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It’s exhausting.
“I like that dress.” Bella points to what I’m wearing before her gaze drops to her black pencil skirt and pink blouse. “I’m a mom, so I dialed it back.”
I smile. “You look beautiful, Bella.”
She does.
My sister and I share the same hair color, but that’s where our similarities end.
She’s shorter than I am, and her striking blue eyes don’t match mine. I was born with the same shade of brown eyes as our mom.
“We should go over and say hi to Daniel,” she suggests. “When’s the last time we saw him?”
I can’t speak for her, but I know the exact date I last saw Daniel Lawton. I can tell her the time and where I was when he walked away from me. It was just past three on a Wednesday afternoon almost a year ago on the sidewalk at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34thStreet in the shadow of the Empire State Building.
I ran into Daniel after I left a photo shoot for a newly launched jewelry line.
He asked if there was anything new going on in my life.
I gushed about the guy I was dating at the time. Brogan McCabe was handsome and successful. I believed he had long-term potential.
When I told Daniel my boyfriend’s name, he ordered me to dump him. He listed all of the reasons why Brogan was no good for me.
I balked and told Daniel he had no idea what he was talking about.
He claimed to know someone who knew Brogan.
He sidestepped when I asked for more information about who was feeding him all the bullshit about Brogan that was coming out of his mouth.
In exasperation, Daniel stormed away.
He never looked back.
Six months later, he boarded a plane for California and hasn’t been back to New York since.
My relationship with Brogan ended a week after Daniel warned me about him. The breakup had nothing to do with Daniel’s accusations and everything to do with the fact that the lease on Brogan’s apartment was coming due, and he wanted us to find a place together.
I wasn’t ready for that step, so Brogan broke up with me via text message.
I glance in Daniel’s direction again, and this time, his gaze is pinned to me.
His blue eyes lock on my face before they trail over my body and back up again.
Is Lawton checking me out?
He moves to stand.
All six feet two inches of him are as muscular and trim as ever. His dark brown hair is shorter than I remember but still styled to perfection. Late day stubble covers his chiseled jaw.
The man is nothing if not hot as hell.
I had a brief crush on him when I was eighteen, and he was twenty-five, but it was over almost as soon as it began.
I went to the apartment he shared with my brother one Saturday afternoon, hoping to get some time alone with Daniel. I had convinced myself that it was the perfect day to tell him that I had feelings for him.
Daniel opened the door without a shirt on. He invited me in, and then a woman wandered out of his bedroom wearing one of his T-shirts.
My infatuation went up in smoke when she begged him to take her back to bed. He told her to wait until I left.
