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His beauty reigns supreme—I grin—but he dropped to one knee for me in this dress.
We were eighteen then, officially adults, hating the glamorous job but loving each other always. We were supposed to get married that summer. No one could stop us—young love on a rampage. With the money from our modeling exploits, Redix wanted to buy a house for us somewhere high over an ocean cliff, together as we were destined to be.
It turns out—destiny is a motherfucker.
It ruins everything, including us.
Now marriage isn’t on my mind; murder is. It’s either that or release this sob choking my throat. Pain swirling with passion and revenge, I can’t stop the memory of that soul-destroying night.
The one when Redix left ten years ago and never spoke to me again.
Why’s he back?
Is it to make me pay for the fault that’s mine?
That pain threatens to fall over my lashes... but I won’t do it. I’ll take this damn salad fork on the table and stab my smoky-lined eyes out before I let him see a tear fall for his celebrity ass.
“Well, I’ll be,”—Mama elbows me—“here comes one now.”
I didn’t need the alert. The approach of his body tingles my flesh. His aroma—vanilla and leather—arrives next.
Goddamnit. I’m still attracted to him. And it’s on a he-better-fuck-me-now-before-I-kill-him level making a black widow blush. But the shell of my skin hides it.
“Mama G,”—Redix purrs the childhood name he gave my mama—“I just had to come over and sit down next to the prettiest lady in the room.”
“I’m no lady.” Mama’s not amused. “I’m the law.”
That bad-boy grin on his face? Curling his lush lips back to his square jaw? That’s the look that drops panties and shatters hearts, including mine.
His big hand turns a small gold chair around. His strapping thighs straddle it like he’s riding a horse across the ballroom, lassoing every pussy in sight. He takes the empty spot on the other side of my mama while my teeth clench, fighting it all back.
“You’re looking beautiful as always, Mama G.” His sky-blue eyes won’t meet mine. “I’ve missed you.” The genuine concern in his voice? Fuck him. He has no right after all this time. “How you been feelin’?”
“I feel right as rain anytime a handsome man sits beside me.”
Typical. Mama’s playing back. No man gets the upper hand on her, not even one she’s known since he was nine. Redix was a beautiful boy back then. By his teens, he left beauty behind for hot-as-fucking-hell.
Secretly, I’ve watched him on the flatscreen since. Sometimes it hurts too much. Remembering the kiss of his lips, his tongue teasing my mouth, how he used to dance with my heart.
But sitting this close now in the flesh at twenty-eight?
Redix Dean’s allure travels across a room like a sexy slug leaving a trail of slick lust behind. A trail that everyone wants to slip in and break their necks because his sex is worth the fall.
“My mama told me about this last diagnosis.” Redix props his chin on his forearms folded in front of him; obvious he actually cares. “But if anyone can kick cancer’s ass, it’s you.”
“I feel like kicking more than cancer’s ass,” Mama answers. “I feel like kickin’ yours. You just up and left. You got a lot of nerve coming back now.”
God, if I could reach out and hug Mama. Every furious thought I have… it’s firing from her mouth.
“Ah, come on now. You can’t stay mad at me.” No matter how many years Redix spent in Hollywood, he still deploys his Southern drawl with a sly grin. It disarms nukes. “I’m too cute. Besides, I’m a good boy now, here for a good cause and all.”
“You can sponsor all the Teen Crisis centers you want across this state; that don’t excuse it.” Nope, Mama’s locked and loaded. “It’s pretty damn rude coming home without a peep prior. Who do you think you are? A boy raised with manners, that’s who. But it seems you’ve sold ‘em and your soul to Hollywood.”
“No, ma’am.” Redix doesn’t flinch. He’s smiling at her smackdown. “I could never forget you, my manners... or my home.”
That butter knife on the table? It just stabbed my heart.
Redix didn’t forget Mama. Or his home. But he forgot me and the manners it takes to even look at me.
