Chapter One
SYLVIE FOUGHT BACK THE DESIRE to kick Alan’s shin. She hated it when he acted like a dick. It brought out The Ugly in her, and right now The Ugly wanted out to play.
Alan smiled, his bleached white teeth gleaming in the gloom of the cab’s back seat. “Nothing like the city, is there, babe? Gets me pumped up. It’s not boring like Zeke’s Bend. Mmm, look over there.” He pointed at the sidewalk where two pretty women were walking hand-in-hand. “Wonder if they’d like to have a third tonight. Har-har!”
Sylvie rolled her eyes. “If they did, they’d be more interested in me than you.”
“Har-har! Good one. Maybe they’d take us both. I wouldn’t mind seein’ some of that.” He peered out the cab window like a starving kid at a cupcake factory.
He was searching for more women to throw in her face. He’d been acting this way the entire trip. Sylvie wished she’d stayed home rather than giving in to his whining and coming to this boring conference weekend in Chicago.
As if she cared about the latest breakthroughs in chiropractic medicine. She didn’t, not at all, never would, not if she lived to be a hundred years old. Sitting through the mind-numbing workshops and lectures had been worse than watching paint dry. She was a hairdresser and small business owner, not a chiropractor. That was Alan’s job.
It was typically selfish that he’d wanted her beside him during the panels and classes. She could have been out doing something more fun, like being tortured on a rack or having her fingernails pulled out one by one. Yes, that would have been more fun than attending Dr. Sleepmore’s lecture on … what was it? Damn. She couldn’t remember. Something about toe bones. The memory of it was enough to send her into a doze.
If the boring conference wasn’t bad enough, it was freezing cold, what with it being January. Not exactly the best time of year to visit the city.
And now, as if the whole day being a frozen yawn-fest weren’t enough, Alan was ruining their night out by ogling every woman they passed. She’d about had enough. Sylvie Jones was not the kind of woman to let a man —
“Hot damn!” Alan interrupted. “Look at that one! You think those are fake or real? Eh, who cares? They’re way bigger than yours. Har-har! Why don’t we get you a pair? I’ll pay half.”
And she’d pay the other half? Hilarious. What the hell was wrong with her girls, anyway? Sylvie thought they were fine as they were. Thinking, however, was becoming a bad idea; the more she thought, the madder she got.
“Aw,” Alan said, “are you pouting? Did I make you feel bad about your itty titties? Don’t worry, babe. I don’t expect you to compete with lookers like these in the city.”
Sylvie’s brain paused. It was like she’d blown a mental fuse. Itty titties? Can't compete with lookers? What the hell? Maybe he was on drugs or something.
No, Alan was just a jackass. It really was time to make a decision about him. It might not be the ideal time and place to do it, but if she waited, there was a risk she might reconsider. She shuddered. Gawd. She couldn’t risk that.
Something snapped inside her and everything became easy. She realized the snapping sensation came from the severing of the invisible cord that connected her to Alan. Over time, the frayed cord had grown thinner and thinner, the fibers worn down by Alan’s crappy behavior like the scraping of an emery board. This break had been a long time coming and there was no putting the pieces back together.
During their time together, she’d tried to repair the ongoing damage with assurances to herself like, “He didn’t mean it,” or “You’re just being sensitive,” or “Once you get him trained up properly he won’t be such a prick.”
But all those repairs had been for nothing.
Tonight, their connection was severed, forever broken by one shitty comment too many. Broken by Mr. Itty Titty himself. It was over, so far gone that she wasn’t even sorry about it.
“Did you hear me?” Alan asked. “I said I’ll pay half for a pair of new —?”
“Fuck you, Alan,” Sylvie said. She leaned forward and spoke to the taxi driver. “Pull over, please.”
Alan laughed, his blonde hair falling across his forehead. He kept the front long, she knew, because it covered up his receding hairline, or, at least, he thought it did. The man was more vain about his hair than a shampoo model.
“Are we there already?” Alan asked. “Or are you upset and having a tantrum?”
What had she ever seen in this asshole? Had he always been this bad? No, he hadn’t. Not in the beginning.
He’d been sweet and generous and he’d treated her well. She’d thought that was who he was. But he’d been lying, suckering her in for what? Did he think Sylvie was a doormat?
Maybe she had been, for a while. But no more.
She glanced out the window beyond Alan and saw they were passing a fancy hotel. She spoke to the cabbie. “Pull over right here, please.”
Cursing in some language other than English, the driver swerved right, jerking to a halt beside the curb.
She thought he said, “Where who here crave wimmins.” Or it might have been, “Here you are, crazy woman.” It was hard to say which one was accurate.
The uniformed hotel doorman rushed out and opened the cab door.
Alan waved his hand at him. “No, go on. No one’s getting out here.”
“Fuck you, Alan,” Sylvie repeated, enjoying the sound of it on her tongue. She wanted to say it again, but figured twice was sufficient. “I’m getting out.”
“Calm down for God’s sake.” He sighed loudly. “You’re always getting worked up over some dumb thing or other. I was just yanking your chain. Get a sense of humor, would you?”
The doorman leaned down and looked inside. “Welcome to the Grand
e City Hotel. Do you have luggage?”
“No,” Sylvie said, “it will just be me.”
“The hell it will,” Alan said, then turned to the doorman. “Shut the damned door.” To the cabbie, he said, “Get going or we’ll be late and lose our reservation.”
The cabbie looked at Sylvie. The doorman looked at Sylvie. Alan glared at the cabbie and tried to pull the door closed.
Sylvie was finished with it. She opened the door on her side of the cab and stepped out into traffic. A car whizzed by, laying on the horn. She didn’t care. She dashed around the rear of the taxi to safety, then hopped onto the sidewalk, heels be damned, and marched toward the hotel, pulling her coat tightly around herself.
Alan jumped out of the cab and charged after her. He grabbed her arm and turned her around. “Stop acting like a spoiled child and get back in the taxi.”
“Listen,” she said. “If you want to keep that hand, you’d better let go of my arm. Let me go before I yell for the police.”
“Quit exaggerating,” he sneered, but he released her arm. “Okay, I get it. You’re no fun tonight. Understood. Now get in the cab so we can, at least, get something to eat before you ruin the rest of this trip.”
“Me? I ruined the trip?” Sylvie found she still had some outrage left in her and she found it annoying. “You are such a … a … I’m not going to say it.” She took a deep breath then continued. “We’re over, Alan. You can’t throw other women at me and think I’m going to put up with it forever. You want to drag me down, but I know my worth, and I’m worth twice, no, four times what you are. Ten times. It’s over.”
He glared at her. “You really are out of your depth. Fine. Go on. You’ll come running back. Maybe I’ll be waiting for you and maybe I won’t. Plenty more where you came from.”
She stared at him and wondered how she’d ever found this spray-tanned, washed-up, fake-beachy-dude attractive. “That’s big talk there, Alan. Face it, you’ve blown it.”
She gestured up and down herself. “You had all this and you threw it away. You got ahead of yourself and forgot what’s what. B-i-i-i-g mistake. Don’t think for a minute that you’re ever getting this back. It’s gone. Forever. Watch it walk away.”
She turned on her heel and sashayed to the front doors, letting the dickhead get a good rear view of what he’d never have again. Whatever it was that Alan was spewing behind her, she didn’t hear it. He was nothing but a flea on the sidewalk — too little to be heard.
The doorman dashed up in front of her, opening the door for her in the nick of time. He gave her an approving smile and nod of respect as she passed.
Now there was somebody who knew what was up.
Chapter Two
AN HOUR AND A HALF later, Sylvie was nursing her second drink at the Grande City Hotel bar and had considerably cooled down.
The bar accomplished some of that with its old world charm, dark wood paneling, shiny brass fixtures, and gleaming mirrors behind rows of colorful liquor bottles. It had the feel of another era, a time when gentleman lounged in wingback chairs, smoked cigars and sipped fine scotch while reading a financial newspaper.
It hadn’t taken long for Sylvie to regret rashly dumping Alan while on a visit to a strange city. All her things were in their hotel room, and although she had her own card key, it didn’t mean she relished returning and spending the night with her now-ex. Too bad she couldn’t have put up with him until the next day when they were back home.
Thank God, though, she’d insisted on carrying her own plane ticket. Or, more like, thank Momma. She was the one who’d harped at Sylvie about always having a way to get yourself home on your own.
Momma knew well the dangers of relying on a man to take care of her. Sylvie’s father had dumped Momma, Sylvie, and her younger brother, Will, at a truck stop in Arizona when she’d been eight. That had been one terrifying vacation. No money, no transportation, no way home. Just a pile of luggage baking on the asphalt parking lot.
To this day, the smell of hot tar made her nauseous.
So, hell yeah she had her ticket home in her purse. She’d never be without a way home to Zeke’s Bend.
She sighed and swirled her drink. She didn’t feel the least bit buzzed. Maybe that was the problem. She needed to quit nursing the booze and get down to serious action.
She thought about calling her cousins and best friends, Phae and Neesa, to tell them what had happened. She knew they’d be thrilled that she’d dumped Alan, and that’s probably what kept her from calling.
Her cousins never said it in so many words, but Sylvie understood their feelings about Alan weren’t positive, and it wasn’t just because Sylvie considered herself to be something of a psychic.
Okay, so she wasn’t a great psychic, but sometimes, she’d get these premonitions, and when she got them, she obeyed.
A small voice inside her asked why she hadn’t predicted Alan would turn into a top-notch asshole, but she brushed it aside. That didn’t have anything to do with her being a little bit psychic.
So she wouldn’t call Phae and Neesa because she wasn’t in a place yet to hear the relief that would be in their voices.
She’d been approached several times in the past hour by men in the bar, some wanting to buy her a drink, all of them wanting to chat her up. Though their attention had made her feel good after Alan’s putdowns, she’d brushed the men aside. It was too soon to be interested in anyone. She wanted to be left alone to ponder why she’d wasted so much time fiddling with a tool.
Maybe she’d head over to the restaurant, order some dinner. Maybe she’d pull out her credit card and book a night’s stay in the fancy hotel if they had an available room. Talk about a splurge. She wondered how much a room cost in a place like this.
Maybe she’d ask the bartender the next time he came by.
A movement to her right drew her eye. She glanced toward the entrance and then did a double take.
A tall man stood in the arched entryway, and not just any man. A drop-dead gorgeous man.
He was crazy tall, almost basketball player height. It was impossible to know for sure, but she’d bet he was well over six and a half feet tall. He was huge, like a giant who had wandered in out of a different dimension. His sheer size was both intimidating and awesome. The guy could seriously fill a doorway and command attention.
Styled cleanly and simply, his dark hair was brushed back and away from chiseled features. And his light tan didn’t come from a spray can like Alan’s; that was clear enough. It came from hours spent on exclusive beaches, from piloting fancy sloops and playing tennis at private clubs. That was a rich man’s tan if she’d ever seen one (not that she’d seen many)?.
Oh, and he could dress, too. He wore an impeccably tailored dark suit and tie, every line conforming to his muscular body. Shiny black shoes sparkled on his long feet, and Sylvie couldn’t help but speculate about the old adage of what big feet on a man were supposed to mean.
She didn’t think any red-blooded woman could look at this man and not speculate about something. He stood with a loose and casual air that came from complete confidence, and his confidence was as much a draw as his appearance, perhaps more.
He scanned the room, his vivid green eyes piercing the dim lighting. It was like he owned the place, hell, like he owned the city, and everyone else was just a cold-water-flat renter.
When his gaze met Sylvie’s, his arched brows shot up and a slow grin stretched across his sexy mouth.
Sylvie was taken aback. Was he smiling at her? Unlikely.
He began walking, his gait smooth and manly, like a debonair actor from an old movie. He held her gaze all the while as if he was heading for her.
Wait. Was he walking toward her?
Sylvie’s temperature shot up. It couldn’t be. No.
But yes. Yes, this Greek-god-statue of a man was coming straight at her. Gulp.
Never one to forget her raising, Sylvie returned the handsome stranger’s smile.
He fa
ltered for a split second. Was that a moment of uncertainty on those confident features? Surely not. She’d probably misread it. He was suave as ever now.
He came up and nodded once at the stool beside her. “May I?”
“Of course,” she said. Like anyone would deny this guy anything. Up close, he was even taller and larger. Why was she feeling all funny inside?
The bartender popped up behind the bar as if from out of nowhere.
Sitting, the handsome man glanced at the bartender in brief acknowledgment. “I’ll have whatever the lady’s having.”
The bartender nodded crisply and rushed off. She guessed that was rich white guy service in action. It was almost comical how eager the bartender was to please, and it helped snap Sylvie back to herself.
“Do people always wait on you like that?” she asked, gently teasing.
“Most of the time,” he said. “I’d think it can’t be much different for a woman as beautiful as you. Men must always be stumbling over themselves to give you whatever you want.”
“They are. Just yesterday a man gave me a hundred-foot yacht. I had to return it, though. The color clashed with my ruby-encrusted bikini.”
“A ruby-encrusted bikini. There’s a mental image I won’t soon forget.”
“You might as well. I’ve already worn the suit once, and I never wear anything twice.”
“Of course not,” he said, grinning. “I’m crushed.”
“Not for long, I’ll bet. There have to be crowds of employees waiting just outside to cater to your every whim.”
He chuckled, his eyes twinkling. “The service really got it right this time. I predict we’re going to get along very well. I’m Heath, as you know. And your name is Kassy, yes?”
Sylvie had no idea what he was talking about. Service? He acted like he knew her, kind of. Like a blind date, maybe? Or a dating site?
He gave her a funny look. “You were waiting for me, weren’t you? I was told I’d be meeting Kassy in a champagne silk dress and,” he gestured at her, “that dress looks champagne to me.”
“Um, yeah,” Sylvie said, trying to think fast.