Spring Fever
Charmed, Book 1
Alexis Greene has always been trouble. The dangerous kind. The kind that gets under a man’s skin and stays there.
She was my brother’s girlfriend, and wanting her was never an option. Then she left Serenity Cove, and I got on with my life. I built my brewery, kept my head down, and stayed busy enough not to think about her.
Now the woman I’ve spent years trying not to think about is working at my brewery, testing my patience and making my simple life feel one bad decision away from total disaster.
She’s in town temporarily.
I tell myself that’s a good thing.
But every late night, every knowing smile, every heated glance reminds me exactly why I wanted her then, and why I can’t afford to want her now.
Too bad I’ve never wanted anything the way I want Alexis Greene.
“Beck, this isn’t working. You know it isn’t.” She gestured between us. “What happened today will keep happening if we don’t create some distance.”
“I don’t want distance.”
“Then what do you want?” The frustration bled into her voice. “We have the Spring Festival in a few weeks, and Buckminister potentially interested, and we can’t afford to—”
“You.” I moved around the bar, closing some of the distance between us. “I want you.”
“I want you too,” she said, so quietly I almost didn’t hear it. “I have for…” She trailed off and looked away. “But I don’t know what to do with that. Because this is problematic.”
“I know it’s complicated,” I said. “You work for me. You dated my brother. There are a dozen reasons this is a terrible idea.” I took another step closer. “But I’m done pretending that changes how I feel. Have dinner with me tonight?”
“Okay,” she said. “Okay. Dinner. But Beck, it can’t be in town.”
“Smart,” I said. “The last thing either of us needs is half the town speculating.” I looked up. “The apartment upstairs—I’ve been fixing it up to rent out. Kitchen’s done, living room’s livable. It’s not much, but no one’s going to question why you’re here late if your car’s in the lot.”
She bit her lip, and I could see her thinking it through. “You’re going to cook?” There was something almost shy in the way she asked it.
“I was planning to order takeout,” I admitted. “I can cook, but I didn’t want to risk burning something and ruining the night before it starts.”
There was a smile playing on her lips. “Seven o’clock?”
“Seven o’clock. I’ll try not to mess anything else up between now and then.”
Alexis headed toward the office, then paused at the door. “And for the record? Jay was flirting with me. It’s hard to be interested in someone else when you’re standing three feet away.”
I crossed the space between us. “What about when I’m standing this close?”