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“Y . . . yes . . . Fine.” Sophie cleared her throat. “I’m sure Ryan has Ellie. Just . . . uh . . . I’ll talk to you later.”
Sophie clicked off, leaving Cassie wondering what had gotten into the other woman. As she stopped at the red light, she grabbed her phone, then opened her messaging app. A picture of Ryan appeared on the screen with a text that read:When the hell did he get these?with an arrow pointing at the Adonis belt accentuating his abs and hips.
Cassie’s finger paused over her screen as a knot formed in her stomach. Ryan stood on what appeared to be the porch of a log cabin. Snow fell around him and gathered on the railing and rooftops in the background. In the foreground, her daughter’s father stood shirtless in a pair of low-slung swim trunks that left his perfectly sculpted vee on display, along with the rest of his chiseled chest and abdomen. Despite herself, she stared at his bare torso and counted his abs. However, she drew the line at following the trail of light brown hair that started just below his naval and disappeared behind the band of his trunks.Barely.
A mixture of jealousy and desire churned in her stomach and flowed through her blood. Her gaze drifted back to his contoured chest.
“No. Damn it,” she chastised herself.
Lusting after Ryan McLeod was a useless and painful endeavor. Though tempting, he was also completely off-limits. She’d given into her desire for him once, leaving her pregnant and broken-hearted. Ryan wasn’t husband material, as proven by the post currently occupying her screen. He’d flown to Colorado two weeks ago for work, leaving her and their daughter behind. Nothing unusual about that, except this time had been Thanksgiving. Normally, Ryan never missed holidays, but he’d claimed for this photo shoot not a moment could be spared to fly home for their usual traditions. Cassie rolled her eyes as she again took in the snapshot on her screen. Something told her this shirtless foray wasn’t part of his professional duties. Unless she’d been mistaken and instead of working as a photographer on this shoot, he’d been the model and this Vanesa Davenport who’d posted the picture was the actual photographer.Yeah right.
“You sorry son of a bitch,” she mumbled.
Ellie had been devastated that Ryan had stayed away for two weeks, even more so because he’d missed Thanksgiving and they’d had to postpone decorating for Christmas. Cassie couldn’t count the tears the little girl had shed or the times Cassie had assured her that her daddy would be with her if he didn’t have to work.
Ha! While Cassie had been consoling their daughter, Ryan had been soaking in a hot tub with fucking supermodels. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white. She was so damn tired of being the nice, dependable, responsiblecelibateparent. Why the hell did Ryan get to have all the fun?
* * *
“Thanks a lot, man.”
Ryan looked up from his phone. Ravi Patel, his best-friend and the only other dad ever at school pickup, strolled across the parking lot to where Ryan leaned against his truck waiting on dismissal.
“For?” He straightened, giving the other man his full attention.
“For that fucking Instagram post. Now my wife wants to know why I don’t have that damn vee thing you have.” Ravi put his hands to either side of his groin. “I tried to explain that Dad bods don’t come with vees.”
“I’m a dad,” Ryan mumbled. A fact that still shocked the hell out of him.
“Yeah, but I mean like a daddad, you know, full-time. Wife. Kid. Job.”
Annoyance simmered in Ryan. “I am full-time. I have the kid and the job.” Just not the wife, since the one and only time he’d mentioned marriage Cassie had turned him down without blinking. He wasn’t enough of a glutton to keep begging for punishment.
“But a real job —”
“I own my own fucking business,” he snapped. “How’s that not —”
“You travel the world and take pictures of supermodels before you screw them. That’s hardly working, Ry. That’s every man’s dream.”
Ryan scowled, resting against his truck. That might be Ravi’s dream, but since Ellie’s birth that life of freedom stopped being Ryan’s. Maybe what they said about the grass being greener was true. Here stood Ravi spouting off about wanting to travel the world, photographing and occasionally - okay almost always - sleeping with models, while Ryan couldn’t help imagining how nice it would be to go home to the same woman every night.
“I worked for two weeks,” Ryan mumbled. “I even missed Thanksgiving.”
“Yeah, weallknow. Ellie wouldn’t let anyone forget youhadto work or you would’ve been there with her.” Ravi’s dark brow rose. “That post looks like you found some downtime.”
“What are you even talking about?”
Ravi pulled his phone from his pocket. After opening the social media app and scrolling to the desired post, he handed his phone to Ryan.
Shit.
He’d told Natasha not to post any pictures of him. He could hardly claim to have been working ‘round the clock when she posted pictures of him about to get in a fucking hot tub.
“Is there a way to erase this?” He held the phone out to Ravi.
His friend shrugged. “She made the post. You can’t do anything but ask her to remove it.”
Reflexively, Ryan’s face screwed up in distaste. When he’d walked out of her room at five o’clock this morning, Natasha had been less than happy with him. Probably had something to do with him not leaving his number and telling her he didn’t need hers. Not that he hadn’t told her from the beginning they would be nothing more than a two week fling. Unfortunately, like too many of the women he slept with, she thought she’d be the one to change his mind. She’d probably posted the picture as a last “fuck you.”
