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“Absolutely.” Cassie folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t need a man.”
“You’re afraid.”
“I am not afraid.”
Burned by having her heart puréed by the lecherous viper she had loved for four years and almost married? Maybe…
Afraid of trusting her judgment when it came to men? Only when it came to those who were actually breathing.
Certain she was going to end up a wobbly spinster who had conversations with major appliances on a regular basis because she had no one else to talk to? Entirely possible.
But afraid of dating? Not a chance.
“Ah-hah!” Leo grabbed Cassie’s arm. “I see two hot guys I don’t know. Let’s go introduce ourselves.”
“Guys?” As Leo led her around the edge of the dance floor, Cassie’s chest tightened and her breath began wheezing in her lungs. She leaned back and tried to twist her arm out of Leo’s grasp. “Let go of me.”
“No.” Leo tightened her grip on Cassie’s arm. “You look like an idiot fighting me. Smile and look sexy.”
“I hate you,” Cassie managed to whisper, just before Leo stopped in the darkened corner where two men—wearing suits and sporting broad shoulders and narrow waists—were standing.
“Hi, I’m Leo.”
Both men nodded and grunted something, but Cassie couldn’t hear them over the pounding music and surrounding babble of neighboring party-goers. All she could do was stare at the man on the right. Taller than his friend by at least a family pack of Oreos, his hair was dark, his eyes coal-black, and the shadow of a day’s whiskers framed his jaw.
And amazingly enough, he wasn’t gawking at Leo, drooling for one of her smiles. He was inspecting Cassie in the way a man inspected a woman. Whew. No one had looked at her like that in years.
It must be her single status. She was subconsciously sending out mating vibes that only the sexiest and most worthy men would respond to. Cassie pheromones combined with her gorgeous tan were obviously a powerful combination. See? She didn’t need to be married. This dating thing would be a breeze.
“We’re going to go dance. See you in a little bit,” Leo said, slipping her arm through the elbow of the other man.
“What?” Cassie squawked. Nice, Cassie. Sound a little more panicked about being left alone with the sexiest man she’d noticed in years. Decades even.
So much for the facade of being suave, sophisticated and mentally sound.
Leo was already gone, whirling into the crowd with her latest conquest in tow.
Cassie cleared her throat and tried to think of what a single woman was supposed to say to a devastatingly handsome man at a New Year’s Eve celebration. For the last four years, while she’d been happily taken, she could rattle off brilliantly engaging conversation with anyone. But now that she was single, it was as if her brain had abandoned her to go play Ping Pong and her tongue had gone off to watch the match.
“I’m Ty.” Obviously not suffering from the same affliction as she was, Ty held out his hand and sounded as if he were in complete control of all his faculties.
“Hi.” She shook his hand, startled by the firmness of his grasp. Like a steel vise under the flesh, a clamp that could bind her and trap her in all sorts of wonderfully interesting ways.…
“And your name is?” Ty prompted.
“Oh. Right. It’s…” Why had she let Leo take the fudge with her? “My name…it’s…Cassie.” Phew. The tough part out of the way.
Ty nodded.
She smiled.
The music blared.
Wow, was she a dazzling conversationalist or what? Scintillating. It was astonishing she’d had only the one marriage proposal.
“So, um…”
He took his eyes off the dance floor. “Yes?”
“I…” Where was her brain? “Nice suit.”
“Came straight from work.”
“Work? But it’s…” She glanced at the watch that hid the evidence of her marvelously bronzed skin. Maybe she should switch it to her other wrist. “It’s almost eleven o’clock on a New Year’s Eve. What do you do?”
“Financial consultant.”
“Oh.” Think of an interesting response. “I had a piggy bank when I was a kid.”
He cocked an amused eyebrow. “Was it pink?”
“Yes. I named her Willemina and…” Cassie stopped.
“Oh, wait. You were making fun of me.”
“Not at all. I had a piggy bank of the Pillsbury Doughboy. He’s my inspiration.” But Ty was grinning now, his eyes twinkling.
Cassie grimaced. “Okay, so it wasn’t the smoothest pickup line.”
“You were trying to pick me up?” He shot her a wary glance.
“Pick you up…” Why hadn’t she left her tongue at home tonight? First thing Monday morning, she was having it surgically removed. “No, I meant…um, it was…casual conversation…”
Ty grunted and she felt his eyes on her again. “Where’d you get the tan?”
Cassie couldn’t stop the swell of warmth that surged through her veins. He’d noticed her sun-kissed skin. Even Leo hadn’t noticed. Grab this man and run.
Ack! Shut up, hormones. She wasn’t interested in a man. She was single and damn happy about it. “I just got back from the Bahamas. My honeymoon.”
Her honeymoon? Portraying herself as married to an incredibly handsome man who was perceptive enough to notice her tan? Just plain stupid. Definite choke under pressure. Or it would be if she’d been trying to impress him. Which she wasn’t.
Ty’s gaze flicked to her left hand, one eyebrow quirking when he spotted her bare finger.
Self-consciously, Cassie slid her hand out of view. “Um. It wasn’t actually my honeymoon. I mean, it was supposed to be my honeymoon. I went alone.”
Both of his luxuriously dark eyebrows were raised now and he wasn’t looking at her tan anymore. He was staring into her eyes, as if he really wanted to know what secrets she was hiding.
Or she was hallucinating from too much chocolate.
“How’d you end up going on your honeymoon alone? Sounds like an interesting story.”
“You must be new in town.”
He blinked, probably startled by the change in subject. “Actually, I’ve lived here for six months,” he said. “Why?”
“Are you a hermit? It’s pretty much the only way you could have lived here and not heard about my amazing wedding or lack thereof.”
“That juicy, huh?”
“In comparison to the number of other interesting things that happen in this town during December, yes.” She lifted her brow. “So? Hermit?”
He glanced at her. “I work.”
“You mean, you never get out of the house to socialize so you have no idea what goes on in this town and you have no friends?” Amazing! One person in town with whom her reputation was intact! A glorious feeling!
He narrowed his eyes, obviously not appreciating her free therapy. “So? What happened with your wedding?” He touched her arm suddenly. “Unless you don’t want to talk about it. I didn’t mean to pry.”
Oh, she was definitely going to melt. A seriously hot guy who respected her privacy. What more could a woman ask for?
Maybe being single wouldn’t be so bad, after all.
“Cassie? Is that you?” The voice of her ex-fiancé shattered her fantasy like a rock through a stained glass window.
I don’t hear you.
“Cassie?”
Crud. She’d heard that. Go away.
But the whine of his voice grew closer and she knew the infectious poison wasn’t going to be deflected. He was coming. She slapped her hand against the wall and bent over, bracing herself as her stomach congealed into a sodden lump, dropped to her toes and began to ooze out the soles of her feet.
What a fine time to discover she wasn’t actually ready to face Drew yet. It would have been exponentially more convenient to have that realization before she’d vomited all over his feet. And Ty’s feet. Not that she was actually going to vomit. She was way too emotionally together to do something pathetic like that.
She hoped.
Note to self: sometimes delusions weren’t a good thing. Like thinking she could fly. Imagine if she thought she could fly, and jumped off the Empire State Building. A clear example of when a delusion could be a bad thing.
Or imagine attending a dance where your ex-fiancé would be. Imagine thinking you were prepared to face him, only to learn that no, you actually weren’t.
A great little nugget she’d be sure to incorporate into her future de-stressing strategies.
See? Something good could come of every situation. Was she a plucky survivor or what?
“Are you okay?” Ty’s amused expression had morphed into one of endearingly genuine concern. Or it would have been endearing if she wasn’t feeling so ill. What was up with the chocolate? It obviously wasn’t working exceptionally well at the moment. He touched her shoulder, his hand warm and reassuring through the soft angora. “You don’t look so hot.”
“Thanks. It’s every girl’s dream to be told she doesn’t look hot.” Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
Ty’s cheeks turned a faint red, or at least she thought they did. It was hard to tell in the dim light with her eyes getting all foggy and the room starting to spin. “I didn’t mean it like you didn’t look good. You do look good. Pretty. Not that I noticed. I just meant you look like you don’t feel well.”
She would have patted his arm in consolation, if she weren’t clinging to the wall for dear life. “Just a touch of indigestion. I’m fine. Really.”
“Cassie! It is you.” An unwelcome hand latched on to her arm. “I didn’t realize you were back.”
She saw Ty’s eyes flick over her shoulder, and she knew this was her moment. All eyes in the room would be surreptitiously aimed in their direction, hoping for a scandal, a scene…anything to gossip about.
She could spin around, slam her knee into Drew’s crotch and then saunter off as if she were a total diva. Or she could remember that some people in the room were future clients and might not be all that impressed with a stress management consultant perpetrating violent acts on the weaker sex.
Refusing to contemplate the irony that her emergency stash of chocolate was in Leo’s purse on the dance floor, much too far away to be of any use whatsoever, Cassie took a deep breath and lifted her chin.
Then she plastered a brilliant smile on her face and turned to face her ex-fiancé, Drew Smothers. “Hi, Drew.”
There he was, in his blond glory, his suit that…hmmm…didn’t seem to fit nearly as well as Ty’s did. And he was wonderfully pale, a victim of December in Gardenbloom.
“Didn’t you take our tickets?” he asked.
She frowned. “Yes.”
“Bad weather?”
Bastard. Cassie peeled off her watch and stuck out her wrist. “Any more questions?”
“Oh. I see. Your skin never did take to the sun well, did it?”
“Ty noticed my tan.”
“Ty?” Drew echoed blankly.
Sweet, wonderful Ty settled his left arm around her waist, then extended his right hand toward Drew. “Ty Parker. Nice to meet you.”
Good God. Not only was Ty a total hottie, but he was perceptive, too. Unbelievable.
Drew barely managed a handshake, gawking at Cassie. “He’s…he’s with you? But…I assumed you’d be alone.”
“She’s not.” Ty wrapped his arm tighter around Cassie’s waist, his thumb rubbing almost absently against her hip. And he smelled damn good. Tantalizingly delicious. Like spicy woods. Raw and masculine, yet refined and tender. She inhaled deeply, trying desperately not to be obvious as she prepared to pass out from olfactory bliss.
Maybe she’d add that to her list of de-stressors. Soothing scents…which would obviously differ from person to person.
She knew what worked for her. Maybe she could bottle Ty and keep him on her dresser.
Or by her bed.
Or better yet, in her bed.
“Cassie’s with me,” Ty said possessively, sending chills down her spine.
He swung his arm around her shoulder and hauled her up against his side. The man was like a rock and she fit perfectly under his arm. The heat from his body was so intense that she felt her insides begin to bubble and simmer. “You haven’t introduced yourself, yet,” Ty added. “Always like to meet the folks from my girlfriend’s life.”
His girlfriend?
