by KB Winters
The Camaro? Was that closer to or farther away from Alyssa?
“Wait,” Miles said, coming around the back bumper of the ’68 Shelby to stand beside me. “Hey, man. That’s Rafe Wade over there.”
I double checked that Miles was following my gaze and then glanced at him. “You know that asshole?”
“Asshole?” Miles frowned. “You know him?”
I didn’t need to.
“Nevermind. Who is he?”
Miles gave me a confused look. “He’s the founder and CEO of Juniper Investments. He called about a week ago to see about doing some custom work. I didn’t realize he’d be here though. Must be my lucky night. Now I can seal the deal.”
I jerked my chin in their direction. “Let’s go say hello then.”
“Sure.”
We wove through the crowd and got within five feet when Alyssa turned and spotted me headed her direction. She whispered something to Rafe and I caught a slight roll to his eyes. Anger flared in my belly. Alyssa gave him an apologetic look and then darted off in the opposite direction. I elbowed Miles. “Hey, you want something to drink?”
“What the hell, are you my prom date now, Clarke?”
“Taking that as a no,” I fired back, grinning at him before breaking away. “Be right back.”
I veered left, leaving Miles to get the ball rolling. The Open Road Garage was his baby anyway. He’d hired me on as the head mechanic when he opened a little over a year ago. We’d become friends since then and when he’d asked if I wanted to tag along as his plus-one for the charity dinner, in lieu of his wife, Penny, who was in New York visiting friends, I’d accepted. Hot cars, a full, open bar, and anything they served for dinner would be a helluva lot better than the taco truck by my house. Maybe only by a shade, but still…
Alyssa didn’t realize I was behind her until she’d ducked into the alcove near one of the bars. When she spun around and spotted me a few yards away, she cursed loudly. “What are you doing?” she hissed.
Not exactly the best way to kick off a reunion, but at least she was talking to me.
I joined her in the alcove and she shrank back against the wall. Her eyes darted back and forth between mine and over my shoulder, frantically looking for something.
Shit. What the hell do I say now? I didn’t figure a “hey” would be well-received.
“Lyss?” Her name came out like a whispered prayer.
Her lips parted and a thousand memories washed over me as her tongue slid over them. A tongue capable of all kinds of sin. Focus!
“What are you doing here?” she asked, finding her footing.
I looked over my shoulder to where Miles and Rafe were speaking. Miles had his phone out and was typing something on it, as though he was taking some kind of notes. “That’s Miles Warren. He’s my boss. Apparently your…” I paused and darted a quick look at her hands. A near audible sigh slipped out of me when I didn’t find a giant rock on her perfect fingers.
“Boyfriend,” she said, not waiting for me to continue.
I hated the way it sounded. “Yeah, well, your boyfriend is hiring the garage I work at to do some custom work.”
Alyssa sighed, and rolled her eyes. “Great.”
“How are you doing? You look—” Beautiful was cliché, pretty wasn’t strong enough, and good enough to eat would likely get me slapped.
Alyssa waited with impatient eyes.
I leveled her with a dark stare and leaned in a little closer. “You look gorgeous. As always.”
“Thank you, now what do you want?”
“Want?”
“Why did you chase me down? It seems like this is one of those times where pretending we didn’t know each other might have been a better plan.” She looked around the room, her eyes sweeping past her boyfriend and Miles twice before coming back to mine.
I pocketed my hands in my slacks and rocked back onto my heels. “Maybe,” I replied with a casual shrug. “But last time I checked, neither one of us were ever very good at doing what we were supposed to.”
Alyssa softened for a split-second, then threw back on her stony mask with the blink of her eyes. “Well, the last time you checked was three years ago, and a lot has changed since then. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I should get back.”
“Right, wouldn’t want your boyfriend to worry. How long you been with that jerk, anyway?”
She sighed. “Why do you even care? And he’s not a jerk.”
“Just curious.”
“Uh-huh.” She frowned up at me. “Not that it’s any of your business, but two years.”
The answer picked at some deeply buried scab and I stiffened. “Geeze, you didn’t wait too long to fill my place, huh?”
Anger sparked in her eyes and she scoffed. “Fuck you, Finn.”
She pushed past me, the touch of her hand on my stomach nearly sent me to the ground. Without looking back, she strode back to Rafe’s side. I watched from the sidelines as she was introduced to Miles with a polite handshake. She smiled at him, effortlessly tossing aside any aftershock from our conversation. Miles dropped her hand and looked around. I knew he was looking for me, to complete the introductions, but I slunk back further into the shadows.
I wasn’t going back over there. Not yet.
And if I was lucky, I could skip the whole damned thing.
Chapter Three
Alyssa
“He’s around here somewhere,” Miles said, glancing around the room for the second time.
I didn’t say anything. Just smiled and nodded.
Rafe set his hand back on my lower back and I bristled, knowing the sign. He was about to brush Miles off and flit away to find the next power couple to schmooze and dazzle. Which, for once, was just fine with me. I wanted to get away from Miles before Finn could lope back around and join us. It’d been hard enough keeping my shit together when it was the two of us. I didn’t know if I had the strength left to keep stuffing all my emotions down deeper so I didn’t set off Rafe’s warning bells. He couldn’t know that Finn was the Finn. It’d been ages, but I’d confessed all my heartbreak to Rafe back when we met and reached the point in our relationship where it was acceptable to pull open the ex-files. Thinking back, I couldn’t remember if I’d ever actually given Rafe his name or if I’d simplified and called him the ex. It didn’t matter.
“I’m sure we’ll meet him soon enough,” Rafe told Miles. “The twenty-ninth, right?”
Miles smiled. “Absolutely! It was great meeting you both and I can’t wait to get started.”
Rafe inclined his head. “Likewise.”
We said our polite goodbyes and Rafe steered me away. He made idle conversation about a car as we passed by on our way to our table. Rafe would want to start scouting the place cards and see who’d be joining us at our assigned table. Almost as if on cue, a man in a tuxedo took the stage and approached the microphone to announce the dinner would be starting.
“Excellent,” Rafe said with a smile. “I’m starving.”
He looked to me and I scrambled to nod. “Yeah, absolutely.”
We found our table and Rafe pulled out my chair, waiting for me to be seated before taking his own. “Oh, look, Senator Jameson is at our table.”
I spotted the couple from before. Great, let’s talk more about how my boyfriend hates dogs, and I run an animal shelter, that should be riveting.
Where the hell was that champagne tray?
I sipped my water and stayed quiet as the senator and his wife joined us at our table. Rafe made some clever, charming comment and I gave a placid smile.
God, this is painful. Physically fuckin’ painful.
A band took the stage, and within minutes a soft, smooth jazzy blues song piped through the room. The beautiful music intertwined with the sounds of forks meeting plates and glasses clinking together as the meal began. I’d barely noticed a server had slipped a salad plate in front of me. A basket of bread sat in the center of the table and I reached for the heel. A little comfo
rt food. That would fix it and soothe my frayed nerves.
As I smeared a little butter across the surface, I felt the senator’s wife’s eyes on me. I glanced up and smiled politely. She had her own butter knife. What the hell did she want? After I took my first bite, she leaned in closer. “You know that’s loaded with gluten, right?”
I paused. “Uhm, yeah?”
“Oh.” She sat back as if she was expecting a different answer. “You know that stuff will kill you. Not to mention it causes bloating.”
My eyes went wide. Was she for real?
The woman offered a soft smile and whispered, “If you want, I’ll give you the name of my nutritionist. He’s a genius. He’ll get you whipped into shape lickety-split.” She winked and sat back in her chair with a satisfied, job well done smile like she’d just saved the fucking planet.
I stuffed an even bigger piece of bread into my mouth. “No thanks,” I mumbled around the bite.
The woman couldn’t have looked more shocked if I’d reached across the table and slapped her. She bristled and went back to her salad while I relished every scrumptious crumb of my bread. Then I dove into the bread basket and went for a second piece.
Rafe gave me a quizzical glance out of the corner of his eye but didn’t comment. I wanted to scream “See! This is why I hate these things!”
The senator and Rafe talked through most of the meal and the senator’s wife, Nancy-something-or-other, decided the person sitting behind her, at another table, was more interesting. Or maybe she was just a gluten free sister-in-arms. I didn’t know and I didn’t care.
I downed champagne and bread. Although I realized that was mostly to keep myself from searching the room for Finn. How dare he show up here, unannounced, unwanted. I’d worked too damn hard for three years, rebuilding my life and creating a new normal, for him to just waltz in and throw it off-kilter.
Damn him. Damn that sexy smile, that perfectly chiseled jaw, and those storm cloud grey eyes. And I couldn’t even let myself think about the brief second when my hand brushed against his still-washboard stomach when I pushed past him. I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath, as flickers of heat tingled over my skin. Damn that man.
Every so often, I’d have a steamy dream that would take me back to the creekside meadow where we made love for the first time. The air was sticky with the summer heat but a gentle breeze rustled the grass and skimmed our hot skin as we stripped our clothes away. My fingers tracing the lines in his sculpted shoulders, over his rock-hard chest, and then dipping in the V-lines at his hips. His fingers tangled in my hair, tracing across my smile, and then over my bare skin, touching me in places I’d never been touched before. I was a twenty-two-year-old virgin and the sweet moment Finn entered me, I looked up into those grey eyes, and whispered that I was glad I’d waited for him.
Now, sitting in the middle of a banquet, wearing a $500 gown, tears pricked at my eyes. That girl in the meadow was lost to me. She’d been locked away the day Finn said goodbye and was now thrashing and pounding on the door to let her out. But I couldn’t let her. She was naive. And stupid. She thought love lasted forever. That there was still such a thing as happily-ever-after. No, I couldn’t give her so much as an inch.
“Alyssa, are you all right?” Rafe’s voice startled me. I opened my eyes and focused on his hazel eyes. They were so different than Finn’s.
I nodded and swallowed hard. “I think I had too much to drink, that’s all.”
Rafe flicked a glance over at the senator and his wife, their conversation lost in the ambient noise of the room. “We can’t leave now. Drink some water.”
I nodded and reached for my glass of sparkling water. “Good idea.”
Satisfied, he went back to his meal.
I had to hold it together. I didn’t want another argument with Rafe tonight. Our relationship was far from perfect, but Rafe was all of the things that Finn wasn’t. He was stable, secure, and most of the time he was a perfectly suitable boyfriend and I knew that if we were to marry and have a family, he’d never leave. He came from old money and in a family like that, divorce wasn’t an option. He’d stick it out to avoid a scandal. I’d be free to pursue my business. We could travel the world. Our children would go to the best schools and have every opportunity available to them as they grew up.
It was enough. It was what I wanted.
So why was it so hard for me to let go of those stormy grey eyes that haunted me?
Chapter Four
Alyssa
“Sold!”
I breathed a sigh of relief and consulted the printed program in my hands, double checking that my calculations at the beginning of the auction were correct and that the car that was now claimed by a tall man in a dark suit, was in fact the final showpiece of the night. Within half an hour, Rafe and I would be back in the car, headed home. I could kick out of these ridiculously uncomfortable high heels, shower off all the hairspray and makeup, slather myself in lotion, and fall into bed.
Heaven.
My mood had improved since the auction started since our seats were in the front row and I couldn’t see where Finn was sitting. The champagne had worked its magic and numbed my anxiety. I was floating in the happy place between sober and tipsy, just flirting with the edge of a buzz. Rafe kept me tucked against him throughout the auction and as the last winner was declared, I closed my eyes and rested my head on his shoulder. “Take me home?”
“That sounds like a good idea,” he replied. His voice sounded warm and a flutter of hope sparked in my belly. Maybe the drama of the night was over and we could go home together, take a long bath, drink a glass of wine, and put all the arguing and strife behind us.
The volume in the room rose as everyone roused and started getting ready to leave. There wasn’t a clock on the wall, but before Rafe removed his arm from around my shoulders, I sneaked a peek at his watch. It was creeping up on ten o’clock. No wonder I was exhausted. I’d checked into the shelter at six that morning. Rafe pushed to his feet and reached for my hand. “Oh, that must be the mechanic.”
A shiver crept up my spine and I barely found the strength to follow his glance to where Miles and Finn were standing shoulder-to-shoulder toward the back of the room. Finn’s eyes were locked on me and they were talking to each other out of the corner of their mouths. Were they talking about me? Was Finn telling him who I was? My heart skipped at the thought. If Miles mentioned it to Rafe…
No. That wasn’t going to happen. It was all going to be fine. Rafe was ready to leave. We just needed our coats and then we could make a break for it.
I turned back and smiled up at Rafe. He was a few inches taller than me, even in my three-inch heels. “Should we get our coats? You have the ticket?”
Rafe reached into his breast pocket and handed me a shiny token with a number stamped on it. “Fancy,” I mused, flipping the coin over in my hand.
“Let’s stop by and introduce ourselves and then we’ll go.”
My stomach clenched. “Oh, I’m sure they’re trying to get out of here…”
Rafe was already walking toward them. If he heard me, it didn’t matter, he wasn’t going to slow down. Since when did he want some fancy, classic car anyway? I’d never heard him talk about it before. Likely one of his golf buddies suggested it. Some kind of billionaire showcase. You need an impressive watch collection, a garage full of cars that never get driven, at least one tropical vacation home, a passport full of stamps, and access to a private jet—bonus points if you own one.
I followed Rafe, dreading each step.
“You must be this genius mechanic Miles was talking about,” Rafe said with a gregarious smile as we approached. He extended a hand and Finn took it. Was he snarling behind his smile? That wasn’t his natural smile. Three years couldn’t have changed that.
“I don’t know about genius,” Finn said, his eyes on me.
Rafe laughed as if it were a clever joke. “This is Alyssa Archer.”
No. No. No.
>
Finn reached for my hand and I accepted it. I sucked in a breath, holding it in hopes it would stop the flurry of butterflies from getting loose in my stomach. His thumb brushed the outside of my knuckles and the damn things got loose anyway, flapping wildly and turning my insides, out. “Nice to meet you, Alyssa.”
“You too.”
He held onto me for a beat too long and brushed his thumb back over my hand before he released me. What the hell are you playing at? I glared up at him, wishing he could read all the fuck-yous racing through my mind.
Rafe and Miles were talking about some kind of car with a long, mouthful of a name. I picked up bits and pieces of their conversation but couldn’t focus on it with Finn watching me. He wasn’t smiling anymore. Instead, his mouth was set in a firm line. His grey eyes were darker than normal and I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on inside his head. Why wasn’t he acting like our random meeting was anything but awkward and uncomfortable? Why had he come over to me outside the restroom? It didn’t make sense.
The conversation wrapped up and Rafe wrapped his arm back around me. “It was nice to meet you both. We’ll see you on the twenty-ninth.”
“We’ll?” The word popped out of my mouth before I could think it through.
Rafe smiled down at me. “It was supposed to be a surprise, but since we ran into each other, I might as well tell you now…” He dragged a finger, feather light, over my cheek. “The nine eleven Porsche they’re going to customize is actually your birthday gift. I figure you might as well have some say in the design choices.”
“Oh.”
Rafe glanced over at Miles and Finn. “Hear that, gents? She’s in charge. Anything she wants, she gets.”
“We can do that,” Miles said, still smiling. In that moment, I figured Finn hadn’t told him who I was. Or rather—used to be. “We look forward to working with you, Alyssa.”
Finn looked just as startled as I felt, but quickly masked it.
“Goodnight, gentleman. Drive safe.”
They each said their goodbyes and Rafe led me away. We got our coats and he bundled me into the passenger seat of the Bugatti.
