“Have you ever revealed yourself to another woman?” Burke asked.
“No, sir,” Gunnar answered. “It wouldn’t have happened then except I had to warn Axel about the avalanche.”
“So, you two never planned on revealing yourselves?”
Not wanting to lie, and choosing to treat the statement as a rhetorical one, Axel kept quiet, as did Gunnar. When neither son responded, Burke gave an omnipotent nod and asked another question. “How did she react?”
Axel sighed and shrugged. “Not as badly as she could have.”
“Not so badly at all if what we saw was any indication,” Fridrik said.
“What do you—” Fridrik raised an eyebrow. “She was naked on the living room floor, son. It doesn’t take a genius.”
Axel’s cheeks heated a bit, but he reminded himself that they were men first, his dads second. “So we had some fun. She still chose Vegas over us.”
Burke growled and got up from his chair. “Is that what has your tail in a twist? That she couldn’t make a commitment to you after less than a week in your bed?”
“We asked her to stay!” Axel shouted, then closed his eyes and mumbled an apology. “We asked her to stay. She said she didn’t belong here. She had to go home. She left. End. Of. Story.”
Burke went to his desk and poured another scotch, proving his exasperation, because he almost never had more than his one drink a day.
“So you go after her,” Fridrik said in a calm tone.
“You go, and you make the change if she can’t.”
Axel scowled. “And leave the shop? Leave the family? I…no.”
Burke settled back into his throne. “Your store is more important than Dakota?”
Axel opened his mouth, but he couldn’t say yes.
“Your family is always your family,” Fridrik said.
“It doesn’t matter where you roam.”
“She left us, though,” Gunnar said, sounding exasperated.
“I didn’t realize we raised such pussies,” Burke said to Fridrik.
“Dad!” Axel sighed. “You want us to just get up and leave? Go to Vegas and stay there…forever, if that’s what she wants?”
Fridrik challenged, “You didn’t have any trouble asking her to uproot her life to stay here with you. Yet, you’re unwilling to consider the opposite for her?”
“I… We…” Axel’s answer faded, and Gunnar sat very still. Their father had a point.
“Would you rather grow old alone?” Burke asked, his voice mellow now. He looked at his brother, then back at his sons. “If you asked her to stay, and you planned to reveal yourselves at some point—don’t bother denying that—then she’s the one. We don’t make mistakes when it comes to finding our mates, because there is only one for us. If you don’t go after her…”
He saw the sadness in his dad’s eyes just then, and it twisted his heart. It hurt so much to have Dakota walk out of their lives after just days. What had it been like for his dads to lose their mother after more than thirty years of marriage?
“I’m sure Kelan will run the shop for you,” Fridrik said.
“And we’ll keep an eye on things, too,” Burke added.
“Who knows?” Fridrik smiled now. “Maybe someday, you might persuade her to return.”
Axel turned to Gunnar, who smiled for the first time in a month. “Drive or fly?”
“Drive,” Gunnar said. “We need to pack enough for an extended stay, and it’ll give us time to figure out what to say.”
Axel stood up. “Thanks, Dads.”
Burke held up his scotch. “Go get her, boys.”
Gunnar stood up, a grin now splitting his face. “We will.”
Chapter Nine
“Earth to Dakota! Come on, girl, are you deaf?”
Dakota blinked, glanced up, and said, “Oh, sorry. I didn’t catch that. What did you say?”
Sonya rolled her eyes and reached out to pull her from her chair. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you but snap out of it, or you’re gonna miss the sexiest eye candy this side of the Mississippi!” Her coworker dragged her into a conference room where proofs from a recent photo shoot lay spread out.
Dakota glanced at the photos and frowned. What was so amazing about pictures of gamblers with smiles on their faces seated around a roulette wheel? This was Vegas. The agency did hundreds of these kinds of ad campaigns to promote tourism, the casinos and hotels, all the time.
Skeptical, she muttered, “I don’t see what you mean.”
“Not those. This!” Sonya headed to the window and, hiding behind the curtain, gestured her to look outside for herself. “He’s here!”
Dakota approached the window and stood in plain view.
“Remember him?”
She did. The story was that the model had been a waiter in Paris before he became famous on the fashion runways of Europe, and now he’d been chosen to be the face, abs and more for a new line of boxer briefs. In person, or as close to in person as she’d get, he looked human. Just another nice looking man in a dress shirt and trousers, his hair too dark, his frame too lean…and she couldn’t see his eyes, but she’d bet her last paycheck that they weren’t as blue as they would appear in the final prints. Airbrushing was a miracle of modern marketing technology.
“Yeah, he looks different…in clothes.”
“Is that all you can say?” Sonya peeked out the window again. “That man is every woman’s wet dream.”
Not every woman. “I’ve seen better,” she quipped with an uninterested shrug. Actually, she’d been with better fantasies, stretched out on the floor of a mountain homestead in the orange glow of soft firelight.
That thought damn near brought tears to her eyes, so she fisted her hands and turned to walk out.
“Dakota!”
She kept going, but Sonya followed her back to her cubicle.
“Okay, out with it. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said as she took her seat and began going through her email for the second time that day and trying desperately not to envision matching pairs of hazel eyes. Why couldn’t she get them out of her mind?
Sonya crossed her arms. “Not buying it.”
Dakota stopped, looked up, and tried to smile.
“Look, I know the guy is handsome, and I’m sure he’s probably very nice in person. He’ll make a great model for the new line, but he doesn’t make me all tingly.”
“Okay, who are you? And what did you do with Dakota?”
“I’ve never been the type to drool over eye candy.”
Her coworker straightened up. “No, but you used to at least appreciate a sexy body when the opportunity presented itself. Nowadays you’re always, I don’t know, off in your own little world or something.”
Dakota sighed. “I’m sorry. I just have a lot on my mind.” Not that she was all that enthused about spending another night alone to think and dream of what could’ve been. She frowned, staring at the unfinished design specs for the Carlson’s interactive ad campaign on her computer screen. The layout was still off, and she needed to edit the copy and wrap up the proposal before the client presentation next week.
“And a lot of work to get done.”
“Uh-huh.” Sonya straightened up and dropped her arms. “Okay, fine. I get it. Won’t bug you again. But Dakota, I’ve gotta say, you need another vacation, girlfriend, because you haven’t been the same since you came back from the last one.”
When Sonya walked away, Dakota ran her fingers through her hair and dropped her head onto her desk with a groan. Sonya was right. She hadn’t been the same, because nothing seemed right anymore.
Don’t go.