Ava gave her a look of surprise before answering. “No, should I be?”

Emma verbally kicked herself. She liked Ava fine, but she was now stuck delivering the required five minutes of small talk when she could have walked out the door and been on her way. “I just thought since you were meeting the rest of the team for dinner tonight that you might be riding together.”

“Oh . . . No . . . I’m just . . . I thought Mac would still be here and I was going to walk out with him.”

Like most of her friends at Danvers, Emma had wondered more than once about the relationship between Ava and Mac. She knew he was an old friend of the family and that Declan had served in the military with him, but she had always thought there was something else there.

“Do you want me to check and see if he’s still in the building?” Emma offered.

Ava looked down at her watch and then back at the elevator as if willing Mac to appear. “No, that’s okay, I probably just missed him. Thanks, though.”

Emma couldn’t help but notice how sad the other woman looked as she walked away. Maybe they had more in common than she thought, because it appeared that they were both waiting on a man.

Chapter Fourteen

When Declan caught him looking down at his watch yet again, Brant tried to hide his guilty expression. It was already after nine and he knew that Emma was expecting him. As if taking mercy on him, his brother cleared his throat. “Ella and I are going to have to get home. She’s a bit tired tonight and needs to rest.”

Clearly, pregnancy did have its advantages, Brant thought. He shot Declan a grateful smile as the dinner meeting came to an end. He said a quick good-bye to everyone, noting absently that Suzy had been unusually subdued during dinner. She had also left the table several times, so Brant wondered if she was sick. Gray seemed to be thinking the same thing, as he kept a firm arm around his wife¸ leading her toward the door. When his cell phone rang as he was walking toward his car, Brant was momentarily surprised to see his home number on the caller ID. He had completely forgotten about Alexia.

He hit the CALL button, answering, “Stone.”

“Hi, Brant, it’s Alexia. I . . . er . . . just wondered when you were going to be home.”

He was a little surprised by the question. When he had invited her to stay at his home, he hadn’t imagined that he would need to check in with her. Although he supposed it was a common courtesy when you had a houseguest, no matter what the circumstances. It would be rude to burst in during the middle of the night and scare her. “I just finished a dinner meeting and I . . . have plans, so I’ll be late. Was there something you needed?” Oh fuck, was that a sniffle he heard on the other end of the line? “Is everything okay?”

After a moment’s hesitation, she said, “Oh sure, I . . . Carter called tonight and we had a fight. He wants to see me and I refused. I just . . . needed to talk, but it’s not important.”

Brant closed his eyes as he felt the guilt jumping up to choke him. Alexia was clearly upset and had been waiting for him to come home so that she wouldn’t be all alone. Sometimes he really hated his constant sense of responsibility because he felt an overwhelming obligation to go straight home and try to solve Alexia’s problems for her. It was nothing to do with love and everything to do with a—misplaced—sense of duty. On the other hand, he wanted nothing more than to be with Emma. All day long he had missed having her in his arms.

It hadn’t even been a full day and already the weight of helping Alexia was dragging on him. He needed to tell Emma that she was staying with him, even if he couldn’t tell her the reason why. There was nothing going on that he should feel guilty about. He’d give her a call and then head home. “I’ll be there soon.”

“Really?” He could hear the hope in Alexia’s voice as he told her he’d be there in twenty minutes. Next, he dialed Emma’s number, putting it on speaker before turning his car toward home. A spark shot through his body when he heard her voice. She sounded so damn close he almost expected to see her in the seat next to him. “Hey, Em.”

Before he could go any farther, she said, “You aren’t coming, are you?”

He couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice when he asked, “How did you know that?”

Sounding tired but faintly amused, she said, “Because you’d be here now and not calling. Did you decide to hit a bar or something with the guys after dinner?”

God, how simple it would be to just agree with her and let it go for the evening. Sadly, though, he didn’t often take the easy way out in life and tonight would be no exception. “No, I’m on my way home now from the restaurant.” Letting out a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding, he said, “Em, I need to tell you something.” When there was nothing but silence from her end of the line, he quickly jumped in before he could chicken out. “The woman you met in my office this morning, Alexia, is actually my ex-fiancée and she’s staying with me for a few days. That’s why I didn’t want to meet at my house tonight. She’s . . . having some problems with her current fiancé and asked me for somewhere to stay.” The silence continued so long after his revelation that he looked over at his phone to make sure the call was still connected. “Um . . . Em?”

“I’m here,” she answered, sounding perfectly normal. “Just out of curiosity, why would she ask her ex-fiancé? Did you stay in contact after your split or was it recent?”

“It was a few years ago and, no, today is the first time I’ve spoken with her since our relationship ended.” Brant thought she sounded more puzzled than anything now and he couldn’t blame her. When he thought about it in those terms, it seemed strange to him as well. He wouldn’t have sought Alexia out if the circumstances had been reversed. Of course, Emma didn’t know the whole story and that made a bit of difference.

“She is dealing with a family situation and doesn’t have any friends that she can . . . trust.”

“It still seems strange that she would come to you after so long in those circumstances.”

Brant was starting to wish he had just kept his mouth shut. This was becoming harder and harder to explain without telling her what was going on and he couldn’t do that.

“She has some other problems as well. I guess, due to our history together, she felt she could count on me for support. Our relationship was built on a friendship and she had nowhere else to turn.”