Page 11 of About that Fling (The Can’t Have Hearts Club #2)

“So she talked you into it?”

“Worse,” Adam said, surprised to feel anger swelling in him after all this time. “Sally called the caterer herself and changed the order the week before the wedding. We never knew until we all sat down to dinner under this big expensive canopy she also ordered without our knowledge.”

“I’ll bet Mia was livid.”

He shrugged, remembering the way his new bride had put her hand on his arm and whispered for him not to make a scene.

“Appearances are important to her,” Amelia had murmured, glancing around nervously at her assembled family. “Let’s not make a big deal. Besides, she is paying for it.”

It wasn’t the first time Adam had realized the price that came from letting someone else control his financial future, but it was the moment he vowed he’d never do it again.

He’d busted ass over the years to make sure of it, working extra hours at the law firm to get ahead, to provide for Mia so she’d get out from under her mother’s thumb. He remembered how much she’d wanted to go to Hawaii, how he’d scrimped and saved to surprise her with a vacation at Christmas.

He’d downloaded the tickets that same day. The day he’d come home early to find her and Mark?—

“Is this weird for you?” Jenna asked, jarring him back to the present.

“Is what weird?”

“Knowing I’ve probably heard every dirty detail about your marriage and divorce,” she said.

“Women talk, you know. I heard about the time you got busted after she talked you into sex in a hotel pool. I know about your camping trip to the Grand Canyon when you fought the whole time about whether or not to have kids. I know you were there for her when her father died, and that you had a big disagreement about whether to visit your parents in Africa after they joined the Peace Corps.”

The string of memories she’d just laid out made him want to punch something. Not a person, of course. A soft pillow, maybe a stuffed animal.

Dude, you’re losing it.

He didn’t care what Mia had said about him. It was water under the bridge, ancient history.

Only he did care. He cared that Jenna knew only one side of the story. One side of him —Mia’s version of events, of the marriage gone sour, of the ex-husband she’d chosen to leave.

He shook his head and gave a shrug he hoped conveyed indifference. The wind caught a stray lock of her hair, tickling the back of his hand. “Weird,” he repeated, returning to her original question. “Weird is the right word. Not sad, not angry, it’s just weird.”

She smiled. “That’s the clinical term?”

“Exactly.” He smiled back, breathing in the soft, floral scent of her perfume. Something like lilacs, maybe, with a hint of lemon. “Years of training as a counselor make me highly qualified to diagnose weirdness.”

The light flickered back into her eyes, and Adam felt the mood shift from awkward to playful in the span of two heartbeats.

“I enjoyed watching you work this week,” she said. “You might have even made some progress with the team.”

“You mean after I disarmed the CEO and suggested the ER manager might want to consider addressing people by name instead of as twat-waffles and ass-hats?”

“That was progress. What was that technique called again?”

“It’s based on some of the principles of Imago theory,” he said, shifting on the bench so his leg was scant inches from hers. “Dr. Vivienne Brandt had a huge section on it in her last book. Maybe you remember it?”

She looked at him blankly, then shrugged. “Sorry. I’ve heard of Dr. Viv, but I have to admit that I don’t read much self-help. Maybe I should?”

“It’s okay. Dr. Viv is one of the best in the business, but she didn’t invent Imago theory.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a form of relationship and couples’ therapy based on collaboration, understanding, giving, and responsibility.”

“Couples’ therapy? You’re handling a feuding staff like a bunch of pissed-off spouses?”

He grinned, relaxing back into the conversation now. “That’s pretty much what they are, right? Minus the sex and the arguments about who farted under the covers.”

He felt her shiver beside him and wondered if it was the mention of sex or the breeze. Or maybe the fart joke. Not exactly classy. He should probably call the front desk, just get them out of here and on with their respective lives.

But Jenna settled back against his arm again, and any urge to flee evaporated into the late-summer breeze.

“Tell me more about this couples’ therapy stuff,” she said. “How’s it going to fix our screwed-up team dynamic?”

“Well, next week we’ll work on Imago Dialogue.”

“Is that a form of dialogue that doesn’t involve yelling and throwing things?”

“That’s the funny thing about dialogue,” he said, fingers brushing the loose strand of hair again.

“People think it’s two people talking, but it’s actually meant to be one person talking and the other listening.

We’re going to work on listening techniques with the group—something called mirroring—to ensure people are feeling heard. ”

She nodded, her expression intrigued as she leaned a little closer to him. “Do it to me.”

Adam’s breath caught in his throat, and he fought the urge to reach for her. “Pardon?”

“I want to understand how it works,” she said, laughing as she turned her whole body to face him, drawing her bare legs up between them on the bench so her knees touched the side of his thigh. “Come on, Imago me.”

“I’m not sure Imago is meant to be a verb, though it sounds pleasantly dirty when you say it like that.

” Adam cleared his throat and wondered if he should remind her they still hadn’t dealt with the wine on her dress.

He should probably do that, get some more salt on the stain, or call the front desk to?—

“Okay, first things first,” he said, his gut giving a pleasant twist as she leaned against his arm, the side of her breast grazing his sleeve. “Let’s do a little role-play.”

“I assume you don’t mean the kind where I dress up as a naughty schoolgirl and get called to the principal’s office?”

He laughed, wondering if she was channeling her aunt’s note again. It seemed like a sex goddess sort of thing to say, not that Adam was complaining. He didn’t want to make her self-conscious, so he continued on.

“We’ll save the schoolgirl costume for another time.

With this sort of role-playing, you’ll be the sender and I’ll be the receiver.

Let’s pretend you have something you’d like to express to me.

For now, we’ll make it an appreciation, though this type of dialogue is also helpful for expressing something that’s bothering you. ”

“An appreciation,” she repeated, nodding.

“You start by saying that— I’d like to express an appreciation . And you check to make sure this is an okay time for the receiver.”

“I’d like to express an appreciation,” she parroted, smiling. “Is this a good time for you?”

“I’m available now.”

Her nose wrinkled, but she was still smiling. “This feels weird. It’s not a normal way of talking.”

“It always feels weird at first. The point is that the normal way of talking isn’t working—at least, not with the bargaining team—so we’re trying something new with a structure we’ve all agreed on.”

“Okay, I’d like to express an appreciation,” she said, smiling up at him as her knee pressed against the side of his leg. “I appreciate your eyes. You have great eyes.”

He laughed, taken aback. “An appreciation isn’t usually meant to be of a physical trait, but thank you.”

“No, really—I like the way you make eye contact. You look me right in the eye, always. Like, sometimes I can’t tell if you even blink.”

Adam nodded, flattered she’d chosen something he’d worked to improve over the years. Eye contact used to make him uncomfortable, especially in the courtroom when he’d argue cases in front of hostile judges or defiant witnesses.

Your lousy eye contact makes you seem untrustworthy , Mia had told him years ago, the irony of the suggestion lost on him until much later. Still, he’d vowed to work on it.

It said something that Jenna had noticed.

“Okay, so now it’s my job to mirror and check for accuracy,” he said. “I’d say something like, ‘let me see if I’ve got you—I heard you say you like the way I hold eye contact. Did I get that right?’”

“Yes,” she said, the syllable a little breathless tripping from her tongue. “That’s right.”

“Is there more?” he asked. “That’s part of the dialogue—I ask you if there’s more, which opens the door for you to share something else. Like maybe how it makes you feel or why eye contact is important to you.”

“Okay,” she said, “I was engaged once and my fiancé had this habit of looking at his phone all the time, even when I was talking. It drove me batty, made me feel like he didn’t care what I had to say. I love that it always feels like I have your undivided attention.”

“You do,” Adam breathed, losing his place in the conversation.

“Okay, now I use the mirroring technique again. I heard you say your fiancé spent a lot of time checking his phone instead of looking at you when you were talking, and that frustrated you and made you feel like he didn’t care what you were saying.

You appreciate having my undivided attention, and the eye contact lets you know you have it. Is there more?”

“More?”

“The point of the exercise is to continue drawing out what you’re trying to express to make sure you know I’m hearing you. This is a good place for you to tell me more about how the eye contact makes you feel.”

“God, this is a bizarre way to talk,” she said. “Okay, yes, there’s more. When you make eye contact, it makes me feel listened to. Understood. Noticed. Appreciated.”

Adam nodded, struggling a little to remember his lines. “And this is where I summarize. What I hear you saying is that you like when I hold eye contact because it makes you feel listened to, understood, noticed, and appreciated. Did I get it all?”

“No.”

“No?”

She bit her lip, and Adam had the sense she was about to say something a little outside her comfort zone. The thought of it thrilled him, and so did the next words out of her mouth.

“It also makes me feel a little turned on.” She smiled. “If I’m being honest.”

Adam swallowed, fighting to keep his head in the game. “Honesty is good.” His voice cracked on the last syllable, and Jenna smiled and leaned closer.

“I picture you undressing me with your eyes, and it makes me want to take my clothes off.”

“Okay,” Adam breathed, aching to claim her mouth with his. “Now it’s my job to validate you by saying something like, ‘what you say makes sense, and I understand that feeling listened to, understood, noticed, and appreciated is important to you.’”

“And turned on,” she repeated, emboldened now. “Don’t forget that.”

God, how she looked at him. Fire licked through him, hungry and hot. “I couldn’t possibly forget.”

Her face hovered inches away, a cue Adam couldn’t miss if he wanted to.

He didn’t want to. He wanted to kiss her, touch her, taste her?—

“So what comes next?” she murmured.

“In the Imago Dialogue?”

“Sure.”

“Um—something about empathy or accuracy-checking or some shit like that. Dammit, Jenna.”

His mouth claimed hers in an instant, kissing her hard despite the buzz in the back of his brain that told him it was a bad idea to let his libido make decisions for the rest of him. Why was that again?

His fingers tangled in her hair and she gave a soft moan against his mouth.

Adam’s brain dissolved into mush as his tongue brushed hers.

His hand slid down the side of her neck, tracing the soft, warm hollow as he moved down to the curve of her shoulder.

Somehow the side of his palm grazed the top of her breast, and she whimpered against him.

Jenna moved onto her knees, her whole body leaning into the kiss.

She caressed the back of his neck and he realized absurdly he still gripped the saltshaker.

He couldn’t think of a good way to put it down.

Couldn’t think of anything, really, except how good it felt to kiss her like this, in spite of everything in him that said it was a bad choice.

Real love is a decision, not a feeling.

The words buzzed in the back of his brain, and he tried to remember which part of his training they’d come from or why they’d chosen that moment to resurface in his mind.

Don’t think. Just feel.

Something clicked behind them and in the distance he heard a gasp.

“Jenna? What the hell?”