Page 58 of Taming a Heartbreaker

She was tired of running. For a full year following her divorce, she had avoided going to places where she thought he would be, and had stayed out of the limelight as much as she could. She had practically become a workaholic just like him, and now she wanted to have some fun. Why was she allowing him to rain on her parade, to make her life miserable when really she should be making his miserable?

Suddenly, she knew just the way to do it.

She hung her clothes back in the closet. It was time to give Matthew Birmingham a taste of his own medicine, Carmen style. She would work him over, do everything in her power to make it impossible for him to resist her, and then when he thought he had her just where he wanted—on her back, beneath him in bed—she would call it a wrap and leave him high and dry...and hopefully hard as a rock.

She smiled. The taste of revenge had never been sweeter.

Matthew walked into the house, closed the door behind him and glanced around. He’d been surprised to see Carmen’s car parked in the driveway. He’d expected her to be long gone by now.

Ardella Rowe had sought him out during divot stomping to let him know of Carmen’s headache. Of course, to keep his ex-wife’s charade going he’d had to show his concern and leave immediately, though he knew she had used the headache as an excuse to slip away.

He heard her moving around upstairs and from the sounds of things she was packing. Now that she knew he was here, she wasn’t wasting any time hightailing it back to wherever she’d been hiding the last few months. She was good at disappearing when she didn’t want to be found.

Moving toward the stairs, he decided to wish her well before returning to the polo fields, hoping to catch the last match if he was lucky. His footsteps echoed on the hardwood floor as he walked toward the master suite. Her scent met him the moment he stepped onto the landing. It was an alluring fragrance that he knew all too well, and it was so much a part of her that he couldn’t imagine her wearing any other perfume.

Jamming his hands into his pockets, he continued his stroll. This would be the first time he’d be here without her. He shook off the dreary feeling that realization had brought on. He was a big boy and could handle it. Besides, Carmen had done enough damage to mess up his life. He doubted he would ever forgive her for breaking his heart, for making him believe there was such a thing as true love and then showing him there really wasn’t.

He’d stopped trying to figure out at what point they’d begun drifting apart. He would be the first to admit he’d spent a lot of hours working, but all those hours he’d spent away from her were meant to build a nice nest egg so they wouldn’t have to work forever.

And although she was paid well for her movies, as her husband, he’d still felt it was his duty to make sure she got anything and everything she wanted in life. They had talked about having a family, but she hadn’t understood that knowing he could provide for her and any child they had was important to him.

Her parents had had money and unlike him, she hadn’t grown up poor. More than anything, he’d wanted to keep her in the lifestyle she’d been accustomed to. What in the world could be so terribly wrong about wanting to do that? To this day he just couldn’t figure it out, and the more he thought about it, the angrier he got.

He had built his world around her. She had been the only thing that truly mattered and everything he’d done had been for her. But she hadn’t appreciated that. So now, because of a decision she’d made without him, he was a man whose life was still in turmoil, although he fought like hell to keep that a secret. And he placed the blame for his shattered life at her feet.

He reached the bedroom’s double doors and without bothering to knock, he pushed open the door.

And stopped dead in his tracks.

Chapter Three

Carmen swung around at the sound of the bedroom door opening and tightened her bathrobe around her. She threw her head back, sending hair cascading around her shoulders. “What are you doing in here, Matthew?”

For a moment he simply stood there staring at her, no doubt taking in the fact that she had just taken a shower and was probably stark naked beneath her short robe.

When he didn’t answer, she said in a sharp tone, “Matthew, I asked you a question.”

His attention shifted from her body and slid up to her face. “What do you think you’re doing, Carmen?”

His voice sounded strained and his breathing shallow. “What does it look like I’m doing? I just finished taking a shower and now I’m putting on clothes. You should have knocked.”

Carmen watched as something flickered in the depths of his dark eyes and a muscle clenched in his jaw. He took his hands out of his pockets, causing the material of his pants to stretch across the huge bulge at his center. It was quite obvious he’d gotten aroused from seeing her half-naked. She inwardly smiled. He’d taken the bait just the way she’d planned.

“I own this place. I don’t have to knock, Carmen. And why are you still here? Why aren’t you gone or at least packing?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and followed the movement of his eyes from her face to her breasts. She was very much aware that her curves were outlined through the silky material of her robe. It seemed he was very much aware of it, as well.

“I decided that I won’t be leaving.”

He pulled his gaze away from her chest. “Excuse me?”

“I said I won’t be leaving. I’d assumed you would be in L.A. all summer, which is why I made plans to spend my vacation here. I don’t intend to change that just because you’ve shown up.”

A muscle clenched in his jaw again, making it obvious her statement hadn’t gone over well with him. She wasn’t surprised when he said, with an icy gaze, “You should have checked my plans for the summer. If you had, I would have told you this place was off-limits. I regret that you didn’t. I also regret that you have to leave.”

She inched her chin a little higher and declared, “I’m not going anywhere, Matthew. I deserve some peace and quiet. I’ve worked hard this year.”

“And you don’t think that I have?”

---