Unforgivable Read online

  He’d regretted it, though. Worse than the hangover the next day. Mick had wished he’d been bold enough to at least say hello. After everything they’d been to each other, surely it had been a mistake to let a chance to talk to her escape him.

  He’d make up for it tonight, he decided as he pushed open the French doors and headed for the garden. Cookie had told him Alice was down there—“Not,” she said, “that I’m telling you to go down there to see her, or anything. But in case you maybe wanted to say hello before everyone else gets here.”

  It was exactly what he wanted. That first greeting between them, after so much time and all that had happened, shouldn’t be in front of a crowd, where both of them would have to pretend they were happy to see each other. Unless they actually were. He thought he was going to be very happy to see Alice again, but there was always the chance she didn’t feel that way, even if she had agreed to come despite knowing he’d be here.

  What would she see when she looked at him? The idiot boy he’d been, or the man he’d worked hard to become? Maybe a little of both, Mick hoped as he paused at the bottom of the stairs to look at the wineglass on the railing, imprinted with the faint smudge of lipstick. For a moment he stupidly almost lifted it to his mouth. To put his lips where hers had been, a pale substitute for a kiss.

  He was so fucked.

  It was very likely Alice was going to eat him alive. Chew him up, spit out the bones. And he’d deserve it, wouldn’t he? For a moment, he thought of turning back. Being a coward, the way he’d been so many years ago. But no. He was here. So was she. The time had come to stop running away from the past.

  Alice to Mick

  In the beginning, there was always that awkward moment when we first saw each other after being apart. We might’ve spent hours talking on the phone, hours, even, in bed together. But those beginning months, every time in those first few moments, I couldn’t bring myself to look at you. My eyes would skate away, and heat would flood me—even though at the same time, I was usually trying hard not to shake. You’d lean to kiss me, and I would fight and sometimes fail to keep myself from turning my head so your lips would land on my cheek and not my mouth. Because I wanted you too much, you see. When you kissed me hello or good-bye or any time in between, the lightest brush of lip on lip, a casual embrace, I wanted to open for you. Let you sink deep inside. It was all I could do not to leap into your arms, suffocate you with my desire. I was afraid to show you how much I wanted you, because somehow I thought that would make it more real.

  And in the end, all I did was waste all those first times when I could’ve been looking at you.

  —Alice to Mick

  Chapter 3

  Flowers whispered in the breeze, and Alice paused for a moment to contemplate which she wanted to kill. The pink roses were gorgeous, soft and velvety petals with bright green leaves. The red blooms, on the other hand, would blend better with the wildflowers she’d already gathered in her basket. What Cookie needed in her garden was purple roses, Alice thought, stroking one flower while she shifted the basket over her arm. Did such a thing even exist?

  “Alice.”

  She didn’t move. Didn’t turn. Didn’t blink or gasp or sigh, though every muscle in her body tensed at the sound of her name. She knew that voice at once, though it had been so, so long since she’d heard it any place but in dreams.

  “Cookie told me you were here.”

  Of course he’d found her on purpose. Of course, she thought with a small and throbbing thump-thump of her heart that she could not pretend she didn’t feel. Lifting her chin, putting on a smile, Alice turned.

  “Mick.” Alice smiled, one hand reaching for his automatically. Out of politeness, she told herself. Not because she wanted to touch him.

  He surprised her when instead of taking it to shake, he drew her close for a hug. Nothing too unusual in that—their group had always been affectionate embracers, hugging on greetings and good-byes and randomly in between. She’d already been squeezed and cuddled a dozen times today by Bernie and Cookie alone, and would expect more to come from the other guests as they arrived. Still, when Mick’s body pressed to hers, Alice found herself melting into his touch as though the years had never passed and nothing bad had ever happened to them.

  It lasted a few seconds, just long enough for her to feel the softness of his breath against her ear and the light press of his fingertips at the small of her back before they were both breaking apart from each other. She with a small, hitching breath. Mick with an embarrassed cough.

  “It’s good to see you,” he said. “You look . . . good.”

  Her brows went up. “That’s the best you can do after all this time?”

  It had been a gamble, guessing he’d respond the way he would’ve back then, but he must not have changed all that much because Mick laughed and took a step back to very clearly look her up and down before letting his gaze settle on hers.

  “You look,” he said, “fan-fucking-tastic.”

  “Better,” Alice told him. “Much better.”

  Silence, a beat of it, then another. But not awkward. They’d had their share of those uncomfortable silences toward the end, struggling to find words that weren’t angry or frustrated or disappointed. It wasn’t like that now. More like they didn’t have to say a word, she thought, and forced herself not to look away from him.

  He’d hardly changed.

  “You too,” she added.

  “Flowers?”

  Alice gestured. “Yeah. Cookie asked me to get some. I can’t decide between the red and the pink.”

  “Red.”

  She gave him a half smile. “You think so?”

  “You think pink roses are a waste.”

  There it was, then. Proof he hadn’t forgotten her. Hadn’t unknown her. For a stupid second tears threatened, burning, and Alice blinked them away.

  “These are pretty, though,” she said.

  Mick shook his head, moving closer to push aside the pink flowers and reveal the red bush planted next to it. “You’re a red-rose kind of girl, Alice. Always were. Ouch, shit.”

  The thorns had pricked him, bringing blood. Mick stuck his thumb in his mouth with a wince. Alice couldn’t hold back a laugh at his expression.

  “That’s why you should always wear gloves when you handle roses. They bite.” She held up the shears. “Let me.”

  Two, three snips and she’d added a half dozen long stems of crimson-topped green to her basket. He’d been right, of course. The red ones blended perfectly with the other flowers, and though she might have grown less vehement about her feelings over the years about the usefulness of pale pink roses, she would never like them as much as red.

  “Alice! Mick!” The shout turned both of them toward the house, where Dayna was waving at them from the deck. Mick raised a hand. Alice, after a moment, did, too. Dayna cupped her hands around her mouth to shout again. “Dinner’s almost ready! And I can’t wait to see both of you! Get your asses up here!”

  Alice gave him a look. “We’d better do what she says. You know she’ll come down and drag us up by our ears if we don’t.”

  “Can I get that for you?” Mick reached for the basket.

  He didn’t need to carry it for her, but she let him take it if only to feel the brush of his fingertips on her arm. She was still a little tipsy, though now it was hard to tell if it were still from the wine or Mick’s proximity. He took her elbow when her toe caught on a tuft of tough grass that threatened to trip her.

  “Careful,” Mick murmured, and held onto her for a few seconds longer than was necessary to help keep her from falling.

  When had she ever been careful when it came to him? There was no such thing, Alice thought, and that was what finally pushed her to put some distance between them. She had to get her head on straight. Just because they weren’t at each other’s throats didn’t mean he was anything more than a stranger to her, really, after all this time. No matter what they’d been to each other before, befor