Present day
I shake my head and hide a smile when Cricket Gable swings a U-turn on Bridge Street and narrowly misses cars and pedestrians. But that’s until I see who’s sitting in the passenger seat.
Fuck.
Her blue eyes are unforgettable. Ten years. Ten thousand years. It doesn’t matter. I could never forget Whitney Gable’s blue eyes. I’ve been bullshitting myself for a decade if I thought I could.
Everything comes rushing back like a tornado twisting through my body and into my blood, until I swear she’s under my skin again already.
Who the fuck am I kidding? She’s always been under my skin. I’ve spent a decade trying to forget, and I was lying to myself if I thought I’d made a damn bit of progress.
Whitney Gable isn’t a woman you forget. She’s a woman you kill to keep.
And I failed at that.
I haven’t failed at anything since then—except marrying a woman and producing the heir Commodore has been demanding. I still don’t know how the old man knew she was coming back, but I’ve spent all day telling myself it didn’t matter.
More lies to myself.
She’ll always fucking matter.
You never forget the girl who shattered your heart and left you a different man than you were before you met her. You never forget how you strapped on armor over the holes she left after you publicly humiliated yourself for her.
And I would do it again if there was a chance I could have stopped her from marrying Ricky Rango.
But he’s dead now, and Whitney’s fair game. She’s only gotten better with age. Instead of the beautiful girl she was then, now she’s a devastating woman . . .
I squint for a better look because something dark mars the side of her face and below her eye. Does she have a black eye?
A rush of anger hits my bloodstream when I see the undeniable bruising, even as she fumbles to slip on giant sunglasses like she’s always wearing in the photos that hit the tabloids even I can’t avoid.
Who the fuck touched her? If Ricky Rango were still alive, I’d put him in the ground, even though he’s been dead too long to have given her a black eye.
I stare at her through the windshield. Ricky Rango’s Black Widow.
Can someone really change that much?
Part of me wants to say yes, she’s savage enough to kill a man, because it nearly killed me when she left ten years ago, but that’s the bitter side of me. The man she rejected all too publicly.
The rest of me . . . I don’t think it’s possible.
“Hey, baby!” Cricket yells from the window she’s climbed completely out of rather than opening the door.
Hunter walks around her piece-of-shit van to talk to his fiancée, leaving me standing on the sidewalk, staring at Whitney Gable through glass.
Just like it did all those years ago, my mouth grows a mind of its own, completely separate from my brain.
“Open it.”
Whitney keeps her eyes focused straight ahead and pretends she doesn’t hear me.
We both know she’s full of shit, and not just because the muscles of her throat work as she swallows. She made me believe she wanted nothing from me. Made me believe I was nothing to her. From the pulse hammering under the smooth skin of her neck, I know she fucking lied.
I step closer.
“Open the window, Whitney.” Her name hasn’t come out of my mouth in ten years, but goddamn, does it feel good on my lips. “You know you’re going to have to face me eventually.”
Her lips press together into a flat line while she continues to ignore me.
Cricket and Hunter’s conversation may as well be happening on another planet, because the only two people that exist in this world are me and the woman who wants to pretend I don’t.
“Listen up, Blue. You’re back in my town. My world. You can hear me. You can see me. You can pretend I’m not here all you want, but I am.” I rest an elbow on the window and lean closer. “And there’s one other thing you should know. We aren’t fucking done.”
Her shoulders tense and her chin jerks in my direction.
Finally, a reaction.
I wish I could rip those sunglasses off her face and see her eyes again, but I’ll settle for this . . . for now.
“I’ll be seeing you soon, Blue. Really soon.”
Whitney’s bottom lip drops and quivers, and more than anything, I want to close my teeth around it and remind her how much she fucking loved to kiss me.
My body remembers. It comes to life, my heart pumping faster, my fingers itching to touch her.
The driver door shuts after Cricket climbs back inside, and I step back.
“This isn’t over, Whitney Gable. Not by a long shot.”
With a calculating smile, I shove my hands in my pockets and turn away from the van as Cricket guns it, spinning tires as she pulls away from the sidewalk. Hunter and I both stare after it and I try to act casual, even though Whitney Gable bursting back into my life again is anything but.
“You need to give your girl driving lessons, Hunt,” I say, watching the van head down the road.
Hunter’s laugh rings out. “Nah, I like her just the way she is. Fucking crazy. Might get her a safer car, though.”
I shoot a look at my best friend. “A tank?”
He grins. “Not a bad idea. I’ll look into it.” He glances at the taillights and then back to me. “Will you and Cricket’s cousin be able to make it through our wedding without killing each other?”
A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth.
“Killing Whitney Gable is the last thing I want to do.”