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“Impossible,” I whispered.
But it wasn’t.
I zoomed in on his face.
There were those striking dark green eyes, rimmed with thick black lashes I’d have personally killed for. The nose, too, was his, with that tiny crook on the bridge I’d notice when he’d been squatting before me. That was the moment that I’d thought, for an absurd flash of a second, that he’d almost smiled.
“He’s even got a butt-chin,” Sarah sighed. “I’m weak for butt-chins.”
So was I.
I lowered my phone.
“So not only does he look like that,” Cher said, “But he’s an actual billionaire they call the King of Tech. Made his money with computers. David is obsessed with him.”
David was Cher’s husband, who taught computer science at the local college. “He makes computer stuff,” Cher continued, “but also has some big medical charity. Experimenting with computer treatments for Alzheimer’s, I think. I could ask him more, if you’re interested.”
“Who said I was interested?” I said. My voice was a hair too loud, I realized too late. I lowered the phone on the table, but did that too hard, too.
Cher raised an eyebrow and grinned. “You just did.”
“Cher, sweet Jesus in the garden, I already told you he’s an asshole!”
A couple at the table next to us turned to look at me and I realized I’d practically shouted that.
Shit.
Cher and I had known each other for years, so she wasn’t offended by my tone, I knew. But she also knew when not to press, so she just pinched her lips together and sat back in her chair. “Sure.”
Sarah straightened up, looking genuinely sorry. “Winona—”
A surge of guilt ran over me. “Sarah, that wasn’t about you.”
“Definitely not,” Cher said. “It’s me. I keep telling Win she needs to live a little. Ever since those brothers of hers left, she’s on her own and all she does is stay at home and read her kissing books.”
I took a long swig of beer, then another. “I like those books,” I said, defensively.
Cher carried on as if I wasn’t even there. “I always tell her she can still read the books, but also try, you know, actually kissing someone.”
I set the beer down and rubbed my face with my hands, groaning.
“This guy’s not only sexy as hell, he’s a billionaire. Billionaire, Winona. Two commas.”
“Cher, you know I’m not interested in rich men.”
Once again my voice had gone too loud, but I thought suddenly of the bruises on Mama’s body. The shake of her lip as she shoved money into my hand at fourteen, a year after she gave birth to Adam’s first child. The words I didn’t listen to until it was too late.
Get out, Winona. He won’t go after you.
“Winona,” Cher said, looking suddenly stricken.
Cher knew about my history. She’d been there for me more than once when I’d had a bad flashback, or when I’d gotten scared. Last year, Cassandra Kelly’s twin Eli, my poker buddy, punched a hole through the wall when he found out our friend was getting together with his baby sister Chelsea. Eli would have never lay a hand on me, I knew. Not in a million years. But still it had brought me right back to when Adam had done the same thing. I’d spent the night at Cher’s, sobbing, with Eli desperately trying to reach me on the phone over the next week to apologize for scaring me.
Cher squeezed my hand across the table. Then she turned her attention on Sarah.
“Well how about you, Sarah, you’re single, aren’t you?” she asked.
A blush rose in Sarah’s cheeks at Cher’s question. She looked stunned to suddenly be in the hot seat, and she straightened her glasses out. “Oh. Yes, I’m single. Technically.”
