Christmas with his real family...

And his fake fiancé!

Developer Tate Duncan has everything under control—until he discovers his family isn’t his own. Now only the sympathy and sexiness of yoga instructor Hayden Green offers escape. He needs her. So he entices her to spend Christmas with him as he meets his birth parents...posing as his fiancée! But when they give in to dangerously real attraction, their ruse—and the secrets they’ve been keeping—could implode!

A former job-hopper, JESSICA LEMMON resides in Ohio with her husband and rescue dog. She holds a degree in graphic design currently gathering dust in an impressive frame. When she’s not writing supersexy heroes, she can be found cooking, drawing, drinking coffee (okay, wine) and eating crisps. She firmly believes God gifts us with talents for a purpose, and with His help, you can create the life you want.

Jessica is a social media junkie who loves to hear from readers. You can learn more at jessicalemmon.com

Also by Jessica Lemmon

Lone Star Lovers

A Snowbound Scandal

A Christmas Proposition

Best Friends, Secret Lovers

Temporary to Tempted

One Night, White Lies

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Christmas Seduction

Jessica Lemmon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09271-5

CHRISTMAS SEDUCTION

© 2019 Jessica Lemmon

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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For all my friends at the lake—you are

the embodiment of a true community,

and I’m so blessed to know you.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Epilogue

About the Publisher

One

Outside the Brass Pony, a five-star restaurant where he’d nursed more than one whiskey at the bar, Tate Duncan stood beneath the canopy and watched the rain come down in sheets.

He’d picked a hell of a night to walk.

But, that’s the way the streets here were designed in Spright Wellness Community. With plenty of sidewalks and paths cutting through the woods, making a walk more convenient than a winding car ride to your destination. This was a wellness community, after all.

Tate and a dedicated team of contractors had developed the health and wellness community five years ago. Its location? Spright Island, an enviable utopia thirty-minutes by ferry from Seattle, Washington, and Tate’s twenty-fifth birthday gift from his adoptive parents. The island had been, and remained, a nature preserve and was the perfect spot to build a sustainable, peaceful, modern neighborhood that would attract curious city dwellers.

He’d imagined into existence the luxury wellness enclave, which had become a refuge of sorts for those who desired a strong sense of community, and wanted to be surrounded by lush greenery rather than concrete. As a result, Spright Wellness Community teemed with residents who glowed with wealth and stank of wellness. There was a big demand to live small and, even though it wasn’t all that small, SWC had that feel about it.

“Umbrella, Mr. Duncan?” The manager of the Brass Pony, Jared Tomalin, leaned out the door and offered a black umbrella by it’s U-shaped handle. His smile faded much as it had earlier when he’d attempted to make small talk and learned that “Mr. Duncan” wasn’t in the mood for small talk tonight.

There had been a time, and it wasn’t that long ago, that Tate would have turned, given Jared a smile and accepted the offer, saying, “Thank you. I’ll bring it back by tomorrow.” Now, he gave the manager a withering glare and stalked off into the abysmal weather. A twenty-minute jaunt—soggy, chilling and wet—was a good metaphor for the downward spiral his life had taken recently.

Everything in Tate’s world had been on an upward track, steady and stable until...

Until.

He popped his collar and tucked his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. Chin down, eyes on the gathering puddles under his feet, he began to walk.

Surrounding neighborhoods were marked by a variety of shops; markets with fresh produce and organic goods, restaurants like the Pony with reputations that drew diners from the coast, plus plenty of service-based businesses like salons, art stores and yoga studios. With its high-end wellness fare, SWC was part luxury living, part hippie commune, but to Tate, simply home.

A rare flash of headlights caught his attention and he lifted his head. Summer’s Market stood on the opposite side of the street, the wooden shelves and brightly-colored stacks of produce visible from the windows. The safety lights spotlighted wheels of cheese and boxed crackers arranged near a selection of wine. It was hard to believe he’d once had nothing better to do than pop into Summer’s for a wine-tasting and cheese-pairing and have a chat with his neighbors.

Back when I knew who I was.

Tate had never thought of identity as a wily thing, but lately his own had been wriggling, slippery in his grip. He’d known once, with certainty, who he was: the son of William and Marion Duncan, from California. Life, apparently, had other plans for him. Plans that had sent him careening, grappling to understand how he’d become the son of William and Marion Duncan, right around the same time the woman who was supposed to marry him had walked away.

I can’t do this, Tate, Claire had told him, her delicate features screwed into an expression of regret. Then she’d given back the engagement ring. That was two weeks ago. Since then, he’d become a ripe bastard.

The rhythm of his breath paced the time along with his steps. Rainwater beat drumlike on his head and soaked into his Italian leather shoes.

On his side of the street, he came upon a building that held an array of businesses, including an acupuncture office, a family doctor and a yoga studio. The yoga studio was the only one lit inside, by a pair of pink hued salt lamps glowing warmly on top of a desk. He peered through the window, wishing he’d have accepted the damn umbrella. Wishing he could absorb the warmth emitting from the place. It was orderly, homey, with its scarred wooden floors and stacks of cubbies for storing shoes and cell phones during class.

He’d been inside once before, to greet the new owner who’d leased the space. Yoga by Hayden was run by Hayden Green, a new resident who’d been in SWC a little over a year now. He saw her around town sometimes. She was the equivalent of looking at the sun. Bright, glowing, joyful. She had a skip in her step and a smile on her face most days. He wondered if yoga was her secret to being happy, if maybe he should try it—make that his new therapy. God knew he wasn’t heading back to Dr. Schroder any time soon.

The first-world problems he used to bring to his therapist were laughable considering the actual drama surrounding him now. He could imagine that conversation, his doc’s eyebrows climbing her forehead into her coifed dark hair.

Yeah, so I found out I was kidnapped when I was three, adopted out for a large sum of money and my real parents live in London. No, my adoptive parents didn’t know I was kidnapped. Yes, London. Oh, and I have a brother. We’re twins.

Eerie. That’s what this was. Like a scary story told around a campfire, there was a large chunk of him that wanted to believe it was false. That the repressed memory of big hands cuffing him under the arms and dragging him away from his and his twin brother’s birthday party had been a nightmare he could awaken from. That George and Jane Singleton were no more related to him than the Queen of England.

Though he was from the UK, so God help him, he could be related to the Queen of England.

Ice-cold raindrops soaked through his hair to his scalp, and he shuddered. His mind had been bobbing in the atmosphere like a lost balloon for going on two months now. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get back to normal at this rate. Wasn’t sure if he knew what normal was any longer.

This entire situation was surreal. And after living an organized, regimented, successful life, a shock he hadn’t been prepared to deal with.

What were the odds of two estranged London-born twin brothers bumping into each other in a Seattle coffee shop nearly thirty years later?

Astronomical.

He let out a fractured laugh. “You’re not well enough to be in a wellness community.”

Overhead, he admired a streetlamp like the others lining the sidewalks, remembering how a formerly sane version of himself had commissioned a welder to design them. They resembled tree branches, complete with curling leaves along the top, the lights encased in a bell-shaped flower. Tate mused that they had a fairy-tale quality. Like that smoking caterpillar or the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland could appear perched on one at any moment.

“You’re losing it, Duncan.”

But his smile was short-lived when he abruptly remembered that he wasn’t a Duncan. Not really.

He was a Singleton.

Whatever the hell that meant.

The sharp whistle of the teakettle pulled Hayden Green’s attention from her book. She made the short trek to her kitchen, flipped the gas burner off and reached for her waiting teacup.

Through the driving rain, she could barely make out the shape of the market across the street and yet her senses prickled. Stepping closer to her upstairs window, she squinted at the street below and found her senses were, as usual, spot-on.

In the deluge lurked a figure. Right outside her yoga studio. It was a man, most definitely, his dark leather jacket unable to hide the breadth of his shoulders.

She pressed her forehead against the pane to get a better look, confident he couldn’t see her since the kitchen light was off. He tilted his head back; the street light overhead illuminating him as the rain splashed his upturned face and closed eyelids.

Hayden recognized her unexpected visitor instantly. “Tate Duncan, what are you doing?”

Tate’s reputation had reached almost mythical proportions on Spright Island. He owned the island, so everyone knew him or knew of him, anyway. Hayden was somewhere in between. She knew of him—of his legendary pushbacks on the laws that stated their community had to have standard streetlamps and ugly yellow concrete curbs. Tate had fought for, and won, the right to design streetlamps that were art sculptures and to install curbs of sparkling quartz. He’d personally overseen every detail because to him, the details mattered.

Hayden had been romanced by SWC. It was a relaxing, serene place to live—a retreat from bustling city life. She had been born in Seattle into a busy, distracting, dysfunctional household, and had longed her entire adult life to be somewhere less busy and distracting.

When she’d learned about Spright Island’s wellness community a year and a half ago, she’d come to visit. Days later, she’d taken out as big a business loan as the bank would give her and leased the space for her yoga studio. She’d quit her job at the YMCA, finagled her way out of her Seattle apartment’s lease and moved here with minimal belongings.

It’d been her fresh start.

Shortly after, Tate had stopped by her studio to personally welcome her to the neighborhood and invite her to a wine tasting happening that weekend at Summer’s Market. It was a kindness she hadn’t expected, and without it, she might never have met and grown to know her neighbors.

She rarely saw a suit and tie step foot into a yoga studio, so Tate’s presence had garnered every ounce of her attention. One of his signature quick, potent smiles later, she’d promptly lost any train of thought she’d had. As it turned out, the legendary Tate Duncan was also stupidly attractive, and when he smiled, that attractiveness doubled.

She’d grown used to his presence around town, if not his mind-numbing male beauty. She and Tate had bumped into each other several times in town, from the market to the restaurant to her favorite café. He’d always offered a smile and asked her how the studio was doing. Come to think of it, it’d been a while since she’d spoken to him. She’d seen him in recent weeks—or was that a month ago?—when she’d left the post office. He’d had his cell phone to his ear and was talking to someone, a deep frown marring his perfect brow.

He’d scanned the road and she’d waved when his eyes reached her, but he didn’t react at all, only kept talking on the phone. It was strange behavior for Tate, but she’d written it off.

But now, watching him stand in the rain and willingly get soaked, she wondered if his behavior that day had been strange after all. She glanced over at her teakettle, considering. It wouldn’t hurt to invite him in for a cup...

Once he’d gone out of his way to make her feel welcome. The least she could do was offer him a friendly ear to bend. Just in case he needed one.

She bypassed her front door for the door next to her coat closet. It led to a private staircase and down to her yoga studio. She shared the building with a few other businesses, but her apartment was in a hallway all its own. The attached studio and private entryway were her favorite aspects of the unique building.

Downstairs, she flipped on the studio’s overhead lights and Tate blinked over at her, recognition dawning. He lifted a hand in a semblance of a wave, like he was embarrassed to be caught outside her place of business.

The stirring of her senses reinforced her instincts to come down here. Tate needed someone to talk to even more than he needed a warm space to dry off.

She unlocked the door and held it open for him, tipping her head to invite him in. “Wet night for a walk.”

He ran a hand through his soaking hair and offered a chagrined twist of his lips, a far cry from the genuine smile he’d given her almost every other time she’d seen him.

He wore dark pants and shoes, his leather coat zipped to his chin. Her day had been packed with errands, so she still wore her jeans and soft, cream-colored sweater from earlier. If she’d greeted him wearing her usual—leggings and slouchy sweatshirt, minus the bra—he wouldn’t have been the only one of them embarrassed.

“My teakettle whistled and then I spotted you down here. You look like you could use a warm drink.”

“Do I?” He palmed his neck and glanced behind him. Maybe she’d misread this situation after all.

“Unless you’re waiting for someone?”

She’d seen him in town with a waifish blonde woman a handful of times. Claire, Hayden had gleaned. Tate’s girlfriend and very recently, fiancée. The other woman seemed proper and rigid, and Hayden’s first thought was that she was an odd match for the always bright and cheery Tate...though he wasn’t bright or cheery at the moment.

“No. I was at the Pony,” he said of the restaurant up the hill from here. “The rain caught me.”

“I’d offer to drive you home, but I don’t have a car.” One of the luxuries she’d given up to afford to move to Spright Island, but the sacrifice had been worth it. Peace had been worth it.

Every shop or store in the community could be reached on foot if she planned ahead, and she had a few friends in the area or could call a car service if she needed to venture farther.

“But I do have tea.” She opened the door wider.

“Of course. Thank you.” He stepped into the studio, his shoes squishing on her welcome mat. “Sorry about this.”

“No worries.” She locked the door behind him and grabbed a towel from a nearby cabinet. “Clean, fluffy towel? They’re for my hot yoga classes.”

He accepted with a nod and sopped the water from his hair.

“Tea’s in my apartment.” She gestured to the open doorway leading upstairs. “Don’t worry about wet shoes. I’m not that formal.”

Tate followed her upstairs and inside her blessedly spotless apartment. She’d cleaned yesterday. She was fairly tidy, but some weeks got the best of her and she didn’t get around to vacuuming or changing her sheets.

By the time he was in the center of her living room and she was shutting the door to the staircase behind her, she was questioning her invitation.

A man in her apartment shrank it down until it felt like she lived in a cereal box—and this man in particular infused the immediate space with a sizzling attraction she’d felt since he first shook her hand.

Hayden Green, he’d said. You have the perfect last name for this community.

Now, he pegged her with a look that could only be described as vulnerable, as if something was really, really off. She wanted nothing more than to cross the room and scoop him into her arms. But she couldn’t do that. He had a fiancée. And she wasn’t looking for a romantic relationship.

No matter how hot he was.

“Tea,” she reminded herself and then stepped around him to walk to the kitchen.

Two

Tate slipped out of his leather jacket and hung it on an honest-to-goodness coatrack in between the door and the television. His shirt beneath was dry, thank goodness, and his pants were in the process of drying, but he kicked off his shoes rather than track puddles through Hayden’s apartment.

Since he’d personally approved the design of every structure in SWC, he knew this building. He’d expected her place to be both modern and cozy, but she’d added her own sense of unique style. Much like Hayden herself, her apartment was laid-back with a Zen feel. From the live potted plants near the window to the black-and-white woven rug on the floor. A camel-brown sofa stood next to a coffee table, its surface cluttered with books. Oversize deep gold throw pillows were stacked on the floor for sitting, a journal and a pen resting on top of one of them.

“I like what you’ve done with the place.” He was still drying his hair with the towel when he leaned forward to study the photos on the mantel above a gas fireplace. He’d expected family photos, maybe one of a boyfriend, or a niece or nephew. Instead the frames held quotes. One of them was the silhouette of a woman in a yoga pose with wording underneath that read, I bend so I don’t break, and the other a plain black background with white lettering: If you stumble, make it part of the dance.

“Do you have a tea preference?” she called from the kitchen.

“Not really.”

He didn’t drink tea, though he supposed he should, since he’d recently learned he was from fucking London.

“I have green, peppermint and chai. Green has caffeine, so let’s not go there.” She peeked at him before tucking the packet back into the drawer like she’d intuited a pending breakdown.

Great. Nothing like an emasculating bout of anxiety to finish up his day.

“Peppermint would be good if you were nauseous or ate too much, and chai will warm you up.” She narrowed her eyes, assessing him anew. “Chai.”

“Chai’s fine. Thanks again.”

She set about making his tea and he watched her, the fluid way she moved as she hummed to herself in the small kitchen. Stepping into Hayden’s apartment was a lot like stepping into a therapist’s office, only not as stuffy. As if being in her space tempted him to open up. Whether it was the rich, earthy colors or the offer of a soothing, hot drink he didn’t know. Maybe both.

He was surprised she’d invited him in, considering she’d found him standing in a downpour staring blankly at the window.

Probably he should get around to addressing that.

She set the mugs on the coffee table, and he moved to the sofa, debating whether or not to sit.

“You’re dry enough,” she said, reading his mind. She swiped the towel and disappeared into the bedroom before coming back out. Her walk was as confident as they came, with an elegance reminding him of Claire.

Claire. Her last words to him two weeks ago kept him awake at night, along with the other melee of crap bouncing around in his head.

I can’t handle this right now, Tate. I have a job. A life. Let’s have a cooling-off period. I’m sure you’d like some time alone.

He felt alone, more alone than ever now that the holidays were coming up. His adoptive parents were fretting, though he tried to reassure them. Nothing would reassure his mother, he knew. Guilt was a carnivorous beast.

Hayden lit a candle on a nearby shelf, and he took back his earlier comparison to Claire. Hayden was completely different. From her dark hair to her curvy dancer’s body.

Pointing to the quote on the mantel, he said, “I bet you’ve never stumbled a day in your life.”

With a smile, she sat next to him and lifted her mug. “I’ve stumbled many times. Do you know how hard it is to do a headstand in yoga?”

“How is the studio doing? I was considering trying a class.” A clumsy segue, but that might explain why he’d been lingering outside like a grade A creeper. “I’ve been...stressed. I thought yoga might be a good de-stressor.”

“Yoga’s a great de-stressor,” she said conversationally, as if him coming to this conclusion while standing in a downpour was normal. “I teach scheduled group classes as well as private sessions.”

“One on one?” He’d bet her schedule was packed. Being in her presence for a few minutes had already made him feel more relaxed.

“Yep. A lot of people around here prefer one-on-one help with their practice. Others just like being alone with no help at all, which is why I open the space for members once a week.”

“That’s a lot of options.” She must work around the clock.

“There are a lot of people here, or haven’t you noticed, Mr. Spright Island?” She winked, thick dark lashes closing over one chocolate-brown iris. Had she always been this beautiful?

“I noticed.” He returned her smile. There were just shy of nine hundred houses in SWC. That made for plenty of residents milling around town and, more often than he was previously aware, apparently in Hayden’s yoga studio.

“I don’t believe you want to talk about yoga.” Her gaze was a bare lightbulb on a string over his head, as if there was no way to hide what had been rattling around in his brain tonight. She lifted dark, inquisitive eyebrows. “You look like you have something interesting to talk about.”

The pull toward her was real and raw—the realest sensation he’d felt in a while. It grounded him, grabbed him by the balls and demanded his full attention.

“I didn’t plan on talking about it...” he admitted, but she must have heard the ellipsis at the end of that sentence.

She tilted her head, sage interest in whatever he might say next. Wavy dark brown hair surrounded a cherubic heart-shaped face, her deep brown eyes at once tender and inviting. Inviting. There was that word again. Unbidden, his gaze roamed over her tanned skin, her V-necked collar and delicate collarbone. How had he not noticed before? She was alarmingly beautiful.

“I’m sorry.” Her palm landed on his forearm. “I’m prying. You don’t have to say anything.”

She moved to pull her hand away but he captured her fingers in his, studying her shiny, clear nails and admiring the olive shade of her skin and the way her hand offset his own pinker hue.

“There are aspects of my life I was certain of a month and a half ago,” he said, idly stroking her hand with his thumb. “I was certain that my parents’ names were William and Marion Duncan.” He offered a sad smile as Hayden’s eyebrows dipped in confusion. “I suppose they technically still are my parents, but they’re also not. I’m adopted.”

Her plush mouth pulled into a soft frown, but she didn’t interrupt.

“I recently learned that the agency—” or more accurately, the kidnappers “—lied about my birth parents. Turns out they’re alive and living in London. And I have a brother.” He paused before clarifying, “A twin brother.”

Hayden’s lashes fluttered. “Wow.”

“Fraternal, but he’s a good-looking bastard.”

She squeezed his fingers. There for him in spite of owing him nothing. That should’ve been Claire’s job.

“I was certain that I was the owner/operator of Spright Island’s premier, thriving wellness community,” he stated in his radio-commercial voice. “That, thank God, hasn’t changed. SWC is a sanctuary of sorts. There is a different vibe here that you can’t find inland.”

“I know exactly what you mean. I stepped foot in my studio downstairs that first time, and it had this positive energy about it. Does that sound unbelievable?”

No more unbelievable than being kidnapped in another country and having no memory of it.

“It doesn’t sound unbelievable.” He took pride in what he’d built. He’d poured himself, body and soul, into what he created, so it wasn’t surprising some of that had leaked into the energy of this place.

“I was also certain I was going to be married to Claire Waterson.”

At the mention of a fiancée, Hayden tugged her hand from his and wrapped her fingers around her mug. He didn’t think it was because she was thirsty.

“When I found out about my family tree, she bailed on me,” he told her. “I didn’t expect that.”

He raked his hands through his damp hair, unable to stop the flow of words now that he’d undammed them. “You invited me in for tea thinking I had something on my mind. Bet you didn’t expect a full-blown identity crisis.”

Her eyebrows dipped in sympathy.

“I just need... I need...” Dropping his head in his hands, he trailed off, muttering to the floor, “Christ, I have no idea what I need.”

He felt the couch shift and dip, and then Hayden’s hand was on his back, moving in comforting circles.

“I’ve had my share of family drama, trust me. But nothing like what you’re going through. It’s okay for you to feel unsure. Lost.”

He faced her. This close, he could smell her soft lavender perfume and see the gold flecks in her dark eyes. He hadn’t planned on coming here, or on sitting on her couch and spilling his heart out. He and Hayden were friendly, not friends. But her comforting touch on his back, the way her words seemed to soothe the recently broken part of him...

Maybe what he needed was her.

He leaned forward, his eyes focused on her mouth and the satisfaction kissing her would bring.

“Tate.” She jerked away, sobering him instantly.

“Sorry. I’m sorry.” What the hell was he thinking? That Hayden invited him in to make out on her couch? That sharing his sob story would somehow turn her on? As if any woman wanted to be with a man who was in pieces.

He stood to leave. She stood with him.

“Listen, Tate—”

“I shouldn’t have come here.” He pulled his coat on and shoved his feet in his shoes, grateful for the leather slip-ons. At least there wouldn’t be an awkward interlude while he tied his laces. “Thank you for listening. I’m really very sorry.”

“Wait.” She arrived at the coatrack as he was stuffing his arms into his still-wet leather coat.

“I’m going to go.” He turned to apologize again, but was damn near knocked off his feet when Hayden pushed to her toes, cuffed the back of his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers.

Three

Hayden had fantasized of kissing Tate ever since she first laid eyes on him. She knew he wasn’t meant to be hers in real life, but in her fantasies, well, there were no rules.

Of all the imagined kisses they’d shared, none compared to the actual kiss she was experiencing now.

The moment their lips touched, he grabbed on to her like a lifeline, eagerly plunging his tongue into her mouth. His skin was chilly from the rain, but his body radiated heat. She was downright toasty in his arms...and getting hotter by the second.

She tasted dark liquor—bourbon or whiskey—on his tongue, but there was a tinge of something else. Sadness, if she wasn’t mistaken. Sadness over learning he had a brother after all these years—a twin brother. Wow, that was wild...

A pair of strong hands gripped her waist. Tate tugged her close, and when her breasts flattened against his chest all other thoughts flew from her head. The water clinging to his coat soaked through her sweater, causing her nipples to bead to tight peaks inside her bra.

Still, she kissed him.

She wasn’t done with this real-life fantasy. A brief thought of Claire Waterson crashed into her mind, and she shoved it out. They were broken up—he’d said so himself. Hayden had nothing to feel guilty about.

Besides, he needed her. Whenever she’d been lost or sad, she’d taken solace in her friends. That was what she offered to him now.

A safe space.

She pulled her lips from Tate’s to catch her breath, her mind buzzing and her limbs vibrating. His chest and shoulders rose and fell, the hectic rhythm set by the brief make-out session. An unsure smile tilted his mouth, and she returned it with one of her own.

“Better?” she asked.

His low laugh soaked into her like rum on spongecake. He pulled his hand over his mouth and then back through his hair, and her knees nearly gave way. It’d be so easy to lean in and taste him again, to offer her body as a place for him to lay his worries...

“I didn’t mean to take advantage of your hospitality. Honest.” His blue eyes shimmered in the candlelight.

“You didn’t. I always serve tea with French kisses. It’s a package deal.”

“The best deal in town,” he murmured. He stroked her jaw tenderly, those tempting lips offering the sincerest “thank you” she’d ever heard.

“Call a car,” she said, before she asked him to stay. “It’s pouring out there.”

“Actually—” he opened the door that led down to her studio “—I could use a cool, brisk walk after that kiss.”

She smiled, pleased. It wasn’t every day she could curl a hot guy’s toes. She considered this rare feat a victory.

“I’ll lock the studio door behind me. There are some real weirdos out there...”

She grinned, knowing he was referring to himself.

Before he pulled the door shut, he stuck his head through the crack. “You don’t really kiss everyone you offer tea, do you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” She was tempted to put another brief peck on his mouth, but he disappeared through the gap before she could. A fraction of a second later, she was looking at the wood panel instead of his handsome face and wondering if she’d hallucinated the entire thing.

“Hayden, Hayden,” she chastised gently as she engaged the lock and drew the chain. She turned and eyed the mugs of tea, Tate’s untouched and hers barely drunk. His lips hadn’t so much as grazed the edge of that mug.

But they were all over yours.

That spontaneous kiss had rocked her world.

She dashed to the window and peered out into the rain, hoping for one more glance at her nighttime visitor. A dark figure passed under a streetlamp, his shoulders under his ears, his hair wet all over again. Before he disappeared from sight, he turned to face her building and walked a few steps backward. She couldn’t see his face from that far away, but she liked to believe he was smiling.

She touched her lips.

So was she.

Three wet days later, the rain had downgraded from downpour to light drizzle. Even walking across the street to Summer’s Market yesterday for ingredients for blueberry muffins had left Hayden wet and cold. She’d returned home soaked to the bone, her hair smelling of rainwater.

Which, of course, reminded her of The Kiss from the other day. She hadn’t seen Tate since. Not that she’d expected him to stop by, but... Well, was hope the wrong word to use?

Over and over, she’d remembered the feel of Tate’s firm lips, his capable hands gripping her hips, the vulnerability in his smile. The ways his eyes shined with curiosity afterward.

Knowing she’d erased some of his sadness made her feel special. She was beginning to think she actually missed him. Odd, considering the concept of missing him was foreign until that kiss.

The chilly bite of the wind cut through her puffy, lightweight coat, and she tucked her chin behind the zipped collar as she crossed the street to the café.

Nothing better for walking off sexual frustration than a brisk November stroll.

She had an advanced yoga class in an hour and was tired just thinking about it. A hot cup of coffee would put some much-needed pep in her step.

She wasn’t the only resident of SWC taking advantage of the drier weather. Cold drizzles they were willing to brave. Drenching downpours, not so much. As a result, there was a buzz in the air, an audible din of chatter amongst the couples or single professionals lounging in the outdoor patio. It was closed off for the winter, the temporary walls and tall gas heaters making the space warm enough for the overflow of customers.

Inside, Hayden rubbed her hands together, delighted to find that the person in line ahead of her was finished ordering. The only thing better than a Sprightly Bean coffee at the start of a day was not waiting in line to get one. She ordered a large caramel latte and stepped to the side to wait. Not thirty seconds into her studying the glass case of doughnuts and other sinful baked goods, the low voice from her dreams spoke over her shoulder.

“I’ve seen regret before, and it looks a lot like the expression on your face, Ms. Green.”

Her smile crested her mouth before she turned. She thought she was prepared to come face-to-face with Tate until she did. His dark wool coat was draped over a charcoal-gray suit, his hair neatly styled against his head and slightly damp, she guessed from a recent shower. And wasn’t that a pleasant image? Him naked, water flowing over lean muscle, corded forearms, long, strong legs...

“Am I broadcasting regret?” she asked, her voice a flirty lilt.

He pointed at the bakery case. “Was it the éclair or the lemon–poppy seed muffin that caused it?”

“Hmm.” She pretended to consider. “I could be regretting my impulsive behavior three days ago.”

His eyebrows rose like she’d stunned him. She wasn’t much of a wallflower, which he should know after she’d grabbed him up and kissed him.

He opened his mouth to reply when a thin blonde woman glided around the corner, tugging a glove onto her hand. Claire.

“I’m ready to go,” she announced without preamble. Or manners. Or delicacy.

As if her frosty entrance had chilled them both, Hayden’s smile vanished and Tate retreated.

He nodded at Claire Waterson, his frown appearing both on his mouth and forehead. “Hayden, this is Claire. Claire, this is Hayden Green. She owns the yoga studio down the road.”

“Charmed.” Claire nodded curtly as she tugged on her other glove. No offer of a handshake, but Hayden didn’t want to shake the other woman’s hand, anyway.

“See you around,” Tate told Hayden.

She watched them leave, her forehead scrunching when Tate touched Claire’s back on the walk out to a car. He hadn’t walked to the café today. Hayden would bet Priss in Boots hadn’t allowed it.

“Grande caramel latte.” The cheery barista handed over Hayden’s coffee, and she managed a genial smile before walking out the front door, her steps heavy. Tate, in the driver’s seat, pulled away from the curb on the opposite side of the street. He didn’t wave, but did manage a compressed half smile.

While Hayden didn’t have any claim on him, she’d admit she felt like an idiot for believing him. He’d sounded so sincere when he said his relationship with Claire was over. Or had he implied it was over? Either way, if she’d had any idea Tate and Claire would be sharing morning coffee a few days later, Hayden never would have kissed him. From the looks of it, he and Claire were very much together.

Ew.

She started her march home, an unhealthy dose of anger seeping into her bloodstream. The first sip of her coffee burned her tongue, and the wind blew directly into her face, cold and bitter.

A series of beeps sounded from her pocket and Hayden’s back stiffened. That was her mother’s ringtone. It never failed to cause a cocktail of panic, fear and resentment to boil over. She ignored the second ring and then the third and, a minute later, the chime of her voice mail.

When Hayden left Seattle, it had felt like more of an escape. Her mother had been—and was still—stressed to the max, refusing to draw boundary lines around the one woman causing problems in their lives: Hayden’s alcoholic grandmother. Grandma Winnie favored drama and bottom-shelf vodka in equal measures, and Hayden’s mother, Patti, had turned codependency into an art form. Hayden’s dad, Glenn, was content to let the matriarchs rule the roost, as if he’d eschewed himself from the chaos in the only way he knew how: silence.

After years of trying to balance family drama with her own desperate need for stability, Hayden left Seattle and her family behind for the oasis of Spright Island.

By the time she was changing for her class, her coffee was cool and her mind was numb. She paused in the living room of her apartment, put her hands over her heart and took three deep breaths.

There was no sense in being angry at Grandma Winnie for being an alcoholic. It wasn’t her fault she had a disease. Similarly, she let go of worrying over her mother’s codependence and her father’s blind eye.

“Everyone is doing the best they can,” she said aloud.

But as she trotted down the stairs to the studio and unlocked the door for a few waiting guests, she found that there was one person in her life she didn’t feel as magnanimous toward.

The man who’d kissed her soundly, scrambled her senses and then showed up in town with the very woman he claimed had left him behind.

“Hi, Hayden,” greeted Jan, the first of her students through the door.

Hayden returned Jan’s smile and shoved aside her tumultuous thoughts. She owed it to her class to be present and bring good energy, not bad.

Family drama—and Tate drama—would be waiting for her when the class was over, whether she wanted it or not.

Four

The bell over her studio entrance jangled as Hayden’s evening class filed out of the building. She was behind the desk, jotting down a note for Marla, who’d been coming for individual classes but decided tonight she wanted to join the group. Since Marla hadn’t brought her credit card, Hayden had promised to email her in the morning.

Hayden stuck a reminder Post-it note onto the cover of her hardbound planner and looked up, expecting to see the last of her students leave. Instead, someone was coming in.

A certain someone who hadn’t left her mind no matter how hard she tried to stop thinking about him.

Dressed in black athletic pants and a long-sleeved black T-shirt, Tate shrugged out of the same leather jacket he’d worn the night they kissed. It’d been five days since that kiss. Two days since the coffee shop.

She still wasn’t happy with him, but it was impossible not to admire his exquisite hotness.

“Hey,” she blurted, unsure what else to say.

“Hey.” He looked over his shoulder. “I know I missed class, but I was hoping to schedule a one-on-one.”

Her mind went to the last “one-on-one” session they’d had. She hadn’t forgotten that kiss. She probably never would. It was burned onto her frontal lobe.

“Individual sessions have to be scheduled ahead of time,” she said as tartly as she could manage. The vision of him with Claire was too fresh in her mind for her to be cordial.

“Are you sure?” He tilted his head as he stepped closer to her.

“If you’re here because you feel you owe me an explanation or you need to air your regrets—”

“No. Nothing like that.”

She lifted her eyebrows, asking a silent well?

“I haven’t been in control of my life lately. Everything’s moving at warp speed, and I’m caught in the undertow. You ever feel like you’ve lost control? Once upon a time you had it in your hands, and now...” He looked down at his own fists gripping his coat as his mouth pulled down at the corners.

She knew exactly what that was like, but in reverse order. Her world had been moving at warp speed since birth, and only moving to SWC had stopped its trajectory.

She sympathized with Tate, though she was tempted to cut her losses and show him the door.

“And taking a yoga class with me would help you feel in control?” she asked anyway.

“Ah, well. Not exactly.” Palm on his neck, he studied the floor and then peeked up at her with a look of chagrin so magnetic, her heart skipped a beat. “I’m really good at turning you on. At least I think I would be. Are you still doling out kisses with every cup of tea?”

She gripped the edge of the front desk, digesting what he’d just said. He was good at turning her on. She knew that, but what was she supposed to do with it? Especially when Tate stood in front of her looking coy and cunning and yet vulnerable and was offering... Wait... Was this a booty call?

“Sorry. That offer expired.” Not that she was above kissing him, but... “I’m not going to be your girl on the side, Tate. What would Claire say?”

“That’s over. It’s been over. What you saw at the coffee shop was her finalizing things. You know, like you do after someone dies.”

He paced to the salt lamp on her desk and stared at it for a beat. “She dropped off a box of my stuff at my house and then asked if we could grab a coffee and talk. I told her she could talk to me there, but she said she preferred neutral territory.”

“Oh.” It was a breakup. Hayden had misread that entire exchange. Still... “And you didn’t feel the need to explain yourself after I saw you at the café? You thought you’d instead come here and...” She waved a hand uselessly, unable to finish her thought, since she wasn’t 100 percent sure why he was here.

“I thought we could start with a yoga session.” He dipped his chin. “If you have any openings for, say, now.”

She tried to tell him no, but found she couldn’t. Tate Duncan didn’t have to work hard to charm her on any given day, and today he was actually trying.

“How about...” She flipped open her planner and traced her finger down the page. “Tomorrow. Noon.”

“Deal.”

“I’ll need your credit card. I require a nonrefundable down payment for the first appointment.”

“Smart.”

She hummed. She wasn’t so sure this was smart, but was too curious to turn him away.

The morning of his yoga appointment, Tate set out for Hayden’s studio. The day was dry if chilly, but he welcomed the burning cold in his lungs as he cut through a path in the woods.

He’d been out for a quick trip to Summer’s Market when he’d witnessed Hayden’s evening class letting out. He hadn’t planned on walking across the street and inside, but when he found himself in front of her, he had to have a reason for being there.

Besides the obvious.

Hayden had consumed damn near every one of his waking thoughts, which was a relief compared to his usual pastime: turning over his parentage, the truth about where he came from, or the disastrous outcome since.

He’d blamed the kiss on whiskey and a need for connection. The liquor buzz was long gone, but the imprint of her kiss remained like a brand. It was reckless to leap into the flames after he’d just escaped a fire—Claire should’ve rendered him numb. But Hayden...she was different.

Not only had she been there for him when he’d been adrift on his own, but she replaced his tumultuous thoughts with something a hell of a lot better.

Sex.

He wanted her. He wanted her in his arms and in his bed. He wanted her moaning beneath him, her nails scratching down his back.

It was as if he’d devolved to his most carnal desires when she was around, and for a change, he was all for it. He was tired of feeling unmoored, helpless. Sad. With her he felt strong, capable. She’d come apart in his arms during that kiss. She may have put him through his paces last night, but he respected her for it.

Hell, he knew he’d stepped in it with Hayden the moment he left that café with Claire. But he’d owed Claire that meeting. They’d dated for three years and had been recently engaged, though he now wondered if that was more of a technicality. She’d never lived with him—never wanted to. She didn’t treasure Spright Island or his community the way he did.

The way Hayden does. That kiss with Hayden was about far more than their lips meeting and an attraction they weren’t aware of blooming. For Tate, it was about discovering that he’d been sleepwalking through his life.

Tate had never been ill-equipped for a task set before him. He’d accepted the gift of Spright Island from his father without qualms and had set about building an entire town and community even when he’d never worked on his own before. He’d learned by doing. Each time adversity had come up, he’d defeated it.

When he’d found out that Reid was his brother, Tate felt like a superhero who’d stumbled across his fatal weakness. He didn’t have a single weapon in his arsenal to handle the situation set before him.

His previously drama-free life had begun to look more like a Netflix feature with him in the center as the hapless protagonist.

Until the kiss with Hayden.

That night had changed him, changed his outlook. And after a numb month of disbelief, feeling something—feeling anything other than stark shock—was as welcome as...well, as the kiss itself.

Yoga by Hayden came into sight and he crossed the street with a neat jog. A smile inched across his face, but flagged when he noticed the Closed sign on the door. He tugged the handle.

Locked.

He checked the clock on his phone. 12:04 p.m. He was late. Maybe she drew a hard line when it came to promptness.

Then he looked up and there she was, her curves barely contained in colorful leggings and a long-sleeved green shirt. She flipped the lock and opened the door, reminding him of the night he’d been standing outside this very studio in the rain.

Reminding him that she’d climbed to her toes to lay the mother of all kisses on him and had changed his life for the better.

“Sorry. Typically, I’m more punctual than this,” she said.

God, he wanted to kiss her. The timing was wrong, though. She hadn’t yet met his eyes save for a brief flicker that bounced away the second she caught him staring.

She was hard not to stare at, all that silken dark hair and the grace in her every movement...

“I thought maybe you’d changed your mind.” He hung his coat on a hook and perused a small display of yoga mats, blocks and water bottles. “I’ll have to buy a mat. I don’t have one.”

“Help yourself.” Hayden’s gaze glanced off him again, and then almost relieved, she said, “Oh, good, she’s here.”

A fortysomething blonde woman ran toward the building, her yoga mat under her arm.

“Sherry had a last-minute need for an appointment, so I piggybacked onto your session. With the holiday week being so busy, I couldn’t fit her in any other time.” Hayden blew out the news in a nonstop stream. “I hope you don’t mind.”

Of course he minded. He’d scheduled a one-on-one with Hayden, and now he had to share his time with Sherry Baker, SWC’s premiere real estate agent.

“Oh, hi, Tate.” Sherry patted him on the shoulder before hanging her coat and scarf on the hook next to his. “I didn’t know you practiced yoga.”

He slid his eyes to Hayden, who bit her lip and locked the door. She’d double booked herself on purpose. For some reason.

“You know me,” he told Sherry. “I’m always trying to support more local businesses.”

“Get this one.” Sherry handed him a black yoga mat. “It’s manly and the same brand as mine.”

“Done.” He turned to Hayden with a million questions he couldn’t ask. “Mind if I pay you after?”

Her mouth hovered open for a beat as Sherry unrolled her yoga mat. With an audience, Hayden didn’t have much of a choice other than being polite.

“Sure.”

“Great.” He took his spot on the studio floor. He’d won that round. He planned on sticking around after Sherry left. He wanted answers.

Five

For Hayden, doing yoga was like breathing. She slipped into each pose easily, pausing to instruct Sherry and Tate through the movements.

Sherry was in her midforties with two teenagers. Her son had recently moved to a college campus and her younger daughter was thirteen and embroiled in a teenage spat with her two best friends, Callie and Samantha. Hayden knew this because Sherry hadn’t stopped talking since class had started.

Sherry also mentioned her twenty unwanted pounds and a caffeine habit that bordered on addiction, and said she hoped doing one healthy thing like yoga would lead to other healthy things like cutting down on coffee and overtime at work.

Tate remained resolutely silent, though she’d caught a small smile on his mouth more than once as he’d eased from one pose into the other.

During downward dog pose Hayden moved to assist Sherry with her alignment. “Push your five fingertips into the mat rather than the palm of your hand,” she instructed. “We don’t want compressed wrists.”

Hayden turned to Tate next, willing herself to remember she was a teacher and a professional. There was never anything sexual involved in helping a student.

Until now.

One look at Tate’s ass, his legs and arms strong and straight, and a wave of attraction walloped her in the stomach. As fate would have it, she was also going to have to touch his hips to move him into more of a V form than a U.

Dammit.

One hand on his back, the other on his hips, she instructed him to lower his heels to the floor as much as he was able. He breathed out with the effort, that breath reverberating along her arm and hand, and she became even more aware of him than before.

Who knew that was possible?

Those sorts of thoughts were exactly what Sherry’s presence was supposed to quell.

She led them from downward dog to cobra, encouraging Sherry to use her knees if she needed to. When Hayden turned to tell Tate the same thing, he lowered into the pushup-like pose with what appeared to be very little effort. A closer look at his biceps and she realized they shook subtly as he took his time, holding himself in plank pose a moment before dropping his waist and pushing up with his arms.

She stared, unabashedly, which he must’ve noticed a moment later, when he sent her a cocky smirk.

Show-off.

She returned to her mat and walked them through one more sun salutation, ending in mountain pose: standing, hands in prayer pose at the chest.

“Namaste,” Hayden said. “That concludes our lesson for the day.”

“Woo! That was intense, girlfriend!” Sherry waved her hands in front of her pink face. “I’m sure Tate would’ve preferred a less chatty partner, though.”

Sherry winked at him, and Hayden smothered a laugh. Sherry was happily married and treated Tate like she would a friend or any other familiar resident of SWC.

You know, the same way you should be treating him.

“I have to return to the office,” Sherry announced. “Can I call to schedule a follow-up after the holiday?”

“Whenever you like.” Hayden walked Sherry to the door, chatting to stall while waiting for Tate to leave. Instead, Tate was at the front desk, his rolled mat on the surface.

Crap. She forgot he needed to pay.

Sherry left and Hayden made her way to the front desk, her heart hammering.

“If you admit that you booked Sherry because you couldn’t trust yourself to be alone with me, I’ll forgive you for it,” he told her.

“Ha!” She left it at that because any response other than “Yep, that’s correct!” would have been a lie.

She didn’t trust herself alone with him. His kiss the other night had been too welcome, his presence too distracting. She had enough drama in her life without creating some of her own.

Last night after he left she’d thought more about the chaos in Tate’s life. Not one parental pair but two. And a surprise twin brother. Hayden had come to Spright Island specifically to avoid drama not become embroiled in it. That, and the fact she didn’t trust herself to be alone with him, was why she’d scheduled Sherry for the same timeslot.

Tate wasn’t unlike that second serving of ice cream she knew she shouldn’t have. It seemed that no amount of willpower could keep her from one more taste.

“Thirty-two dollars.”

He handed her his credit card.

“It’s a really good mat,” she explained needlessly as she charged his card. Anything to fill the dead air between them.

“I wasn’t arguing.”

“No, I guess you wouldn’t.” She imagined thirty-two dollars to Tate Duncan must be what thirty-two cents felt like to her.

“What’s going on, Hayden? Do you find me particularly hard to get along with?”

“I—Sorry. That was rude.” She handed his card back and flipped the screen around for him to sign it. When he was finished, she tucked her iPad into the drawer and, with no other task before her, was forced to meet his eyes.

He stood there like he had nowhere else to be.

“I didn’t schedule Sherry only because I didn’t want to be alone with you. It worked well since you’re both beginners.”

He nodded slowly.

“Plus, what did you expect after you barged in here—”

“I barged?”

“—and demanded—”

“Demanded?”

She huffed out a breath. If was going to continue calling her bluff, she really should stop lying about her true intentions. But there was a nugget of truth she could cling to.

“My schedule has been nuts this week. Everyone’s trying to get in before Thanksgiving.”

“Ah. And you fit me in.” He grinned. “Because you couldn’t tell me no.”

She made a pathetic choking sound. How arrogant was this guy, anyway? And how did he keep guessing right?

“Because I have to make a living. I don’t have billions stashed away...” She almost added “like some people” but she was already protesting too much.

“Right,” he agreed, but something in his expression told her he’d gleaned what she hadn’t said. “Well, thank you. For the mat.”

He went to grab his coat, slipping it over his arms and holding the rolled mat between his knees.

Feeling a dab of guilt, she moved toward him and vomited out a generic nicety. “Thank you for booking your session. I hope you’ll consider a membership.”

His hand resting on the door handle, he turned as she stopped advancing, putting her mere inches from his handsome face. “I was thinking about another kind of one-on-one session. Are you available for dinner?”

She hadn’t been prepared for that. Words eluded her. She knew that agreeing to go out with him was a bad idea, but when faced with his glittering blue eyes she couldn’t quite remember why.

“Just so you know—” that blue gaze dipped to her mouth “—if you were ready, I’d kiss the hell out of you right now. Just to make sure I didn’t imagine how good you tasted before.”

She gaped at him, but he didn’t advance to kiss her. Instead he turned around and stepped outside.

Before she could shut the door, he pushed it open a crack. “Think about dinner. I’ll ask again.”

She locked up behind him, watching him through the glass. He had a sure, strong gait, a disgustingly handsome mug, and looked as good in a suit as he did in sweatpants.

There were a multitude of reactions fighting for first place. She wanted to open the door and yell for him to come back. She wanted to run upstairs and shut the blinds. She wanted to jog across the street and grab him by the ears and kiss the hell out of him.

Especially that last one.

While she warred with those options, frozen in stunned bliss at the possibilities, Tate grew farther and farther away until he was a shadowy blur disappearing into a path into the woods.

“Damn him.” But she didn’t mean it. She was looking forward to next time—when she would leave him slack-jawed and without a response.

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