Page 103 of Five Alarm Kiss

“How are you liking the event?” she asked. Cool and professional. That’s what she was shooting for. “I think they’re going to surpass their goal.”

“Could be.” He did the elevator look: starting at her face, his gaze slid down her body, then back up.

She felt nothing.

Whenever Jake looked her up and down, her heart would race, and her body ignited. When Ethan had done it just now? Absolutely nothing.

“Wow. That’s not the type of dress you used to wear.” He made it sound like what she used to wear—what she still wore when Britt didn’t dress her—was subpar.

The elevator went down to the basement, then back to the penthouse once more.

This time his perusal was slower, more deliberate, more… skeezy. She fought the urge to cringe. With that one look, Ethan made her feel objectified. Jake never had.

“I’m not the same woman I used to be,” she told him. Man, she sounded calm and collected. No clue how she’d pulled it off, but she gave herself a mental high five.

“No, you look hot,” Ethan said.

Because I didn’t before.

In her mind, that’s what she heard. And, knowing him, that’s what he’d meant.

Jerk.

She lifted her chin. He may be taller than her—heck, most people aside from her first-graders were—but she wasn’t going to let him intimidate her. Not anymore.

“Not that you didn’t look good before,” he backpedaled.

She gave him a tight-lipped smile. “Nice seeing you,” she lied. “Enjoy the rest of the evening.” She turned to go.

“Laurel…” He grabbed her upper arm, stopping her from leaving,

She tried to pull out of his grasp, but he only tightened his grip.

“I want to talk to you.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk to you. Let go of my arm.”

He did finally release her, trailing his fingers down to her wrist before fully breaking contact. It made her skin crawl.

“Laur, you have to know I never meant to hurt you.”

The use of her nickname made her bristle. It was too familiar, too personal. He didn’t have that right anymore.

“Sure you didn’t. Because there’s no way you could’ve known that sleeping with someone else the night of our rehearsal dinner would hurt me,” she scoffed. “You’re so full of it.”

She remembered that night vividly. She’d taken her wedding dress and things to her parents’ house, planning to spend the night. She hadn’t wanted Ethan to see her in the morning before the wedding because it was supposed to be bad luck. What a joke that had turned out to be.

Skye had picked her up, and they’d ridden to the rehearsal dinner together. Ethan had met them there. Before he’d arrived, however, Skye had overheard some girls talking, and one had said she’d met Ethan at his and Laurel’s apartment after Laurel had left, and they’d had sex. In their bed! The girl apparently had laughed about it, but Laurel sure hadn’t. She’d been crushed, but had held onto her delusional belief that the woman had been lying. She hadn’t been willing to accept it until she’d spoken with Ethan.

But when he’d shown up, he’d smelled like perfume and there’d been a lipstick smudge he’d missed on the side of his jaw near his ear. In that instant, her perfectly constructed happily-ever-after had burst. Embarrassment and pain had engulfed her, and something inside her had snapped. She’d hauled off and punched him before he’d even gotten a word out. She’d decked him so hard, he’d stumbled back, tripped, and fallen to the floor… in front of the entire roomful of their wedding party and families.

She’d never done anything like that before, and hadn’t realized she was going to, but she definitely didn’t regret it. Not one iota.

And now he was standing in front of her saying he hadn’t meant to hurt her? What a load of butter brickle!

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I feel terrible.”

The fact he thought those five little words would absolve him made her laugh. “So terrible it took you four years to apologize.”

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