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  She sucked in a hard, deep breath, and tried to reign in the excitement of seeing him, while battling the fear Cal would arrive any minute.

  “I owe you,” she whispered, instead of yelling into the phone, and ended the call.

  “You’re a sight.” Matt’s face brightened, his grin infectious.

  She wanted to rush into his arms but refrained, afraid any moment Cal would show.

  “Man, you’re beautiful,” he said, his tone left no room to doubt his sincerity.

  Her mouth watered and her head whirred. Matt was hot. He’d always been, but he’d filled out even more. His youthful features hardened into a man, a warrior, one that could protect and would do so at any moment. She drooled.

  He sent her the kind of appreciative glance a guy gave a woman he held in admiration, not necessarily by her beauty but for what he felt. Tingles raced over her body and forced her feet to move. He engulfed her into a bear hug. A hug so tight she didn’t think he’d let go. “I’ve missed you,” he said, his whispered voice tight.

  Ohmygod! Her pebbled nipples relished against his hardened chest. He didn’t just have a body that would do any poster justice. No, it wasn’t just that exiting her. It was him. He was her Matt. She slid her hands around him further, squeezed tighter. “I’ve missed you so much!”

  His chuckle vibrated her breasts, her hands. The smart move would be to step back before they became any more of a spectacle. She brushed a kiss to his jaw, ready to accept it may have to be enough, when his lips captured hers. His taste and scent filled her senses. She leaned into the kiss, her body ready to shatter. His tongue slid into her mouth. Like the night by the river, the time she didn’t act on what her body craved. Her panties moistened.

  “Are you wearing panties?” he whispered next to her ear and his hands sliding down over her backside.

  The last time she saw him, he’d asked her not to wear any. That had been four years ago. “If I’d known I would see you, I wouldn’t have.” What am I doing? She pulled her lips inward, tried to keep the panic from registering on her face, and eased away.

  Matt tugged her chair out, and she returned to her seat. She cradled her phone in her left hand, hiding the band of the engagement ring.

  The server placed Trina’s drink on the table and turned to Matt. Alarm etched in the woman’s face, and she shot her a judgmental squint before asking, “May I get you something?

  “I’m good. Thanks. I don’t expect we’ll be staying long,” he said to her, and the server stepped away.

  What to say? He needed to leave five minutes ago. “Um, I’m not sure what Bradley said, but I have—”

  “He mentioned an appointment. Can you cancel? I don’t have much leave.”

  “I can’t.”

  He lifted her right hand from the table and placed it in his. With feather-like strokes, he brushed his fingers across her skin. “I want to get naked with you.”

  She squeaked out a noise, sounding like a whimpering puppy. “Me too, but I have to—”

  “What’s this?” a deep voice boomed.

  She covered her mouth to stop the rising bile from escaping.

  “Why do you have your hands on my fiancé?” Cal, wearing dress pants and a designer shirt, glared at Matt.

  Her stomach lurched. The contents from her belly splattered on Cal’s handcrafted, Italian dress shoes.

  “What the hell?”

  “Don’t yell at her,” Matt ordered.

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” Cal barked.

  Sweat pebbled on her forehead, and her head swam. Cal leaned toward Matt with his hands fisted as if he’d pounce at any moment. “Stop with the pecking order!”

  Tiffany rushed to her with a wet towel. Judgement—What have you done?—written in her expression as she handed her the moist cloth.

  A second later, a man wearing an apron and carrying a wet mop arrived. After receiving his permission, he swiped the ropes along Cal’s shoes and cleaned the spot on the brick.

  She smiled her thanks, and Tiffany and the mop man walked away.

  “Your fiancé?” Matt rose from his chair and stepped backwards as if she’d contracted a contagious disease.

  His questionable voice, the stressful tone in his words, stabbed her to the bone.

  “Yes!” Cal tugged her left hand to show Matt. Her phone clattered on the brick.

  Matt wore an expression she’d never seen. Not even her father executed such a grim face. Tight-lipped, fast breathing, the reddening in his face ripped at her soul. “Now I know why you never answered my texts or my emails. My damn letters. Why didn’t you tell me?” His tone grew rough, the force of his words emphasized by the anger in his eyes.

  Cadence’s prediction came to life. She felt her and Matt’s closeness slipping. Ideally, she wanted to talk to Cal before Matt, clear the air, resolve their relationship. Yet if she didn’t do something fast, she would lose him. She yanked her hand from Cal’s grasp. “Matt—”

  “Consider me dead.” His voice was lethal. Worse, his rigid body language reflected the end of something wonderful. He spun on his heels and stormed off.

  “No! Matt!” A weight clamped her lungs. She couldn’t catch her breath. “Ple-a-se! Let’s talk!”

  He stopped at the edge of the patio. His features turned more sullen than the day she met him after his mother passed. “This is because of your parents. All these years, they tried to stop us from being together. It finally worked.”

  “No, no it’s not like that.”

  “Tell it to your fiancé!”

  Chapter Four

  The sound of tires peeling out of the parking lot rippled her body in waves of convulsions. “No,” she sobbed. “Matt!”

  The truck’s turn signaled flash then disappeared around the bend in the road.

  She blew it.

  “Katrina!” At Cal’s clipped tone, she directed her attention to him. He sat in the chair Matt had vacated. “All this time we’ve been together, you had a thing with him?”

  She expected Cal’s response to be pushy, aggressive, even belittling, not pain-laced questions.

  Her feelings toward Matt she couldn’t deny, never could, regardless of how much she tried. Still, they never had a date, let alone a fling. Until today, her thoughts stayed wishful and not something she thought she would ever have. From her stupid, stupid actions, she wouldn’t get a chance. “No. I haven’t.”

  “But you wanted to?” Cal’s pupils darkened. His neck corded, and he rubbed his wrist, a combination of anguish and anger radiating from him. “He’s the reason you haven’t wanted to seal our commitment. The reason you didn’t want sex.” He dropped his elbows to his knees and shoved his hands through his hair. “Why didn’t you come clean?” His voice filled with the put-upon, suffering breakup tone. “Why accept my ring?”

  “I didn’t accept it. You forced it on me, and I planned to return it.”

  Cal rattled with emotions, his eyes darkened and jaw muscles flexed as if steam would come out of his ears. “When? Next year? After you’ve showed the world what I chump I am?”

  Going into the reasons of how they reached their current predicament, specifically why she allowed herself to live a lie, would prolong the conversation and anger Cal more. Besides, she didn’t understand her own decisions. The last time she felt sure of herself was by the river, throwing rocks and sharing stories with Matt. “You have a right to your anger,” she said, going for understanding. “I treated you unfairly. For that, I apologize. I shouldn’t have let this last as long as I did.” Saying the breakup was her fault and not his would sound lame and only add to his misery. “You’re not a chump.”

  “You did a damn good job of making me feel like one. Why didn’t you call and tell me to go to hell instead of set me up? Why have my dignity brought into question?”

  For him to worry about what outsiders thought, rather than be concerned she didn’t want to marry him, proved he wasn’t invested in their relationship either. The guilt
that she treated him unfairly vanished. He’d used her too, probably for her parents’ connection. She was the chump.

  “Damn, he does mean something to you,” Cal fumed. “Your parents assured me he vanished from your life.”

  Matt’s comment about not receiving her messages rushed back. She snatched her phone off the brick and checked for cracks. Finding none, she pressed the message icon.

  “They assured me that you and I would have something special,” Cal said, his tone dropping to a low roar.

  “My parents?” She asked on automatic pilot to appease him while she searched her incoming messages.

  “Yeah, your parents.”

  Damnit. No messages.

  “He’s not the type of man you need.”

  She dropped her hand to her lap and gaped. “And you are? You wanted to marry me without love. That’s not the kind of man I want. How can you desire a loveless marriage?” Her stomach tightened and the threat of bile rose again, but she’d already thrown up her breakfast and had nothing left. Damn, the spasms didn’t care. They sent wave after wave of cramps across her abdomen.

  “You’re perfect for me,” Cal snapped. “I worked it out on paper, listed the pros and cons. We’ll make it for the long haul.”

  He appeared normal, sounded ordinary, but talked like an alien. How sad he reduced the value of marriage to a business deal. Not her. She needed love, wanted it, and would do everything in her power to get it, to find the big bang. In Matt’s eyes, she saw possibilities.

  “You led me to believe you reciprocated my feelings,” Cal said, drawing her attention.

  “I’ll take full responsibility for making a mess of things. There’s nothing more I can say.” She removed the ring and placed it on the table in front of him. “You deserve someone who loves you.”

  Her phone beeped. The screen asked if she wanted to block Bradley’s number. Strange, she must have hit something when she checked her messages. She pressed no. The screen changed to a list. A few numbers appeared. All numbers she’d blocked when a solicitor called. Thumbing to the end, she arrowed to the next page. One number showed, no name, just the digits, numbers she knew too well—the date she and Matt had met.

  “It may be the date of my mom’s funeral, but I met my best friend that day. I want to remember it,” he had said when she accompanied him and Travis to buy his first cell phone.

  She clasped her hand to her neck and pinched the sides. Had she blocked him by accident? How could she have?

  The day and time the number had been blocked was over a year ago. A year!

  Heat bloomed from her stomach to her face. Your parents assured me he vanished from your life. She eyed Cal with distaste and distrust. Her expression must have been grim since he pulled his hand back. “What have you done?”

  He rested in his chair and drummed his fingers on the table.

  The nerve!

  “I did what I needed to do,” he said matter-of-factly, without questioning what she referred to.

  “You blocked Matt’s number?” She grounded out each syllable. “How dare you!”

  “You think I’d let a man overseas get in the way of what I want? A man who doesn’t even have a financial portfolio?”

  “You pompous ass!”

  “He’s no good for you,” Cal said. “You know it. He doesn’t have the bloodline. He couldn’t honor the Lovett name.”

  For the first time in her life, her heritage disappointed her. “I can’t even live up to the Lovett name. And, I don’t want to!”

  “You can’t be serious.” He chuckled. “Your own mother doesn’t think Mr. Carson is good enough. Your parents would toss you out if you married beneath your class. You’d depart with the money and status for him?”

  Every muscle in her body went slack. She stared, mouth open. “My mother put you up to this?”

  “Katrina—”

  “It’s Trina!”

  “Keep your voice down,” he barked. “I’m still willing to make this work. Give us a chance. Think about it, Trina,” he said the nickname Matt had given her as if he bit into a sour piece of candy. “We’re right together. We have good connections. Good bloodline.”

  “Bloodline? Oh great!” She stood. “You’re comparing me to a canine.”

  “If you walk away from me, I won’t give you a second chance.”

  She regretted several decisions she’d made. Dating Cal topped the list. “You’re mistaken. I won’t be giving YOU the second chance.” Then she added, “Asswipe” just to see Cal cringe, before marching toward the parking lot.

  Matt stormed into a bar in Georgetown, not far from where he left Trina with her fiancé. Loud music blasted his ears; the lights were low. He swept the filled bar, searching for any available woman. It didn’t matter if her hair was short, long, blonde or brunette, but definitely not a redhead. No Trina look-a-likes.

  Two women wearing low cut tops and short skirts, a brunette and a blonde, beamed and waved him to the bar. Exactly what he needed—horny women to boost his spirits.

  “May I buy you ladies a beer?” He moved between them to rest his forearms on the bar.

  The blonde to his right slid her bare toe along his shin. “Yes.”

  He chuckled and gazed at the brunette, who sipped a pink frozen substance through a straw. “I’m good. Thanks.”

  A blonde it was.

  “When you get a chance, two beers, whatever you have on tap,” he said to the bartender, who wore a nametag reading JIM, and tossed a twenty on the counter.

  In two shakes, Jim deposited the drinks in front of them and snatched the money.

  “So,” the blonde said and sidled against him, pressing her breasts into his arm, “you’re rather spiffy. Hot date?”

  The band in the far corner changed the beat to a slow melody.

  He shifted and let her press those delectable morsels square in his chest. “You’re it.”

  “Oh.” She grinned, drank half her beer, and stood. “Let’s go dance. Foreplay, if you know what I mean.”

  He did. For the last decade, foreplay and him had been friends. For what? To learn the woman he craved accepted another man’s ring? To discover she didn’t wait for him to return.

  Nothing had come from him staying celibate, not a damn thing.

  It fucking sucks. He was an idiot. His gunny called it right when he said he sat on his balls.

  No more. She chose to lose her virginity to another. He wouldn’t wait any longer. To him, having sex meant love, not tonight. Tonight he’d get his rocks off.

  He guzzled the beer, enjoying the hell out of the bite. “I’m in.”

  “My name is Sally.”

  She didn’t seem like a person named Sally, but he wouldn’t question her. He tried to think of an alias. “Matt,” he said, cause he couldn’t make himself lie. Damn.

  “Matt,” she hummed, pressing her curves against him. “You’re tense. How about another beer or something stronger to help you relax?”

  “Good idea.” He rolled his neck. He could do this. Sex without love. Without Trina.

  Fuck!

  “Hey, Jim,” Sally yelled to the bartender. “How about two horny bulls?”

  “You got it,” he shouted back.

  “You’ll love it.” Sally’s voice dripped with desire and promises. “By the time you drink a shot or two of vodka, tequila, and rum, you’ll feel like a horny bull. Whoever is messing with your head,” she said and pressed her finger to his temple, “will adios.”

  Jim plopped two drinks onto the counter.

  “Two more.” Sally held up two fingers.

  “You sure your guy can handle it? He’s not a regular.”

  He didn’t drink much, but tonight he’d consider it. “I’m good.”

  The alcohol burned. The oak taste warmed his veins, like putting a protective layer around his heart. The next shot went down smooth, and his head buzzed. “Ready to dance?” Not waiting for her to respond, he threw a twenty on the bar, latched onto her h
and, and maneuvered around the crowd to the dance floor.

  They squeezed into a spot on the dance floor. Barefoot, she pressed her body into his, and slid her lips along his throat.

  He wrapped a hand around her back and nudged her even closer. He wanted this, sex— hard and fast. For the first time, he cared less about his reckless, meaningless behavior and didn’t worry about the consequences.

  Her leg moved between his as they stepped in tune with the beat.

  With each move, her thigh pressed into his groin. He cupped her butt and pressed his lips to hers.

  The woman melted and purred.

  His fucking dick didn’t take the hint.

  This was Trina’s fault. Whenever she came close, his body stirred. Hell, he watched her across the room and got a throbbing hard-on. This afternoon, before she dumped the bomb, he possessed one.

  He pulled Sally closer, felt her nipples poking him, and…nothing! No excitement! No thrill.

  “Matt!” His brother’s deep voice drew his attention. Travis’ hardened features and dark clothes urged people to sidestep him, either out of respect or out of fear from the badass attitude.

  “How’d you find me?”

  “You didn’t answer your phone.”

  “Huh?” He hadn’t heard it.

  “So I tracked you.” Travis said.

  A master at tracking people for a living; of course he found him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Not like this, man.” Travis’ warning tone irked him. “You’ll never forgive yourself.”

  Sally put distance between them, considered him, then Travis. “What is he talking about?”

  He had enough booze in his system not to care how crazed he sounded. “He doesn’t want me to fuck you.” And then because he liked pissing his brother off, he added, “He’ll get jealous.”

  “He’s… you’re... okay.” Sally put a finger to her lips. “Um, you shocked me.”

  “We’re not nothing,” Travis snapped. “Except my little brother needs to get the hell out of here.”

  “Always the parent,” he shot back.

  “Don’t,” Travis used his big brother authoritative tone.