The ultimate kick to the self-esteem.
And then Carter, with all those things he said. Why was I quicker to believe the negative of Tony’s actions over the positive of Carter’s words?
“I’m okay,” I say to all the women who have eyes all over me. I throw my hands up in the air, allowing myself to have these women move and sway me as music flows around us. “I don’t know. In truth, and maybe I’m just fucking up the stages of grief here, but I feel liberated. I mean, angry and hurt and shitty, sure, but just… I never want to be that Grace again. The one who never saw what was coming her way. The one who was with the guy she should have known wasn’t right all along. I wish I had listened to everyone who told me he was trash before I found out they were right.”
“No better time to be liberated than the present,” Halle teases with a smirk I can’t quite read.
“Huh?”
“You have this totally hot guy staring at you, so who cares if you didn’t listen before, you get to do whatever you want now. Like him.”
That’s Margot and I can’t help but stare at her only to laugh a second later as I catch some random man heading for our female circle of power. I blink twice, taking him in—he is pretty hot—and then back over to her.
“Maybe he’s coming for you,” I throw back at her.
“No way. I’m a nurse. We have instincts you doctors don’t. He wants you.”
“Oh right,” Rina argues, dancing her heart out as the song changes to some slower country ballad. “You mean the way you knew that Drew was in love with you all along?”
Margot shakes her head. “Different. Drew was in love with Aria.”
“Until he kissed you,” Aria counters.
“Whatever, I can read other people better than I can read myself and this guy wants Grace. She’s all yours,” she announces to him just as he reaches us, standing directly beside me with a smile that says he wants to do more than simply dance with me.
“I don’t…”
“Hi,” he says cutting me off, his tone pure seduction, his eyes drunk on lust. “Wanna dance?”
“I’m not sure that’s such—”
Aria releases my hips and steps away, giving me a wink. Halle does the same and then off they fly like birds into the night sky. Suddenly, I feel abandoned, alone once again. Lost. But why? And how? I have the power here. He’s just some random stranger in a restaurant.
“Sure, it is,” he tells me, his hands coming for my body, resting on my hips, his eyes devouring me. “You’re beautiful. I was watching you with your friends and I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”
“Um. Thank you. But I think I’m done dancing for the night.”
“Fine by me. I just wanted to talk to you.”
“I’m with some people.”
“You can be with me tonight instead,” he offers. “I’ll buy you dinner. Unless you’re here with a guy?” He glances up in the direction of the table all my friends are at. “The one you came in with?”
Jesus, how long has this man been watching me? “He’s—”
“Because that guy is glaring at us. Is he your boyfriend?”
“Huh?”
He nods over my shoulder, urging me to look.
So, I do. I glance over my shoulder because instinct and curiosity are tricky fuckers. And when I do look, when I wade through the people getting their country on around us, I spot Carter, all the way over there, sitting at the huge table all of us are occupying, talking to his brothers… and staring directly at me.
His dark eyes are hooded, fierce, his sharp jaw lined in a stubble it’s not typically known for is clenched tight. His eyes capture mine and once they do all that tension evaporates as a slow, easy, sexy as all sin grin glides suavely up his gorgeous face. He says something to someone and then he rises, stepping out of the booth and heading straight for the dance floor.
Straight for me.
“Is he your boyfriend?” the stranger repeats.
“No,” I reply, but with the way he’s staring at me…
My stomach tightens, coiling to uncomfortable levels as Carter saunters like a king lion across the room. People snap pictures, but he takes no notice of them. No, his eyes are solely on mine.
“I don’t think he agrees.”
“That’s not how it is with us,” I retort because it’s not. Carter doesn’t want me. He’s just looking out for me. Trying to be helpful and protective. Caring for his resident and brother’s friend the way anyone else in his position would. Right?
He brought me into his home and took care of me when I could hardly take care of myself. Even if I’d swear to baby Jesus he was hard today when he was teaching me how to throw a pitch. But wouldn’t most men get hard if they were pressed up against a woman they claim they view as beautiful?
Yes, that’s just biology. It means nothing.
I have no instincts right now. They’re all blind, stumbling around in the dark, banging into walls and furniture, and messing everything up. I was engaged to a man who I swore faithfully loved and cherished me endlessly. A man who was actually doing the exact opposite behind my back and under my nose.
How does trust grow—with anyone—after that?
“Whether it is or it isn’t, his glare is telling me something else.”
Carter reaches us just as the guy’s words hit the air. His eyes hover above mine. “Tell him to go,” he demands and because he did, my instinct is to fight it. Is to demand in return that this random guy with a face I don’t even remember stay. “Now.”
“Hey man, I’m not looking for a—”
“Good. Then you can fuck off,” Carter says coolly, no break in his veneer that is all control. All dominance.
The guy must be looking to me for an answer, but I haven’t taken my eyes away from Carter. In the next second, the guy is gone, mumbling something under his breath, only to be replaced by Carter who is standing obstinately before me, commanding my full attention.
“You look a little lost out here, sweetheart.”
God, how did he read that?
“Women like me are never lost. It’s all a matter of readjusting.”
A crooked smile curls up the corner of his lips. “That I believe. He wasn’t the right one for you tonight.”
“No?”
“No.”
“I wasn’t exactly interested.” I stare up into his dark eyes, trying desperately to read between lines that are impossible to find. He’s shuttered shut. A book locked up tight.
“Oliver ordered food for you,” he continues. “It should be at the table soon. How about a dance until it comes?”
Without a word or a second’s thought or hesitation, I raise my arms up to his shoulders, slipping them around his neck. “I’m not much of a dancer,” I tell him.
“But I’m a hell of a teacher.”
Don’t I know it.
His hands find the crest of my lower back, just above my ass, clinging to the line between my lasered-on pants and crop top. His body enfolds against mine, a simple sway to an unfamiliar beat guiding us. My heart isn’t listening to me when I tell it to relax. It’s pounding along with the music, giddy and high with energy.