Page 16 of Broken Heart

Nodding, he explained, “If we’re going to convince your ex and your former best friend that you’ve moved on and are better off without them—the latter of which I’m already certain is the case—I think our chances of success will be much greater if we know a few things about one another. It’ll make us both more comfortable on the night of the event, and our relationship will be more believable.”

I wanted to slap my hand against my forehead. Why did I automatically presume Cooper wanted something more out of me? He was simply doing what was necessary to follow through on making Maria and Simon believe I was over what both of them had done to me.

Granted, I still wasn’t quite sure why he’d want to do this if there was nothing in it for him.

But I couldn’t deny Cooper had an excellent idea. The only problem was that I still felt uneasy about it. “Oh,” I murmured. “I’m not sure if that’s completely necessary.”

“It’s not,” he assured me, taking a step forward and closing the distance between us. His voice dropped an octave or two when he added, “But I think you deserve a little bit of retribution, and I want to help you get it.”

Great.

Just great.

He was handsome, confident, hardworking, generous, and competitive.

Maybe I had my answer as to why he wanted to do this.

Unfortunately, this was a recipe for disaster.

So, it was only natural that I ignored the warning signs and replied, “What exactly did you have in mind?”

A victorious grin spread across his face, which should have had me backtracking.

It didn’t.

And barely five minutes later, Cooper had walked out the door with my cell phone number programmed into his. In exchange, I had his promise that he’d call me later tonight to work out the details of our pre-date date with me.

The worst part about all of it was that I didn’t know what I was most excited for—getting to know him better, being able to prove to Simon and Maria that I was better off without them, or knowing I was going to hear Cooper’s voice again in just a few hours.

5

SKYE

Sleepless nights had become the norm.

After what Simon and Maria had done to me, I didn’t seem to stand a chance.

Initially, I hadn’t even realized that the restlessness was the result of my mind not being able to let go of what they’d done.

I’d learned the truth about Simon’s infidelity and his and Maria’s betrayal back at the beginning of February. In northeastern Pennsylvania, that meant it was still bitterly cold outside. So, when I woke up shivering that first night after I’d received his email, I had assumed it was because of the chilly temperatures, even though the heat was on in my house.

I hadn’t been able to fall back asleep that night, and I’d believed it was merely because I was cold and couldn’t find a comfortable spot again.

But when it continued to happen night after night, even as we entered the spring months, I realized it had nothing to do with the weather.

It was me, lonely and reliving the previous two years of my life over and over in my head. It was me trying to figure out what I had missed and the things I could have done differently.

Months and months had passed, and I’d done nothing but unintentionally torment myself each and every night. It had gotten marginally better as time went on, and I started getting a bit more sleep on occasion, but those nights were few and far between.

Last night was different.

In fact, several nights over the last week had been different.

It wasn’t because I’d suddenly managed to get eight or more hours of uninterrupted sleep—I wasn’t sure that would ever happen again. Rather, it was because I wasn’t thinking about Simon, Maria, or any of the things I had overlooked in my relationships with either one of them.

Instead, my thoughts were completely and totally on one person and one thing—Cooper Westwood and our upcoming date.

Just as he’d promised before he left The Next Chapter the day he finished fixing the door, Cooper had called me that evening to work out the details of a date before the charity event.

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