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      Five

      Is your ex harassing you? Trying to intimidate you? Take action and beat him at his own game! It’s easier than you may think.

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

      He’d reduced himself to stalking.

      Dillon followed several yards behind Ivy as she browsed the merchandise lining the streets of the shopping district. He’d been following her since she snuck out of the house this morning.

      He couldn’t help thinking that he’d sunk pitifully low, but he had to keep his eye on the prize. Seeing Ivy broken and begging for forgiveness.

      The sun brought out the reddish-gold highlights in her hair, and a cool breeze blowing off the ocean ruffled the full, filmy-looking skirt she wore, playing a tantalizing game of peek-a-boo with those long, toned, milky-white legs.

      She wore a simple, pale blue tank top that settled nicely on shoulders that, on someone else, would have been too narrow and angular. But everything about her body fit just right. He wasn’t the only one who noticed, either. As she wandered down the cobblestone street, dignified and May be a touch aloof, heads turned and eyes looked on with interest.

      But he knew something they didn’t. He knew the feisty, passionate girl she hid behind that curtain of quiet grace. There were times when he missed that woman. But she had disappeared the moment they’d said I do.

      He wondered what it would take to draw her out. If she even existed any longer. Somehow he doubted it.

      It might be fun finding out though.

      Ivy picked up a bottle of something from a table, perfume May be, and lifted it to her nose. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, a dreamy look on her face.

      The vendor behind the table said something, and she smiled and shook her head. A genuine, easy smile. One he hadn’t seen in a very long time. Even on the inside jacket of her book, which he had grudgingly skimmed at Barnes & Noble, she’d been all business. And near the end of their marriage neither had done much in the way of smiling. Not at each other, anyway.

      That had always been Ivy’s problem. She was too repressed and too driven. She’d never learned how to have fun. At least, not out of the bedroom. And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried to teach her. They had been making good progress, then they got married and she did a one-eighty on him.

      After a bit of haggling, she reached into the pack she wore around her waist, pulled out several bills and handed them to the vendor. She slipped her purchase inside her pack and moved on to the next canopy.

      She looked so relaxed and serene. At peace with herself and the world.

      A grin curled his mouth. What better time to mosey up and say hello?

      “Well, well, what a coincidence,” he drawled from behind her in that counterfeit twang he knew grated on her nerves.

      Her hand stilled midair, just short of the colorful silk shawl she’d been about to look at, and every inch of her went rigid.

      This was too easy. Better than greeting her this morning in his underwear, although that had been pretty damned funny. She obviously hadn’t noticed the robe draped over the chair beside him.

      Still only seeing what she wanted to see, believing what she wanted to believe.

      Ivy paused and took a deep breath, as if gathering her strength—or May be her patience—then turned to face him. She’d sufficiently wiped any trace of emotion from her face, but she forgot who she was dealing with. He picked up on the subtle signs no one else noticed. The crinkle in her brow and the slight tightening of her jaw. The way she ground her teeth and narrowed her eyes the tiniest bit.

      Things she probably wasn’t even aware she was doing.

      She could pretend she wasn’t annoyed, but he knew better.

      “Why do I sincerely doubt this is a coincidence?” she asked.

      He shrugged. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with you bein’ somethin’ of a pessimist, now would it?”

      “What are you doing here?”

      He flashed her a grin and held up the bag he was carrying. “Souvenirs. For my secretary.”

      “Lingerie?” she guessed.

      “Nah. My preferences in sleepwear lean toward the casual. Oversize T-shirts…” He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Or nothing at all.”

      She rolled her eyes.

      “Not to mention the fact that my secretary is sixty-eight.”

      “Aren’t you supposed to be playing golf?”

      “Shopping sounded like more fun.”

      She let an undignified snort slip out. “Now I know you’re lying. You love playing golf, and you always hated shopping.”

      “That is true. It’s the company I wasn’t all that thrilled about. What was it you called them? The Tweedles?”

      It wasn’t a lie. He’d had more of those two than he could stomach at dinner last night. And torturing Ivy won out over golf any day of the week. He just had to accidentally bump into her, the way he’d “accidentally” walked into her room. What he hadn’t counted on last night was getting himself sucked into a touchy-feely debate about their failed marriage.

      She was still trying to pin the blame on him. No big surprise there.

      Miss Perfect. Miss Nothing-is-ever-good-enough-for-me. May be he’d made a mistake or two, minor ones, but if anyone was ultimately responsible for the divorce, it was her.

      And why had she assumed that what he’d done at dinner last night had anything to do with her? He was merely helping a friend. Blake was a good guy, the kind who would give a stranger the shirt off his back in the middle of a blizzard. But as long as Dillon had known him, Blake let his family walk all over him. With golf cleats on.

      Deidre was the perfect match for him. Soft-spoken and demure, and May be a little awkward. Although Dillon sensed there was more to her than met the eye, the spark of something more complex. A confidence that she hadn’t let herself explore. If that СКАЧАТЬ