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Chapter 1
Her mistake cost her everything.
Well, not everything. Her friend Teri had stayed on her side through the divorce with Lance. She was grateful for that, but Lance had taken everything else. The business. The house. The dog. Her elite social life had gone up in a poof of pressed powder along with most of the things in their north Dallas mansion she’d considered hers. He didn’t share that opinion and neither had his lawyer. She’d been cinderella to his prince charming and he’d turned out to be a fucking snake. A cheating lying bastard snake. And she’d paid the price.
For not seeing through his charm from the beginning.
How had he fooled her?
But he had. And now it was time to start fresh.
“Shots for the lady.” The bartender gave her a flirtatious wink.
“Thanks.” She didn’t smile back. The last thing she wanted to do was flirt with a cute guy. She needed space. Time away from being in a relationship.
“Let me know if you need anything else.” His eyebrow waggled suggestively. “I’d be happy to oblige.”
“Thanks, but I’m good.” She kept her voice bright and shiny, not willing to let any of the self-doubt and bitterness creep through. Her situation was her fault. She was good at reading people. She’d always been good at reading people.
Then there was Lance.
Ugh. Men.
“You coming with those drinks, Laurel?” Her friend Teri’s voice carried across the bar, teasing and playful—as always. “Or do I need to come help you carry them.”
“I’m coming.” Rolling her eyes the second the words left her mouth. Teri was already drunk. No way was she letting that slip by.
“If you’re coming, you’re doing it wrong.”
Not as bad as I expected.Her friend wasn’t drunk enough yet to bring out the dirty joking. Laurel made her way through the busy karaoke bar and plunked down the tray of tequila shots on the table.
“Did you hear me?” Teri asked, peeking up from beneath a screen of thick fake lashes. Teri’s eye make-up always looked like she was on her way to a red-carpet event. Hell, hers was too most of the time. Always ready for any encounter. That’d been their motto since meeting in college.
“I did and I’m ignoring the comment.”
Teri’s playful smirk contradicted the sympathy shining from her dark brown eyes. Laurel had come to her friend on more than one occasion about her pathetic sex life with her ex. Her predicament was partly because of her desperation to try and fix a marriage that had crashed and burned within a year of them being married. She’d stayed for three more after that. The match-making business she’d started with him had struck the equivalent of black gold, thanks to his society connections—at least that’s what his lawyer had argued. Between that, the pre-nup, and the leverage Lance was holding over her head, she’d been lucky to get out of that marriage with the clothes from her closet.
“So what’s the plan? You going to buy a house on the other side of town and do what?”
“I got money in the settlement, but I don’t want to stay here Teri. I can’t.”
“You’re gonna leave me? And go where?” Her friend grabbed a shot glass and downed the clear liquid with one gulp.
Laurel shrugged. “Not sure yet. The non-compete says I can’t start another matchmaking service within two hundred miles of Dallas.”
“You want to start another one?”
“I loved doing it. And Lance was right about one thing. I was damn good at it.”
Teri nodded and picked up another shot. “Drink.” She nodded toward the small tray.
Laurel took one and they clinked them together. “To new beginnings.”
“To new beginnings,” she said, her tone much less optimistic than Laurel would’ve preferred. “I’m not pleased that you’re leaving Dallas,” she said after swallowing the shot.
“I can’tnotdo match-making. It’s been my whole life for the last four years. I love it.” Her voice trembled, even considering starting a new career after realizing how fulfilling helping two people find the kind of love she remembered seeing on her parents faces every day—there was no better rush. Nothing could possibly be more satisfying.
“I know. I know.” Teri grabbed another shot and held it up, waiting.
