she assumed it was the store I was thinking about. That was a much safer explanation than the truth. I had spent the past six hours in a fog, unable to steer my thoughts away from Colton—his dark eyes, voice, and hair that practically begged me to run my fingers through it.

And strong.

He was very strong. All it had taken was a hand against my back, and I was almost pinned against his unforgiving chest.

All right, so I didn’t exactly fight very hard to avoid being pinned. That only made things worse. I was too overwhelmed to react right away and too damn wet.

“Hello?” Mom waved a hand in front of my face. “I’m starting to take it personally. What do I have to do to hold your attention?”

“I’m sorry, really,” I insisted. This was not the time or the place to indulge in fantasizing. There would be plenty of time for that later, at home. Maybe with the help of my vibrator, though I doubted it would be necessary. Not when I had already spent the better part of the day painfully aroused and ready to beg someone to touch me to relieve the tension.

“Don’t get me wrong.” She looked and sounded like a woman who knew what she was talking about because she did. “The thrill of success is a drug. It’s right up there with love, just as addictive and dangerous if you let yourself fall out of balance with it. You can’t forget the rest of the world just because you’re in love, and you can’t forget it just because you’re good at your job. You’ll always end up missing out on something else that could be just as fulfilling.”

I nudged the rest of my grilled salmon to the side, folding my arms on the edge of the table and leaning in. “How did you do it? You always had everything in balance. Both of you did. I mean, you never missed an activity or a concert. Do you know how many kids never had parents in the audience?” I could still remember those kids, watching them scan the audience, their foreheads furrowed. I never had to worry about that, yet my parents both ran wildly successful companies.

I knew her too well to think she would accept a compliment without trying to brush it away first, so it didn’t surprise me when she laughed lightly and shook her head. “I’m glad you remember it that way. Don’t get me wrong, Dad and I did our best. But it took roughly the same amount of planning as the invasion of Normandy, and I still lost nights of sleep, telling myself I was screwing everything up and failing you two.” She blew out a soft sigh before taking a sip of her wine.

I would never have known. “Way to go,” I told her. “You gave me another reason why you were the best mom ever. You made it look easy.”

“Anyway,” she continued, waving me off. “I don’t want to see you miss out on anything. You know I admire your intensity and single-mindedness, but there is such a thing as overdoing it. You’re too young to devote all your time to work. I know you have goals, but you also have time. Plenty of it.”

This wasn’t the first time she had given me a speech like that. It always ended with her calling me intense and praising me for it but warning me against it at the same time.

Tonight, I had a way to counter that. “For your information, I’m in the middle of trying to catch somebody’s eye. So I’m not only thinking about work.” Did I feel a little smug? Maybe.

It was Mom’s turn to push her plate aside and lean in. She was a remarkable person, but she was a typical mother in many ways. Her eyes danced as she asked, “Who? Do I know them? What do they do for a living?”

My thoughts drifted to an article in the Times of the man of the hour. A man announced his candidacy for the state senate today.

Landon Jones, twenty-eight, graduated Summa Cum Laude from Harvard University before moving on to Harvard Law School, where he served as editor of the Harvard Law Review before graduating at the top of his class…

He was Mr. Perfect. The man had it all—golden good looks, dazzlingly blue eyes, and a jaw that looked like it had been carved from granite. He had the sure, confident smile of a born winner. All of that, combined with his ambition, his father’s prominence as a circuit court judge, and his mother’s background in high society and philanthropic endeavors, practically assured him a win on voting day.

“I’m only trying to get his attention. It’s not time to start the wedding registry yet.” I sort of liked letting her dangle for a little bit. Besides, I didn’t want to oversell it. The idea was to get her to stop worrying and criticizing. That was all. “It’s not a big deal. But… you know the name.”

She blew out a frustrated sigh. “Honey, I know a lot of names. You’re going to need to be more specific.”

I searched my memory while sipping Chablis before offering, “You’ve served on a few committees with his mom.”

“Again. That narrows it down to roughly a hundred people.”

Finally, it hit me. She’d have to get it now. “He was in the news recently.”

She almost slammed herself back into her chair, and I told myself I must be hallucinating the look of horror twisting her features and draining the color from her face. My heart dropped like a rock before a half-dozen ugly, gruesome scenarios raced through my mind. Was he secretly a murderer or something? Did he have a dark past Mom knew about?

I started to feel a little defensive before long. “Okay, I think I could do a lot worse,” I grumbled when she continued staring at me like I had mutilated myself somehow. “I thought you would like the idea of me being a state senator’s girlfriend.”

Her lashes fluttered before she shook herself. “Hang on. State senator? Who are you talking about?”

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