Victoria Dahl - Real Men Will

“All right.” Eric sighed. “That’s enough.”

“Not by far. But I’ll let you explain to our sister. I’ve got to get to work.”

Jamie disappeared into the barroom, and the doors swung silently in his wake, but Eric winced as if a door had slammed. His brain scrambled for a way to explain it all away, but he couldn’t think. He was so damn tired. And guilty.

Tessa folded her arms. “You’re having girl trouble? Is this April Fools’ Day?”

“I wish it were.”

“Come on. Give me the dirt.” She was smiling as if it was a joke, because she couldn’t imagine that Eric would ever do something scandal-worthy. He was the responsible one. The steady one. The one who never had time for fun, and didn’t miss it for a second.

“It’s no big deal,” he lied. “Just an argument with a woman.”

“Oh, is that all?” She leaned forward. “Seriously, Eric. What woman?”

“Someone I saw a few months ago. It was just one date. Nothing serious.”

“Then why did she come in here to yell at you last night?”

Oh, that. He held his breath for a few moments, hoping that an earthquake would hit or a tornado siren would begin to sound. Anything to distract his sister from the question. But no natural disasters struck. And Tessa would find out, whether he told her or not. “What did you hear?”

“Come on,” she groaned. “Out with it.”

Eric took a deep breath, but it didn’t make him feel any better. “The woman I went out with thought I was Jamie,” he said quickly.

Tessa didn’t react with horror. She didn’t gasp and press a hand to her forehead. She just snorted. “That’s ridiculous. You two don’t look anything alike.”

“Right. But she saw Jamie’s nameplate at the business expo last spring, and she thought I was Jamie. That’s all.”

“Oh. Well, that’s weird. Why would you… Whatever. As long as you didn’t sleep with her.” That was when her amusement finally fell away. “You didn’t, did you?”

Eric wished they were in his office so he could sit down. His legs didn’t feel quite right. He paced to the glass wall that separated them from the tank room and watched Wallace as he polished one of the tanks.

“Eric? I was just joking.”

He cleared his throat and made himself turn to face her. “I didn’t correct her at first, and then it seemed too weird to bring it up. I didn’t know what to say.”

“You slept with her and never told her your real name?”

“I wasn’t planning on seeing her at all! And then we…then we agreed that it would be a no-strings-attached thing. That we’d never see each other again, so I told myself it didn’t matter.”

Now she pressed a hand to her forehead. “Oh, no.”

“Yeah.”

“She found out.”

“Yeah.”

Her green eyes widened in dismay. “Oh, Eric. That’s just…terrible.”

“I know. I tried to apologize, to explain. But she was pretty pissed.”

“Pissed?” Tessa echoed. “She probably feels awful!”

“I wish I could go back and change it, but I can’t. At the time, it didn’t seem to matter much.”

“That’s ridiculous. Why didn’t you tell her your name? You must’ve had a reason!”

Yeah, he’d had a reason, but he wasn’t going to tell Tessa about it. The first moment he’d seen Beth Cantrell, he’d wanted her. And that was before he’d realized who she was. The manager of a sex store. The curvy, gorgeous, sophisticated manager of an erotic boutique. She’d been way outside the boundary of his world. And then…she hadn’t been.

She’d liked him. She’d been interested. Part of that interest had been Jamie’s reputation as a man who was willing to play the game. And Eric had thought… Hell, Eric had thought he deserved to have the kind of fun his irresponsible brother had every day of the week.

He’d figured his brother’s reputation was so wicked that one brief encounter wouldn’t matter to anyone. But Jamie now claimed that the majority of his reputation was exaggeration, that he had hardly dated at all in the past few years.

Eric rubbed a hand over the tension in his neck. “I don’t know. Every second I waited seemed to make it more significant. Suddenly, instead of a mix-up, it was a cover-up.”

Tessa put her hands on her hips and glared. “Then you shouldn’t have slept with her.”

“Right.” But that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. Beth Cantrell was a fantasy. His fantasy, anyway.

“By the way, since when do you have one-night stands?”

His face flashed to a blush. “I…”

“Is that why you never seem to date? Because you just pick up strangers all the time?”

“No! Good God, Tessa. You should go…wash your mouth out or something. No, I don’t sleep with strangers all the time. Which should explain why I screwed it up.”

“You need to go talk to her.”

“I already apologized.”

“I know, but she must feel like an idiot, Eric. Because of you.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “It’s not a good idea. We were never supposed to see each other again.”

“Well, that sounds a little over the top. Is she the daughter of your sworn enemy or something?”

Eric managed a smile. “It’s not like that. She’s nice.” Actually, he had no idea if Beth was nice. She’d seemed nice during the few times he’d spoken to her. But what they’d done together hadn’t been nice. It had been wicked.

And really, really nice. His shoulders slumped. “So I should talk to her?”

Tessa shrugged. “All I know is, I’d be feeling pretty freaked out if it were me. She probably thinks you’re a serial killer now.”

“So I should hunt her down and surprise her, huh?”

“You know what I mean. Just make her understand it had nothing to do with her. That it wasn’t a game.”

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

She shoved him toward the door. “Do it.”

“Tessa—”

“Do it! Or I’ll think you’re a terrible person.” She walked away and left him with those awful words. He didn’t have a choice now, did he? Tessa was a girl; if she thought Eric needed to apologize again, then he probably needed to apologize again.

But surely Beth didn’t want to see him. Hell, she hadn’t wanted to see him again even when everything had been good.

Maybe he could just call. He opened the contacts file on his phone, but it was hopeless. He’d purposefully deleted her name and number. It had been distracting to see her there, one little name that seemed to glow brighter than the others. That name had tempted him, and some nights he’d found himself staring at it, trying to convince himself that one more meeting wouldn’t hurt anything. Boy, had he been wrong about that.

He glanced up at the clock. Nine-thirty. What time did an erotic boutique open? He could drop by, see if she was there. Beth ran the place, and if she was anything like Eric, that meant she got there early and stayed late.

Shifting, he looked around, hoping some responsibility would drop out of the sky and demand his attention. But his responsibilities were dwindling by the day. Jamie had taken over some and Tessa had assumed others. They didn’t need him the way they once had.

He knew where the White Orchid was. In fact, he probably could’ve driven there with his eyes closed, despite never having set foot in the place. It wasn’t that he’d purposefully driven by, but the store was only half a mile from the brewery, and it pulsed like a beacon in his mind. It reminded him. Of Beth and the fact that she was always so near.

Tessa was right. He needed to make amends, and then maybe Beth Cantrell would get out of his head for good.