He's Still The One. Cheryl Kushner

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СКАЧАТЬ quickly made the introductions before spiriting away Alec so they could discuss wedding plans. Zoe walked into the kitchen. She wasn’t surprised to see Ryan seated comfortably at the kitchen table with an open pizza box in front of him.

      “Why are you here?” Zoe asked crossly before she had a chance to check her emotions. “I think we’ve spent enough time together for one day.”

      “Best man stuff.” He cocked a brow, surveyed her up and down several times before turning on that devastating smile. “You clean up well.”

      “How nice of you to notice.”

      “Almost didn’t recognize you without the mud.” He glanced down at her hands. “Or without the cuffs.”

      “I save the more sophisticated look for prison.” She sighed, took a step back. Ryan stood and took one step forward. He was much too close. She thought about her promise to Kate. Make peace? Not tonight. “Go home, Ryan. I’m too tired to play clever repartee with you.”

      Zoe yanked open the refrigerator door with more force than necessary. She pulled out two beers. It appeared Ryan wasn’t going home. She tossed one bottle in his direction. “No reason to let pizza with the works go to waste.”

      He caught the bottle before it made contact with his head and gently set it on the table. He eased himself back into one of the high-back oak chairs. “Your aim hasn’t matured along with the rest of you.”

      Zoe wanted to snarl at him. She really did. It wasn’t good manners that kept her from doing so. It was that marching band with its percussion section at full volume that had just begun rumbling through her head.

      She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples trying to ease the pain. Just pretend you met him today for the first time. Right. If life were simpler, and Zoe years younger, she’d happily take Kate’s advice. Ryan had grown from a gangly cute teenager into a devastatingly handsome man. She knew Kate would ignore her plea that she wasn’t interested in Ryan, and would still find a way for them to spend a lot of quality time together during the next two weeks. She wondered if she’d survive the experience.

      Zoe ordered herself to keep the conversation light but on point. She needed all her wits about her. “Kate thinks we should talk. Clear the air. Put the past behind us.” Date. No, dating Ryan O’Connor was not a viable option. Not now. Not ever.

      Then he smiled. And Zoe’s heart beat a tattoo. She thought back to earlier in the day, and the effect he’d had on her senses. From the moment they’d met, she’d been on the defensive. It was past time to turn the tables and put Ryan O’Connor in his place. “Let’s play Truth or Dare.”

      “Truth or Dare. And I’ll live to regret it.” Ryan’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I admit I’ve followed your career because I take pleasure in your success. You tell me why you’ve treated me like a pariah the past ten years.”

      She sputtered as she fought to swallow a gulp of beer.

      “I know why.” The patience in his voice didn’t fool her. He was angry and trying hard to keep his emotions under control. “I’m not an idiot. I just need you to tell me why. Actually, you need for you to tell me why.”

      Zoe swallowed the gulp, but it was a few more seconds before she finally found her voice. “I’m not going to let you reduce the last ten years of my life into some sixty-second commercial for…”

      “You wouldn’t have offered up Truth or Dare if you didn’t have something important to say to me.”

      She hated it when he was right. When they were teenagers, playing Truth or Dare was the way they dealt with sensitive issues they’d rather not—but knew they had to—talk about. She didn’t want him to be right. She didn’t want him to be a handsome, sexy and available man.

      Zoe wanted him to be going bald, with bad skin and a paunchy stomach. With a nagging wife and several snot-nosed brats who drove him crazy. She wanted him to be a thousand miles away and not upsetting her already much too complicated life. But he was here. And she had no choice but to deal with him.

      He looked so comfortable sitting at her family’s dinner table as though he’d always had a place. He’d always belonged there, and when he’d gone, he’d left a hole no antiseptic could heal, no Band-Aid could begin to cover. She resented him for making her feel anything, even anger and most especially desire, for him. But she didn’t know what to say to him.

      “You’ve always underestimated me. You’ve never taken me seriously. You’ve never really known me. How would you like it if I ripped into your life?”

      Ryan’s expression hardened. He stood, leaned over the table so they were face-to-face, mere inches apart. “There’s nothing to rip into.”

      She kept her gaze locked to his. “I don’t agree. Let’s start with why you’re sitting in the police chief’s chair in Riverbend when all you ever wanted to do was chase crooks in the big bad city.”

      “That’s none of your business.” His voice was devoid of emotion.

      “You left.” She challenged him to deny her words as she abruptly changed the subject and answered his Truth question. “We were friends, Ryan. Friends don’t desert one another.”

      “I graduated from college,” he said patiently. “I moved to Philadelphia to take a new job.”

      “You weren’t there on the most important night of my life.”

      “Guilty as charged. We missed your high school graduation. But Kate and I had other things on our minds.”

      “You eloped! Why?”

      “I’ll tell you if you answer why our marriage sent you into such an emotional tailspin that you neatly and deliberately cut me out of your life.”

      “I can’t answer that question.”

      “Can’t,” he said quietly, “or won’t. It was never about me marrying Kate. Or our moving to Philly. It’s always been about your father.”

      Zoe’s heart pounded in her chest. She felt each painful breath as she slowly exhaled, then inhaled then exhaled again. She’d thought the day couldn’t get any worse. She was wrong. “Leave my father out of this. You don’t know anything.”

      “Your parents separated. I know it was a painful time for you, but they did what they thought best. Kate was hurting, too. And I was reeling after my parents were killed in that stupid car accident,” Ryan said softly. Now she heard the pain in his voice, and tried to harden her heart against it.

      “Kate got me through the grief,” he said. “We were young, impulsive and thought with our hormones.”

      All Zoe remembered was that night she’d thought she’d lost three people who’d meant the world to her. And now, here Ryan stood, ten years later, trying to push back into her life and opening wounds she’d only been able to messily bandage.

      He slid the plate across the table. Their hands touched. Zoe felt the sizzle and tried to pull away. Ryan kept her hand in place with his for a moment more. “Kate and I were smart enough to recognize almost immediately that we were totally wrong for each other. We married on impulse. I’ll always love her but I’m not in love with her. СКАЧАТЬ