Page 30 of The Rules of Their Red-Hot Reunion

Aisha looked over the balustrade on the rocks below. Yep, once Pasco set his sights on a goal, he never relented. Yes, she’d walked out on him, but she couldn’t help thinking that he’d let her go so easily that he hadn’t fought for their relationship—hadn’t tried to talk to her about coming back, hadn’t followed her home. Their relationship wasn’t something he’d put a lot of effort into. The thought still made her heart hurt.

That was why they would never be anything more than lovers. She’d never hand her heart over to him again.

‘I saw the sunset earlier, I woke up as you left the bed,’ Paso told her. ‘I’ve been watching you for the past fifteen minutes.’

She didn’t know what to say to that, how to respond.

‘So, when are you going to talk to me about rules, tell me that this isn’t a good idea, that we are work colleagues who shouldn’t complicate their lives by getting physically involved, that this was a one-night thing?’

God! She hated it when he read her mind. She fought the urge to either smack or kiss that know-it-all look off his face. But since he’d opened that door, she’d walk on in. ‘I don’t have to because you said it for me,’ she pointed out, pleased at her super-reasonable tone.

‘We’re adults, Aisha, we can separate sex from work,’ Pasco told her, his tone abrupt. ‘One doesn’t have anything to do with the other.’

‘Didn’t you say that you were avoiding me because of our attraction? Because you kept thinking about taking me to bed?’

‘Fair point,’ he conceded.

Aisha looked at him across the rim of her coffee cup. ‘We have a history, Pasco, one that doesn’t get wiped away with one hot-as-fire encounter. We’re divorced, and one night of conversation doesn’t put our past to bed. I also need to work with you, and adding sex makes it complicated.’

Pasco sighed and rested his mug on the balustrade. He frowned and rubbed his hand over his face. ‘Do you want to have another conversation about the past?’

‘I can see that you don’t,’ Aisha retorted.

‘What more is there to say? I was bossy and domineering, didn’t spend enough time with you, and didn’t make an effort to give you what you needed. You didn’t explain what you needed and then you bailed, leaving just a note.’

She wanted to tell him that, if he loved her, he should’veknownshe was unhappy. That he didn’t look hard enough, that he didn’tseeher.

Before she could lash out, and she wanted to, he spoke again. ‘Aish, guys are not good at subtext, we don’t read between the lines. I’m a straightforward guy. I might’ve understood how miserable you were if you sat me down, looked me in the eyes, and used small words. Words like “I’m leaving unless you get your crap together”, “I’m miserable”, “help me figure this out”.’ He shrugged. ‘But maybe, because I was too young or too conceited or too lazy, it was easier to tell myself that whatever you were feeling would blow over.’

A part of her wanted to blame everything on him; her ego wanted Pasco to be at fault. But that wasn’t fair.

Aisha watched as a wave covered the rocks with white foam and gathered her courage to explain. It would be hard, but that wasn’t an excuse to duck the issue.

‘Everyone in my family is profoundly intelligent and so very erudite, Pasco. They are also intensely rational and, being scientists, none of them is driven by emotion. I am the cuckoo in the nest. I found it difficult to express myself verbally. And I felt everything... I was a walking, talking miasma of emotion.’

She forced herself to continue. ‘I’d tried to talk to them but, because we came at issues from entirely different directions—rational thinking versus emotional—we rarely agreed. I invariably walked away from every conversation feeling less than, unseen and, sometimes, stupid.

‘I wasn’t good at expressing myself so I stopped,’ she added. ‘I learned to shut down, to keep my thoughts and feelings to myself. Not only with them, but with everyone. I guess I carried that over into our marriage, stupidly thinking that, because you loved me, you’d know how I felt and what I was thinking.’

His hand drifted down her arm. ‘You don’t seem to have a problem communicating in a business setting,’ Pasco commented.

‘In the early days with Lintel & Lily, I was passed over for promotion, despite being damn good at my job, not once, but twice. Miles, my boss, pulled me aside and told me that if I wanted to move up, I’d have to learn to state what I wanted, to start communicating better.’ She shrugged, remembering how hard, and how frightening, it had been to break those habits from her childhood. She’d come a long way.

Aisha knew his eyes were on her face, could feel his heat, smell his divine scent. She felt exposed and a little raw. She needed to put some distance between them, to wrap her head around everything that had happened: them sleeping together, the part she’d played in their divorce, how they were going to work together with the desire bubbling between them.

She needed space now, and started to walk away, but Pasco snagging her shirt impeded her progress. She whipped around and scowled at him. ‘What?’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Inside to get dressed and then to call an Uber. I want to go back to St Urban. I have work to do.’

‘You’re pissed off with me,’ Pasco growled, frustration in his eyes.

She wanted to agree, but her innate honesty had her shaking her head. ‘Actually, I’m more annoyed with myself than with you.’ She shrugged. ‘I want you to be solely responsible for our marriage imploding and knowing I played a bigger part than I thought is hard to accept.’

Pasco’s smile was tender as he pushed his fingers in her hair above her ear, raking back her hair. ‘We can dissect the past, take it apart bit by bit, but it won’t make a damn bit of difference. What if we decide to forgive each other, forgive our younger, dumber selves and move on?’

She held his strong wrist. ‘Pasco...’

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