“We have two more shops to try, and then I’m afraid I’ll just have to go with the Island Matron look.” She stuck her head around the curtain, holding it closed around her neck and grinning mischievously. “We might have to go back through these dresses and take pictures to prove to Kristin that it was her best choice. Think I should put this one back on, just in case?”
Grant could only shake his head mutely, painfully aware of the raging erection that had sprung up at the thought of her naked in the dressing room.
As if he had never seen a naked woman before.
Hell, I’ve seen Ava naked before.
The thought didn’t help.
No, it was if they were still teenagers, and he was once again fighting his inappropriate lust for his best friend’s sister.
This is insane, he reminded himself. You’re not an adolescent any longer. Quit acting like one.
If only his body would listen to reason, to what his brain had to say about the entire issue of Ava Jordan, instead of insisting on acting on his …
Instead of acting on what my heart wants.
Grant froze.
Oh, shit.
I’m not just attracted to my best friend’s little sister.
I’m in love with her.
And I have been for years.
Three
That wasn’t very nice.
But, oh, it was fun.
Ava grinned at her reflection in the mirror as she pulled her sundress over her head. There was a not-so-small part of her that had truly enjoyed torturing Grant with that wisp of a dress.
It was nice to know she still had an effect on him. After all, he had pretty much fled town after their one night together almost two years ago. For a long time—okay, until about an hour ago—she had been convinced that he had regretted it because he wasn’t really attracted to her.
Or worse, that he thought she wasn’t good enough for him.
After all, he was an engineer. She had decided to put off college for a year, just until Seth finished, so they could better afford it—and that year had stretched into five as she worked at the restaurant, unwilling to leave Necessity, to leave her elderly grandmother alone, or to leave a life she really did love, even if she did sometimes tire of the constant demands it made on her.
So how could someone like Grant—smart, successful, with an important job that took him all over the world—be interested in a small-town nobody like her?
The thought had been devastating at the time. And even though she was sure she had mostly recovered from it, the idea that he had tumbled into bed with her in a half-drunken haze and remembered only the next morning that she actually repulsed him had haunted her from time to time.
Okay. Every time I thought about it.
But she had resolved to put aside any residual feelings she had for Grant and be nice to him during this wedding trip.
But when she stepped out of the dressing room at the first shop to show him the horrible dress the attendant had brought her, his bright laughter reminded her that they had been friends first—and she missed that friendship.
Even more, though, she missed the spark underlying that friendship—the touch of heat that always flew back and forth between them, sparking to life when they accidentally brushed hands, or locked gazes, or even laughed at the same joke.
Or when he reacts to the sight of me in a skin-tight dress.
The realization that she missed him made her determined to discover if there was anything left of that heat.
And oh, is there ever.
Maybe Grant hadn’t noticed initially, but the dresses she had tried on from that point had gotten successively shorter and skimpier, until he had finally responded.
She had seen the heat flare up in his eyes, heard the crack in his voice.
He might not even be fully aware of it himself, but he still wanted her.
And I still want him.
She stared into her own eyes in the mirror.
He might not be interested in Ava for anything permanent, but Grant was attracted to her.
So what are you going to do about that?
She froze, her reflection wide-eyed as the answer came to her, as if it had been waiting in the back of her mind since Seth had invited her to be one of only two guests at his wedding.
I’m going to seduce Grant Porter.
At the next store, Ava went back to trying on more reasonable bridesmaids’ dresses, all the while vacillating between planning the perfect island seduction and trying to talk herself out of the plan she was making.
This is only a vacation. It will be exactly like last time. You’ll have the most amazing night of your life, and the next morning, he’ll be gone.
Then again, it is a vacation.
“What about this one?” She opened the door of the dressing room and twirled in front of Grant so that the electric-blue chiffon skirt skirled around her calves. He nodded approvingly, but she kind of missed the gob-smacked expression the minidress had evoked.
She wanted to see that look again.
What happens in Antigua can stay in Antigua, right?
If she were frugal enough for the rest of the trip, she could buy the minidress, go snorkeling once, and still have enough cash to buy a wedding gift for Seth and Kristin. Something unique from the island. Something that carried more than just a monetary value.
More shopping.
Maybe she could get Grant to accompany her on that trip, as well.