Christmas Seduction

Her smile crested her mouth before she turned. She thought she was prepared to come face-to-face with Tate until she did. His dark wool coat was draped over a charcoal-gray suit, his hair neatly styled against his head and slightly damp, she guessed from a recent shower. And wasn’t that a pleasant image? Him naked, water flowing over lean muscle, corded forearms, long, strong legs...

“Am I broadcasting regret?” she asked, her voice a flirty lilt.

He pointed at the bakery case. “Was it the éclair or the lemon–poppy seed muffin that caused it?”

“Hmm.” She pretended to consider. “I could be regretting my impulsive behavior three days ago.”

His eyebrows rose like she’d stunned him. She wasn’t much of a wallflower, which he should know after she’d grabbed him up and kissed him.

He opened his mouth to reply when a thin blonde woman glided around the corner, tugging a glove onto her hand. Claire.

“I’m ready to go,” she announced without preamble. Or manners. Or delicacy.

As if her frosty entrance had chilled them both, Hayden’s smile vanished and Tate retreated.

He nodded at Claire Waterson, his frown appearing both on his mouth and forehead. “Hayden, this is Claire. Claire, this is Hayden Green. She owns the yoga studio down the road.”

“Charmed.” Claire nodded curtly as she tugged on her other glove. No offer of a handshake, but Hayden didn’t want to shake the other woman’s hand, anyway.

“See you around,” Tate told Hayden.

She watched them leave, her forehead scrunching when Tate touched Claire’s back on the walk out to a car. He hadn’t walked to the café today. Hayden would bet Priss in Boots hadn’t allowed it.

“Grande caramel latte.” The cheery barista handed over Hayden’s coffee, and she managed a genial smile before walking out the front door, her steps heavy. Tate, in the driver’s seat, pulled away from the curb on the opposite side of the street. He didn’t wave, but did manage a compressed half smile.

While Hayden didn’t have any claim on him, she’d admit she felt like an idiot for believing him. He’d sounded so sincere when he said his relationship with Claire was over. Or had he implied it was over? Either way, if she’d had any idea Tate and Claire would be sharing morning coffee a few days later, Hayden never would have kissed him. From the looks of it, he and Claire were very much together.

Ew.

She started her march home, an unhealthy dose of anger seeping into her bloodstream. The first sip of her coffee burned her tongue, and the wind blew directly into her face, cold and bitter.

A series of beeps sounded from her pocket and Hayden’s back stiffened. That was her mother’s ringtone. It never failed to cause a cocktail of panic, fear and resentment to boil over. She ignored the second ring and then the third and, a minute later, the chime of her voice mail.

When Hayden left Seattle, it had felt like more of an escape. Her mother had been—and was still—stressed to the max, refusing to draw boundary lines around the one woman causing problems in their lives: Hayden’s alcoholic grandmother. Grandma Winnie favored drama and bottom-shelf vodka in equal measures, and Hayden’s mother, Patti, had turned codependency into an art form. Hayden’s dad, Glenn, was content to let the matriarchs rule the roost, as if he’d eschewed himself from the chaos in the only way he knew how: silence.

After years of trying to balance family drama with her own desperate need for stability, Hayden left Seattle and her family behind for the oasis of Spright Island.

By the time she was changing for her class, her coffee was cool and her mind was numb. She paused in the living room of her apartment, put her hands over her heart and took three deep breaths.

There was no sense in being angry at Grandma Winnie for being an alcoholic. It wasn’t her fault she had a disease. Similarly, she let go of worrying over her mother’s codependence and her father’s blind eye.

“Everyone is doing the best they can,” she said aloud.

But as she trotted down the stairs to the studio and unlocked the door for a few waiting guests, she found that there was one person in her life she didn’t feel as magnanimous toward.

The man who’d kissed her soundly, scrambled her senses and then showed up in town with the very woman he claimed had left him behind.

“Hi, Hayden,” greeted Jan, the first of her students through the door.

Hayden returned Jan’s smile and shoved aside her tumultuous thoughts. She owed it to her class to be present and bring good energy, not bad.

Family drama—and Tate drama—would be waiting for her when the class was over, whether she wanted it or not.

Four (#u1389a4ed-bb63-5ba5-ac5a-bc1e97c972b0)

The bell over her studio entrance jangled as Hayden’s evening class filed out of the building. She was behind the desk, jotting down a note for Marla, who’d been coming for individual classes but decided tonight she wanted to join the group. Since Marla hadn’t brought her credit card, Hayden had promised to email her in the morning.

Hayden stuck a reminder Post-it note onto the cover of her hardbound planner and looked up, expecting to see the last of her students leave. Instead, someone was coming in.

A certain someone who hadn’t left her mind no matter how hard she tried to stop thinking about him.

Dressed in black athletic pants and a long-sleeved black T-shirt, Tate shrugged out of the same leather jacket he’d worn the night they kissed. It’d been five days since that kiss. Two days since the coffee shop.

She still wasn’t happy with him, but it was impossible not to admire his exquisite hotness.

“Hey,” she blurted, unsure what else to say.

“Hey.” He looked over his shoulder. “I know I missed class, but I was hoping to schedule a one-on-one.”

Her mind went to the last “one-on-one” session they’d had. She hadn’t forgotten that kiss. She probably never would. It was burned onto her frontal lobe.

“Individual sessions have to be scheduled ahead of time,” she said as tartly as she could manage. The vision of him with Claire was too fresh in her mind for her to be cordial.

“Are you sure?” He tilted his head as he stepped closer to her.

“If you’re here because you feel you owe me an explanation or you need to air your regrets—”

“No. Nothing like that.”

She lifted her eyebrows, asking a silent well?

“I haven’t been in control of my life lately. Everything’s moving at warp speed, and I’m caught in the undertow. You ever feel like you’ve lost control? Once upon a time you had it in your hands, and now...” He looked down at his own fists gripping his coat as his mouth pulled down at the corners.

She knew exactly what that was like, but in reverse order. Her world had been moving at warp speed since birth, and only moving to SWC had stopped its trajectory.

She sympathized with Tate, though she was tempted to cut her losses and show him the door.

“And taking a yoga class with me would help you feel in control?” she asked anyway.

“Ah, well. Not exactly.” Palm on his neck, he studied the floor and then peeked up at her with a look of chagrin so magnetic, her heart skipped a beat. “I’m really good at turning you on. At least I think I would be. Are you still doling out kisses with every cup of tea?”

She gripped the edge of the front desk, digesting what he’d just said. He was good at turning her on. She knew that, but what was she supposed to do with it? Especially when Tate stood in front of her looking coy and cunning and yet vulnerable and was offering... Wait... Was this a booty call?

“Sorry. That offer expired.” Not that she was above kissing him, but... “I’m not going to be your girl on the side, Tate. What would Claire say?”

“That’s over. It’s been over. What you saw at the coffee shop was her finalizing things. You know, like you do after someone dies.”

He paced to the salt lamp on her desk and stared at it for a beat. “She dropped off a box of my stuff at my house and then asked if we could grab a coffee and talk. I told her she could talk to me there, but she said she preferred neutral territory.”