Madison scowled. “Dream lady?” She looked around.
I did too, squinting. A gorgeous woman wearing shorts that framed long damn legs and glossy blond hair pulled back in a high ponytail was leaning against the counter.
Madison sighed. “Really?Her?”
“She doesn’t show up very often,” Allen argued, eyeing the new arrival’s legs. Should someone warn her about the way he ogled boobs? “One of these days, she’s going home with me.”
Madison rolled her eyes.
“Do you even know what her face looks like?” I asked him.
“I hate to break it to you, cuz,” Madison said, “but unless you own a yacht club, she’s not going home with you. Katrina aims high.”
I sucked in a loud breath that turned heads my way. Including hers. “Katrina? Are youthatKatrina?”
Of course she was beautiful. Gorgeous and sophisticated.
I hadn’t tamed my hair and it frizzed out around my head. Dark circles ringed my eyes, and I had worn thick joggers even though it was in the high seventies outside.
Alarm filled Katrina’s eyes, and she looked around, putting a dainty hand to her chest. “I’m Katrina, but I don’t know if I’m who you’re looking for.”
Her gaze grew more frantic as I plopped off the stool, somehow managing to land on my feet. “Oh, you’re her.”
I had no idea, but my brain had taken the idea and run with it.
“Shit,” Madison muttered. She grabbed her phone and hovered next to me.
“Do I know you?” Katrina side-eyed me with her perfect cat eye like I was a rabid skunk.
Between the two of us, yes, I was the smelly animal. I reeked of rum and sadness. She smelled expensive and sexy.
“You were so mean.” I stomped my foot. Bad idea. The rum hit hard, and my balance sucked.
She drew back. “Sorry?”
“Tenor.” When she blanched, I nodded, my hair bouncing. “He’s the best man I’ve ever met but he couldn’t trust mebecause of you, and then I couldn’t trust him because of my dad and you.”
Katrina’s gaze darted around and she shifted her stance like she was going to run. “That was a long time ago, and I don’t know who your dad is.”
“You broke him. Because you’remean.” My fuzzy mind grasped for a more articulate argument, but the tipsy part of my brain thought I’d nailed it.
Her eyes sparked. “He lied to me first.”
Light speared through the bar as the door opened, but my focus was on Katrina. “I doubt that. You just assumed. You assumed you could strap yourself in for that Bailey money. You just never realized they worked for it.”
She sucked in an indignant gasp. “That’s not tr?—”
“Shut it. You did enough talking, now someone gets to talk back. I don’t care who you are, who your grandma is, or how goddamn pretty you are, I’m telling you off for him. He was too nice to do it.”
She lifted her chin. “Does his mama still cook for him?”
“Yes,” I hissed. “And it’sdelicious.” I bared my teeth like I really was rabid. “And he still paints his models and plays Warhammer. And I read romance. And then at the end of the night, he reenacts the naughty scenes with me and it’shot.”
Her expression flushed with shock and, if I wasn’t mistaken, regret.
“He’s so sweet,” I continued and the tears were back. “He calls me Goldilocks because he wanted to show me everything that was just right. Everything I deserve in a relationship. But he doesn’t realize that he’s just right. He’s everything I want and deserve, and I was too jaded because I have a shitty ex too.”
The remorse in her eyes grew just before her gaze lifted over my shoulder. Relief and interest filled her face. Her lips curledup. “Is this little drunk girl yours? Have you started snagging them young so they don’t complain about Mama’s house?”
