I’m not going to tell Declan. I’m not a snitch.
But I’d like to see Miss New York City sweat a little.
“That’s for me to decide, don’t you think?”
Her lips part like she’s about to deliver another sassy comeback, but I move aside giving her space to pass before she can speak.
“Now get out,” I grunt.
I breathe in, the scent of coconut sun lotion on warm skin filling my nostrils as she slides in front of me. Hazel eyes dart up to glare at me from beneath dark lashes.
“I take back the pig comment. It was unkind to pigs.”
I look down at her. “See, I don’t regret a thing I said. Maybe you should think before you run that little mouth of yours in future.”
But of course, she can’t leave without a final parting shot. And I think I’d be disappointed if she did.
“Oh, we won’t be doing this again. I don’t make a habit of conversing with jerks.”
She pushes past me, and I can’t stop myself from calling after her.
“You just get cheated on by them on your wedding day, huh?”
It’s a low blow, but a necessary one. I can’t have her near me.
The disgust in her eyes as she looks back hits me across the face harder than if she’d done it with a metal bat.
I wait for her to fight back, knowing she shouldn’t, but a small scrap of me hopes she does.
Her shoulders drop and her breath leaves her all at once.
Then she’s gone.
6
JUDE
“He’s so unbelievably hot.If you don’t sleep with him, maybe I should?”
I scowl at the back of his dark head, hating the way his hair curls a little at the nape of his neck, like a male model in a hot and sweaty cologne advertisement. The muscles in his back ripple beneath his light gray T-shirt as he bends to pick a kayak from the sand and pull it up the beach. As he turns, his dark, angular jaw cuts a sleek profile, his face falling into shadow as the late afternoon sun beats down behind him, glaring me in the eyes.
“You’re out of your mind,” I mutter to Mel, turning my attention to the fresh fruit kebabs we’re eating and pulling off a piece of pineapple.
“Look at that sun-kissed hair. Imagine looking down and seeing that between your legs. A golden ball of orgasm-giving beauty.”
I follow her gaze to Declan. He throws us a boyish wink.
He’s chatting with the married couple who came here to take some emergency time away from work to save their marriage. The wife’s words, not mine. Her husband, a quiet, tense-lookingman, is some bigwig at an oil company and never takes a day off. It was a choice of coming here or granting her a divorce.
He chose here.
I can’t help but sympathize with both of them. She wants the man she loves back. And he looked more stricken than I felt when he handed his cell over. People rely on him. But he wants his marriage to survive. It’s obvious he loves his wife by the way he looks at her, listening intently every time she speaks.
“Stop it,” Mel warns.
“What?” I frown, tearing a piece of melon off my skewer and chomping it down.
“Stop looking at them and wondering what it would have been like if you were married right now.”
