Page 1 of Rebels and Roses

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Cooper Winslow had always thought of himself as a man who could take a joke. He had an excellent sense of humor and was always ready to have a laugh at himself. He actively tried not to take life too seriously, cultivating a laid-back personality. One of his brothers had joked that Cooper didn’t care about anything at all.

This was far from the truth.

He cared about justice. He cared about having empathy for his fellow human beings. He cared about making sure children had food in their stomachs. What he didn’t care about was things like being first in line or whether someone was passing him on the road. They were all going to get there eventually, so why worry?

If he was stuck in traffic, he didn’t rant and rave, banging the steering wheel at the hand the universe had dealt him. He’d always simply assumed that the pesky “universe” didn’t want him getting where he was going until a bit later.

So it was with that attitude that he kept staring at the text on his phone.

He hadn’t been expecting it. At all.

If someone had bet him a million dollars this morning that Cooper would receive a text from his ex-wife Fiona, he would have taken that bet with confidence. He hadn’t heard from her in years. He hadn’t expected to either.

“You’ve sort of zoned out there. Are you okay? Do I need to get you some smelling salts or a fainting couch?”

Ah, Jane Taylor.

She was an intelligent, feisty woman who was also drop-dead gorgeous. She had a wicked sense of humor and a potty mouth that would make a sailor blush. Her absolute steadfastness about living life on her own terms and being who she was without apologies was one of the things he loved about her.

Not love-love. They didn’t have that sort of relationship. In fact, no one else knew they were seeing each other. He was her dirty little secret, and it was fine with him. He wasn’t looking for emotions or entanglements. He could just sit back and enjoy the hot, raunchy sex without needing to place some sort of label on what they were to each other.

He simply admired her ability to not bend to societal expectations. He had the same disdain for the world’s arbitrary rules about how he or others should act.

“A fainting couch?” he echoed. “We’re already in bed. I can’t fall much further. And I don’t have any smelling salts. It’s not the late eighteenth century, and this isn’tPride and Prejudice.”

“I think they still make them.”

“We’re not in one of your romance novels. If I get the urge to faint, I’ll just sit down and put my head between my knees.”

“I’d give anything to see that.”

“You’d just tell me to kiss my own ass.”

“I won’t deny it.” Jane rearranged the covers and slid a few inches away. He instantly missed the warmth of her satin-like skin. “Seriously, are you okay? You look like you’re in shock.”

“That’s because I am. I didn’t expect to get a text from my ex-wife.”

He held up the phone so she could read it for herself. He didn’t have any secrets.

Wait…that wasn’t true. He did have secrets. The fact that he was a best-selling mystery writer was a secret from his family and most of his friends. Oh, and sleeping with Jane was a secret, too. But other than that? None.

“She’s here in town? She wants you to meet her? What are you going to do?”

“Go see her, I guess.” With a groan, Cooper threw the covers aside and levered up from the bed. This wasn’t what he wanted to do. He wanted to stay here and eat pizza with Jane. Maybe make love to her again, but that’s not what would happen. “If Fiona flew all this way to see me, the shit must have really hit the fan. The last time I saw her, she said she hoped to never see my face again.”

“She probably didn’t mean it.”

“She meant it.”

He had no doubts whatsoever that Fiona hated him. She blamed him for their divorce. She blamed him for climate change and a list of other things, as well.

Hell, maybe she was right. He hadn’t been the greatest husband. But in his defense, he’d warned her. She’d pushed for the commitment, anyway, not believing him and assuming he didn’t know himself as well as she did.

Pure madness. He should have shut it down, but he’d thought he was in love. Now he knew it was simply intense lust that hadn’t been slaked as quickly as his past relationships.

“Does she have reason to?”

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