Surrender to the Past

‘I thought the two of us could go out to dinner.’

Mia turned sharply. ‘What?’

‘Dinner. You and me. Together.’

Her cheeks felt warm. ‘I’m just not getting through to you at all, am I? Let me repeat—I didn’t want to see you again, let alone go out to dinner or anything else with you.’

‘Perhaps you should wait until you’re asked for anything else before turning it down?’ he came back tauntingly.

Her eyed narrowed. ‘You’re really starting to irritate me now, Ethan.’

‘Only starting?’ He raised dark brows as he stood, effectively blocking her way, as she tried to move around him to the counter.

Mia breathed her impatience as Ethan stood tall and impenetrable in front of her. ‘Isn’t there someone else you could go and annoy this evening?’

‘No doubt many, many people.’ He nodded slowly, grey eyes looking down at her.

Mia wasn’t sure she could cope with Ethan in this lighter mood. It reminded her far too forcibly and uncomfortably of how it had once been between them. In another lifetime. Between two other people …

‘But I’m having far too much fun irritating you at the moment to want to be anywhere else,’ he assured her dryly.

She looked up at him. ‘Were you always this annoying, or is it something new?’

He gave an unconcerned shrug. ‘Considering we virtually lived together for three months, you would no doubt be a better judge of that than me.’

No doubt …

Just thinking of that three months when she and Ethan had been together constantly, night as well as day, was enough to cause an ache in Mia’s chest.

God, how she had loved him! She hadn’t been able to get enough of his company. Or their lovemaking …

Long, pleasurable hours of just touching, caressing, kissing each other, before coming together in slow and pleasurable strokes until they both reached a climax that left them trembling in each other’s arms. Or those other times, when they had been so hungry for each other they had barely been able to rid themselves of their clothes before falling on each other ravenously, their coupling wild, their orgasms earth-shattering.

Yes, she had loved Ethan—been in love with him, Mia acknowledged inwardly, but Ethan’s emotions had been nowhere near as engaged. He had been twenty-six years old, very ambitious, and Mia had been a sweet and tasty morsel for him to seduce and devour on his single-minded way to the top. He certainly hadn’t been in love with Mia as she had with him.