Jacqueline opened the door. Too quickly. She wasn’t prepared for who was on the other side, and then there was no time to control her reaction.
“You!” she exclaimed. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Derek gave an easy smile. “Jacqueline.”
Jacqueline froze. That smile, those crisp light-blue eyes and the equally un-crisp collars on his shirt—how many times had she asked him to hang his clothes up instead of throwing them on the floor after she’d ironed them…
She shook herself. “Why are you here?” she repeated.
“Can we talk? Inside?” He shot her that smile again and tried to get past her. She stepped in front of him. “Come on, Jacqueline. It’s been years. You can’t keep me out of my own house.”
“It’s not your house,” she said automatically. “You gave it to me in the settlement. Remember?”
“Well, yeah…” He leaned back, hands on his hips as he looked up at the house. “It’s just got so many memories, you know?”
I know.
“So, you gonna let me in?”
“Why were you at the Spring Fling?”
Derek eyeballed her. “Why weren’t you? You always used to love that sort of rubbish.”
Jacqueline’s spine went wobbly. He was looking for me? She was instantly suspicious.
“Come on, Jackie,” Derek said, smiling. “Let me inside. There’s something I want to talk with you about.”
“Oh, now you want to talk?” Jacqueline couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“Here we go again.” Derek turned away, but not so quickly she missed him rolling his eyes.
“What do you mean, again?” The wobbliness in Jacqueline’s spine grew prickles. “We’ve never talked about what happened. I never even got a chance to tell you how you made me feel! I—oh, shit, no.”
Another car pulled up on the other side of the street. One she recognized. God, it would be too much to hope it was Harrison or Lainie, wouldn’t it? It was their car after all—but—
Arlo stepped out of the driver’s seat and the bottom fell out of Jacqueline’s stomach.
I can’t believe this is happening. I’m going to face off with the man who divorced me because I can’t have kids… and the man whose heart I’m going to break for the same reason.
20
Arlo
The hair on the back of Arlo’s neck prickled. He sensed where Jacqueline was even before he saw her, a dark shape in the doorframe, silhouetted by the light inside.
There was a man on the step in front of her.
Arlo crossed the street in a few long strides. “Is this man bothering you, Jacqueline?”
Jacqueline’s face was tense. Her hair was tied back, but she gestured as though she was pushing it off her face anyway. “Arlo, now’s—”
“I’m not bothering her. I’m her ex-husband. Who the hell are you?”
“I’m—” Her mate. The word twisted on his tongue. He wanted it to be true, but he couldn’t say it, and not just because the scowling man in front of him wasn’t a shifter.
If Jacqueline rejected him, all the words in the world wouldn’t make it true.
He stared at Jacqueline imploringly. Her eyes softened, just for a moment, and then went sharp with a pain that cut straight through his chest.