CHARLOTTE
By seven o’clock, the engagement party is in full swing.
Makena’s food truck is serving sliders and fancy fries, the bar is three-deep with guests, and Parker looks happier than I’ve ever seen him, one arm slung around Makena’s shoulders while he talks to Grammercy and his wife, Elly.
I circulate through the crowd with a champagne flute I’m hitting a little harder than I probably should, accepting compliments on the party, urging people to hit the photo booth, playing the role I was born to play. I am the gracious hostess, the successful businessperson, the woman who couldn’t care less that her ex just bashed her in NOLA’s biggest society magazine.
But secretly, I’m keeping close tabs onhim…
Nix.
He’s been lurking on the periphery since he arrived, eating, drinking, and staying out of the way. He wears dark jeans and a deep blue designer tee that fits him well enough to be distracting. His sandy-blonde hair is slightly mussed, like he’s been running a hand through it, and his full lips curve as he laughs at something one of his friends just said.
Damn, he looks good.
Really good.
Good enough to bang in the tomato plants, if one had consumed a few too many glasses of wine…
My stomach flutters as my body remembers how much fun we had in June. Remembers the heat of his mouth and the confidence in his touch, the way he’d made me laugh and come in equal measure. The man knows how to use that gorgeous body of his, how to move, how to linger, how to…
I shake my head and spin back to the bar for a champagne refill.
This is business. Strategy. A mutually beneficial proposition that has nothing to do with the heat currently dampening my panties.
Still, I continue to monitor my target from the corner of my eye. He’s tense. The set of his shoulders broadcasts stress, and I know from my gentle probing of Makena that his meeting with management didn’t go well. He’s still in trouble, the kind that could end a career.
This couldn’t be more perfect.
He needs help.
Ineed revenge.
I also need to slip into something…more comfortable.
Heading upstairs, I swap my white pantsuit for a black dress with a deep V in the front. Then, I return to the party via the laundry room, stalking my prey from downwind like a lioness on the savannah.
Nix doesn’t notice me until I’m slipping up to stand beside him.
“Hey,” he says, his eyes widening with a hint of surprise, followed quickly by more than a hint of interest. “Great party.”
“Thanks. But hotter than I expected. I had to pop inside to change. And well, I…” I trail off, glancing down before shifting my focus back to his face. “I wanted to talk to you, so I snuck up on you from behind. I hope that’s okay.”
He smiles, that confident, slightly flirty, slightly self-conscious smile that makes my blood fizzier than champagne. “It’s just fine.”
Not yet,I think,but it might be very soon…
I nod over my shoulder. “Up for a chat in the laundry room? Where we won’t be stared at by Parker or Makena or…anyone else?”
“Sure,” he says, following me across the lawn, up the small steps, and into my utility space. It’s small, intimate, cozy, the perfect setting for bringing a man around to a slightly crazy plan…
I close the door and turn to face him.
He’s bigger than I remembered, broader, but still smells like pricey detergent, sea spray, and a hint of fresh cut grass. I’d assumed the grassy smell was coming from Parker’s lawn this summer, but no. Apparently, this is Nix’s signature scent.
One I still find inexplicably sexy…
I lean against the dryer, willing a “not in the least bit interested in licking your chest” expression onto my face, pretending his pheromones don’t do dastardly things to my nipples.
