Wedding Party Collection: Always The Bachelor. Barbara Hannay

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СКАЧАТЬ man didn’t spend a year of marriage without learning a woman’s signals. And he could read hers loud and clear. He wasn’t the only one turned on by that kiss. She wanted him, too.

      This called for a slight change of plans. There was only one thing that could possibly be more fun than annoying Ivy, and that would be getting back into her panties. That would be the ultimate payback.

      He was smiling as he set off after her. It looked as if they would be taking this competition to an all new level.

       Six

      Divorce recovery typically takes two full years. Take it day by day. Trust me, the time will soon come when you’ll look back and wonder what you ever saw in him.

      —excerpt from The Modern Woman’s Guide to Divorce (And the Joy of Staying Single)

      Kiss your ex-husband. Brilliant idea.

      As fast as her wobbly legs would carry her, Ivy headed blindly in what she hoped was the general direction of the villa, praying that Dillon didn’t follow her.

      Weathered stucco buildings, brightly colored canopies and an ocean of moving bodies blurred together like smudged oil paint on a three-dimensional canvas. Voices and sounds echoed through her ears and jumbled around inside her head, disorienting her. Her hands were trembling and her heart beat hard and fast in her chest.

      One stupid kiss and she was a walking disaster area.

      What had she been thinking?

      It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. She was supposed to be proving how over him she was. She wasn’t supposed to enjoy kissing him.

      She wasn’t supposed to feel anything.

      And if she had to feel something, why couldn’t it have been hate? Disgust would have been a good one, too. Or good old-fashioned anger.

      And what if by some remote chance someone recognized them? Someone who had read her book? What if word got out that she was messing around with her ex? What would people think of her? How could her readers, not to mention her patients, trust her if she couldn’t even follow her own edict?

      This was bad.

      Really, really bad.

      Although she had to admit that seeing the stunned look on his face, knowing that for once she had flustered him, had almost been worth it. In a sadistic sort of way. Like cutting off her nose to spite her face.

      “You sure move fast when you have something to run from,” Dillon said from behind her, and Ivy cursed under her breath.

      Oh, crud.

      She needed a minute to pull herself together. She couldn’t let him see her thrown so far off-kilter.

      This was just a fluke. She’d been too immersed in her career, too swamped promoting her first book and writing the second to even think about sex, so, yeah, she’d overreacted a little.

      Okay, she’d overreacted a lot. But she would have gotten the same result from kissing any number of men.

      She tried to conjure up a name, an appealing, eligible man in her life. May be one in the office building where she worked, or at the club where she used the pool. Or even at the grocery store. There had to be someone.

      Yet not a single one came to mind.

      Oh, hell, who was she kidding? She could continue to blame her busy schedule, but deep down she knew that was bunk. The reason she hadn’t slept with anyone in…well, longer than she wanted to admit, was because she hadn’t met anyone she wanted to sleep with. Up until today.

      Oh, no. She did not just think that. She didn’t want to sleep with Dillon. Not now, not ever.

      “And what is it exactly that I’m running from?” she asked. She even managed to keep her voice steady and vaguely disinterested.

      The deep baritone of laughter that followed rubbed across every one of her nerve endings until they felt raw and exposed.

      He knew. He knew exactly what that kiss had done to her, and he would spend the rest of the week rubbing it in her face.

      Would this nightmare never end?

      She was about to turn, to face Dillon, still unsure of exactly what she wanted to do or say—and resigned to the fact that whatever it was it would probably only make things worse—when she spotted Deidre and Blake walking down the opposite side of the street like two angels of mercy.

      “Deidre!” she called, waving frantically to get her attention. The instant Deidre looked her way Ivy knew something was wrong. Her skin looked pale, and the way she leaned into Blake gave the distinct impression he was holding her steady.

      Forgetting Dillon and every other horrible thing that transpired that morning, she rushed across the street to her cousin. As she drew closer she noticed the bandage on Deidre’s forehead.

      Her grotesquely swelled forehead.

      Ivy’s horror and surprise must have shown, because the first thing out of Deidre’s mouth was, “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

      “Let me see.” Without waiting for permission, she lifted Deidre’s bangs to get a better look. The area over her left eye looked swollen and tender, and hints of purple peeked out from under the edge of the bandage. “Oh, my God, what happened to you?”

      “An alleged golfing mishap,” Blake said bitterly.

      Deidre ducked away from Ivy and shot him a look.

      “It was an accident. And the doctor at the clinic said the swelling should be down in time for the wedding.”

      “You had to see a doctor?”

      Deidre nodded. “I needed three stitches.”

      Why did it have to happen this week? It was just one more thing to put a damper on the most important day of Deidre’s life.

      “Who did this to you?” Dillon asked, and Ivy jolted at the sound of his voice. She hadn’t even realized he’d followed her.

      “Dale’s girlfriend,” Blake all but spat out. “She swung her club and lost her grip. It went flying and pegged Deidre in the head.”

      “But it was an accident,” Deidre said with a forced cheeriness that wasn’t fooling anyone. “Believe me, her aim is not that good. She can barely hit a ball much less a person standing fifteen feet behind her.”

      Dillon looked from Deidre to Blake. “Which one is Dale’s girlfriend? Tweedle Dum or Tweedle Dee?”

      Blake shrugged. “Who knows. I can’t tell them apart. When it happened, I was more concerned with stopping the bleeding than figuring out who was at fault.”

      The only thing concerning Ivy was Deidre’s pasty-white pallor and the dark circles under her eyes. The way she clung to Blake’s arm, as though without him there СКАЧАТЬ