Chapter Three

Hannah…

Why am I in the men’s bathroom? I bristle with that question, which should embarrass me but really just angers me. Really, truly, I bristle with just about everything to do with this man, and I’m not a bristler, and yes, that’s a word. Look it up in the awkward ex dictionary; it’s right there with about ten other words and/or phrases that I can’t speak out loud. But back to bristling. It’s not me. You can’t bristle in the fashion industry in L.A. without getting run over. You can’t bristle over your ex jerk of a fiancé without getting run over, either. You certainly can’t think about all the times you were intimate and naked with him without just being plain stupid. I’m not going to be stupid with this man. Been there, done that, which brings me back to why am I in the men’s bathroom? Inside the very stupidity of that action is a bit of a poetic explanation and a warning.

Roarke is every reason I’ve ever been stupid.

“I blame you,” I say, pushing away from him, his hands falling away from me, and I tell myself that’s what I want. Away from Roarke, with him no longer touching me, but I’m cold everywhere I was hot seconds before. “You’re the reason I’m in the men’s bathroom.”

“You thought this was the place to speak alone?”

“There is no place for us to speak alone, Roarke. I ended up here, in the wrong bathroom, with the wrong man, because I was flustered, and you know why I was flustered? Because I just saw Jason. I just agreed to do some work for him, and while that’s great and generous of him, I couldn’t revel in the career opportunity he gave me because I knew, I knew, that job leads to you. And here you are.”

“Hannah.” He takes a step toward me. I rotate and walk away, exiting the bathroom into a group of four stunned men about to enter. I don’t explain why I’m in the men’s room. I use them, darting around them even as they block the bathroom doorway. They’re my shelter, my escape, and maybe that’s cowardly and everything my father—a man as tough as nails—would hate me to be, but I can feel the build of something cutting and vulnerable inside me. Something I don’t want to feel. Something I can’t afford to feel and be here in Texas. Something that I haven’t let myself feel since Roarke tore me apart years before.

I dash down the hallway and all but trot to avoid a full-out run, thanking the Lord when Mike rushes toward me, assuring there will be no alone time with Roarke. “We have a problem,” he announces, panting as he reaches my side. A problem I can handle. Well, any problem that isn’t Roarke. “What’s happening?” I ask.

“Nikki Miller, and yes, I said Nikki Miller, the movie star, is here. I thought that was camera-worthy, so I shot photos of her. She got pissed and took my camera. Like, literally yanked it from my hands, and then her security people took it.”

Roarke steps between us. “I know Nikki. I’ll get your camera back.”

Of course, he’s here to be Superman. He’s always Superman for everyone around him but me. Of course, he knows Nikki. For all I know, she’s his girlfriend, the kind he wanted when I wasn’t enough. And, of course, he’s followed me to relieve some nagging guilt from his shoulders. Or maybe he was just walking this way. Why would I think he has a nagging anything where I’m concerned?

“You’re that Horse Wrangler, aren’t you?” Mike asks, and with that, I’m done.

“I’ll let the Horse Wrangler help you,” I say. “We have one camera shooting right now with Liz. I need there to be two.” I walk around Mike and away from Roarke, and this time, Roarke doesn’t follow. This time he’s forced to let me go to offer his promised aid to Mike, but then, he’s good at letting me go. The past proves that and proves it well.

Hurrying forward, I make my way back to the party and waste no time getting to work. I start shooting, wondering when Roarke will reappear, but he doesn’t. I try to be pleased about this—I am pleased—but damn him, there’s a clawing sensation in my chest, right where my heart he’d once shattered beats a little too rapidly.

…

A good forty-five minutes later, Roarke is nowhere to be seen, and I’m shooting the banners for today’s event when Jessica appears beside me. “We’re about to head down to the field.” She hands me a badge. “They added an extra level of security. Make sure your team is wearing these.” She hands me three more badges. “I have extras, and if I see them before you do, I’ll make sure they have them as well.”

“Okay, thanks.” My brows furrow. “Is there a security alert of some sort?”

“Jason returning to baseball has the press going a little nuts. I’m sure you know he’s a private person.”

I nod. “Yes, he always was,” I agree, and it’s ridiculously comforting to recognize at least one person from my past as the person I knew then and now, but then I never knew Roarke. I only knew his public persona. “And I get it. It’s a personality trait but a necessity in his high-profile lifestyle.”

She squeezes my arm. “We know you get it. That’s why we’re both feeling lucky that you’re back and available to help us with these projects.”

I open my mouth, about to ask about the plural nature of that statement, assuming she means today and the Christmas event, but I never get the chance to clarify because someone calls Jessica’s name. She lifts a hand. “I need to find Roarke. You know him, right?”

“Yes,” I say tightly, wondering why I can’t escape that man tonight. “We grew up together.”

“Of course, you did. That was a stupid question. Can you help me find him and get him to the field? Jason needs him, and I’m being pulled in a million directions right now.”

“Happy to help,” I say, and I am. I just need to get past this Roarke thing, and perhaps exposure is the best way to desensitize myself where he’s concerned.

“Thank you for helping.” Her eyes light up. “I can’t wait to talk about the camp’s holiday event. Text me if you find Roarke before me, will you? And I’ll do the same.”

“You bet,” I say, and already she’s swooping in to embrace me with a quick hug before she fades away into the crowd.

I press my hand to my face. Good Lord, I just promised to go hunt down Roarke, the very man I justified running from less than an hour ago, but that wasn’t exactly a mature move. Desensitizing is my new strategy. The control is mine. I own my emotions. I own how I allow them, and him, to affect me.

Settling my camera across my chest, I start weaving through the crowd, and it’s fully five minutes before I break through a cluster of a half dozen people to spy Roarke, but he’s not alone. There are not one but two stunning women, one blonde and one brunette, both angling in his direction, to ensure he’s suffocated with the view of their boobs. Their very big, perfect boobs that make my what-I-sometimes-feel-are-pretty-decent boobs look like a chalkboard with two thumbtacks. There you have it. Just another reason I’m not with this man. He can’t even ignore me with one other woman anymore. It’s two.

I grab my phone from my front pocket and text Jessica: I got him.

Great, she replies. Tell him to hurry and come with you. I have Mike, Liz, Kate, and Mary. You might want to grab a jacket. It’s chilly. It’s finally starting to feel like the holidays!

It’s sixty outside and that’s chilly? Not that L.A. was much better. I sigh and stick my phone back inside my purse as yet another woman joins the entourage Roarke is forming. Of course, he’s all tall, dark, and a Horse Wrangler, so what did I expect? He’s good-looking and charming, always has been. The guy every guy wants to hate but can’t because he’s so damn nice and lives to save needy animals. Right. Saver of animals. Breaker of hearts. I might break his toe with my heels if I were wearing them. But fear not, all those with miserable exes, Fashion Week in New York City, and a creepy B-list actor did remind me of the value of a well-placed knee. Wisdom I might have to share with Roarke and soon.

Empowered by this thought, I close the space between him and me, stepping to the open spot in front of him. A flicker of surprise touches his handsome face, and when our eyes lock, the collision of the past with the present is a wicked hard jolt. A jolt that fades into white space as the room, the people, fall away, except for him, my ex-fiancé. My ex–best friend. My ex-everything. I revolt against the memories assailing me and open my mouth, which is never a good idea.

“I’m supposed to take you down to the field,” I say flatly, and then that open mouth speaks for itself, “but clearly you have escorts who can help you better than my camera and I ever can. Jason is waiting on you.” I turn and start walking, my heart racing despite my desire to remain unaffected by that man and his women.

I am unaffected. Screw him and his horse-wrangling, womanizing self. I looked him in the eyes. I handled him and me. Perhaps the comment about his escorts wasn’t perfect, but it’s done. We’ve been done for a long time. Nothing about a few bathroom and boob-infested meetings changes this at all.

Exiting to the hallway, I head down the stairwell I’d been directed to take to reach the field, letting the heavy door slam behind me, slamming a mental door on Roarke as I go, visualizing, as a yoga instructor told me some years back. In hindsight, though, if I’d gone to more than one class, maybe I wouldn’t hear the door above open and assume it to be Roarke. Yoga was just too much posing when I’d rather be behind a lens, letting someone else pose for me.

“Hannah, wait.”

At the sound of Roarke’s voice behind me, I don’t freeze. I’ve decided to desensitize. I’ve decided to face him, and us, and take control, when up to this point, I’ve done the opposite. “It happened. It’s been years. I don’t need you to talk me off some cliff I’m not on. We both have lived lives outside of each other.”

“We lived a lot longer in a world where we were together.”

“We were friends. Everything else was fast and over.”

“We still are friends,” he says.

Friends. I can’t be his friend. Friends are people you trust. I don’t trust Roarke. “Jason’s waiting on us.”

He walks down a few steps, and I could back away, but that wouldn’t be taking control. That would be giving him control. And so, this time, I don’t run. I stand my ground and let him approach. I let him because that says you don’t scare me, while every encounter since my return with this man has said the opposite.

It seems like a smart move until he’s standing right in front of me, towering over me, which would be easy to do no matter what, considering he’s six foot two and I’m five foot two. He’s also close, so very close that the scent of him rushes through my senses, stirring hate and lust, and I don’t even know what to do with those things. “What are we doing right now, Roarke? What are you doing?” And why am I not turning and leaving?

“Those women up there ambushed me. I don’t know them. I don’t want to know them.”

“You don’t owe me an explanation. I’m not yours. You’re not mine.”

“There’s a lot about that statement I could argue with.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” I say. “There’s nothing about that statement that can be argued.”

“You’re wrong,” he assures me. “You know it. I know it.”

The door from below opens, and Jessica shouts, “Roarke, we need you now! You, too, Hannah.”

At the sound of Jessica’s voice, Roarke grimaces, and this conversation is over. She steps to our sides and looks between us, her eyes narrowing with a keen appraisal. “Everything okay?”

“Yes,” I say, and I mean it. I look at her and add, “Being home is good.” I look at Roarke. “I’m not leaving this time.”

His brown eyes narrow, and where they are normally warm, now they burn with something I don’t understand, but then, I never understood this man. I just thought I did. “Good,” he says. “This is where you belong.”

“Yes, it is,” Jessica says, and just when I’m feeling in control, really in control, she adds, “This is really rather kismet. Jason and Roarke, the baseball whisperer and the Horse Wrangler, together for one camp, with you back to help us find its full potential. Let’s get to it.”

The floor falls out from underneath me. Jason and Roarke are doing this together? As in, I’m coordinating the festival for Jason and Roarke?

“Hannah,” Jessica continues, “can you get some shots of Jason and Roarke together and alone after the announcement for promotional material?”

“Yes,” I say, trying not to sound like I’m not presently suffocating in a big bubble of Roarke overload. “Yes, of course.”

She laughs. “Great, and I’d say shoot Roarke first with his horses before they have time to create a new poop mound on the field, but I think getting some shots of him riding right here on the baseball field could be amazing. We’ll need to do that last after the field is cleared.”

In other words, I’m working overtime, alone with Roarke.