Blazing Midsummer Nights

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They made the rounds saying hello, and he congratulated the bride and groom. Then, when his eyes met Mimi’s, he murmured, “Of course, Mimi and I have already met.” Some spark of wickedness made him want to pierce a tiny bit of air out of the stiff-necked male model still hovering over Mimi’s chair. “Did you ever figure out what to do about that problem you were having?”

She shot him a malevolent glare, but quickly forced a smile to her beautiful lips. “All figured out.” Her chin going up, she added, “Thanks for that last suggestion you called out. I have a feeling that’s definitely going to do the trick.”

His last suggestion. Commando.

Xander swallowed hard, trying not to think about how silky that dress must feel against her bare skin. And especially not to think about who she was wearing all that sexy nothingness for.

“Xander?” said the lucky son of a bitch, his smile tight. “What an … interesting name.”

“Thanks. Yours was Dimitri, right?” he replied evenly, letting his emphasis say what he wanted to say. Let the other guy’s hypocrisy come through all on its own. Who the hell was he, anyway, the name police?

“Okay, everyone,” Anna interjected, cutting through the sudden tension that had erupted between them, “time for our party favors!”

“You shouldn’t have,” said the bride, Lyssa, a tall, attractive woman who looked like an Amazon. She had a good three inches of height on her groom, who’d been introduced as Duke.

“It’s just for fun,” Anna said as she reached under the table and retrieved a large, white-lace-covered box. “Everyone gets one. Before you put your hand inside, I want you to think about what you’d most like to know about your life.”

She passed the box around. The guests reached in one by one and pulled out plastic-wrapped fortune cookies, reading out the fortunes as they were drawn. One was apparently going to come into some money, another was about to experience high highs and low lows and a third was destined to change the world.

Of course, they all played the standard, sexy fortune-cookie game—adding the words between the sheets after the fortune. There was a lot of commentary about the high highs to be had between the sheets, and he found himself laughing along with the group, most of whom were friendly, young professionals. He might be the only blue-collar guy here, and a stranger to them all, but he didn’t feel at all an outsider. Southerners just had a gift for making people feel welcome.

When Mimi drew out her fortune—after one more admonishment from Anna to be sure to think about what she wanted—Xander really started getting interested. What, he wondered, did she most want to know about in her life?

Anna was the first to notice there was more than one tiny slip of paper within Mimi’s cookie. “Ooh, a double fortune, that’s lucky!”

Mimi merely smiled and plucked the paper free, scraping away the crumbs. Drawing them closer, she said, “There are actually three.”

The three tiny slips were stuck together, some kind of factory mistake, but Anna oohed and aahed some more. Her husband, Obi-Wan, who’d been pretty quiet tonight and hadn’t had much to say to anyone, piped in. “Must have been some hard concentrating you were doing there, Mimi. The universe is definitely trying to answer your question.”

“Read them out loud,” someone called.

Mimi smiled and opened her mouth to read the first one. But she just as quickly closed it. Her fist closed around the papers and she reached for her glass of wine.

“What’s wrong?” asked Dimitri.

“Nothing. It’s just silly. Let someone else have a turn.”

“Not until you read,” Xander insisted, something making him want to know what it was she didn’t want to share.

She frowned at him, then quickly looked away. But, as if realizing nobody was going to let her get away with ignoring her fortunes, she finally unclenched her fingers and lifted the slips again. Her voice low, she read the first one.

“‘The man of your dreams is always there to catch you when you fall.’”

“Between the sheets,” called one tipsy female.

Everyone laughed. Everyone except Mimi. And Xander. And Dimitri. Because the guy might be okay-looking, and he might be rich. But Xander wasn’t sure he met the dashing-hero definition. At least, that’s what Xander was telling himself.

“Read the next one,” said the bride-to-be.

Mimi sighed, took a deep breath, then read. “‘The man of your dreams knows what you really want and how you really want it.’”

That one earned some wolf whistles, catcalls and, of course, the obligatory bed reference. Mimi shot a heated glance at her landlady, obviously wondering—as was Xander—if she’d been set up. But he didn’t see how she could have been, considering she’d dug the cookie out of a huge box and all the other fortunes read so far had been normal.

The laughter and whispers died pretty quickly this time. Everyone was curious. Because, not only was Mimi’s cookie filled with more than one fortune, but they also seemed to be related. And to have a very pointed, deliberate theme.

Dimitri’s hand tightened on Mimi’s shoulder, and she turned her head to look up at him. They shared a smile that, to everyone at the party, looked tender and romantic. The sort of smile lovers share.

They weren’t lovers. Not yet. But hell, every one of these fortunes she was reading seemed to hint they were about to take that step. That shared smile seemed to confirm it.

Some emotion hit him hard in the chest. Xander recognized it immediately: regret. This was the wrong time and place. She’d already made her choice. A day ago, before she’d made up her mind to lure the other guy into bed, maybe Xander would have had a chance with her. Now? It was too damn late.

His mouth tight and his jaw tighter, he began to back away, wanting to exit the party unnoticed. He’d taken his shot—as much of one as he could take, anyway—and recognized the truth. Whatever might have happened between him and Mimi Burdette just wasn’t meant to be.

Which meant it was time to go. He would melt out of her night as quietly and stealthily as he’d entered it.

But before he walked through the back door into the house, he heard her announce she was going to read the third fortune. Something made him wait and listen, nearly hidden in the shadows of the house.

Mimi studied the slip in silence. Lifting her eyes, she looked around as if searching for someone. He watched her, unnoticed, unseen, soon to be forgotten. Then, clearing her throat, she read her third and final fortune.

“‘The man of your dreams will slip away unless you have the courage to go after him.’”

THE PARTY WOUND DOWN at around midnight. As the minutes ticked by, the lawn emptied, and Dimitri came up to thank Anna and say good-night, Mimi realized something—she’d completely forgotten she had intended to seduce this man tonight. She hadn’t just put the thought out of her mind because she couldn’t evaluate how she felt about it, but had actually forgotten entirely. Which sure didn’t say much for how excited she was about the prospect of going to bed with him.

So it was a good thing she wouldn’t be.

She just couldn’t. Not after that kiss from another man. Not after the hours she’d spent reliving that kiss, to the point where she’d gotten lost in the middle of more than one party conversation.

“Good night. Thank you again,” Dimitri said, gracious, as always.

“You’re very welcome,” Anna replied with a faint smile.

Mimi walked him to the gate, their arms linked, their steps perfectly matched. She’d noticed before that they always fell into step together, an easy synchronicity that spoke of familiarity and comfort. Heck, maybe that was why she wasn’t brokenhearted about not going to bed with him tonight. Maybe they were too