Page 14 of First Comes Marriage

“I’ll forward the details and we’ll see you next weekend. And do remember to do something with your hair.”

The line went dead and Sabrina shoved the phone into her purse.

You will not cry in a hotel hallway because your mother is exactly the person she has always been. You will not cry over things you cannot control. You will not cry.

No, she wouldn’t cry. But she also wasn’t sure she could sit in an auditorium and pretend she wasn’t barely holding it together, that her mother’s casual dismissal—of the heartache she’d endured over the last few years, of her desires, of her integrity—hadn’t left her raw, like the stinging pain of an old wound reopened. And if she did somehow manage to pull it together long enough to sit through the keynote, to take halfhearted notes she’d struggle to decode later, she knew all it would take is one look from Sebastian for her to crumble.

Crying wouldn’t help.

But tequila might.

***

She’d worn a pencil skirt.

How was Baz supposed to focus on partnership opportunities with tour bus companies when Sabrina was wearing a fucking pencil skirt?

Despite his best efforts to avoid Sabrina, he kept running into her. And each time he passed her in the crowded hallway or narrowly avoided joining the same break-out session that she’d chosen, his frustration increased.

Frustration that she was here at all, that she was headed back to Aster Bay when this was all over, that she existed on the same plane of existence as him.

Frustration that in the years since they’d last seen each other, she’d somehow gone from being a cute kid barely old enough to drink to being this knockout of a woman in red lipstick and flirty little dresses and goddamn pencil skirts.

But most of all, frustration at himself for even noticing the lipstick and the skirts, for wanting to wrap his fist in that cascade of auburn hair and tug until she gasped, for wanting anything to do with her at all.

Baz had spent the decade since his failed attempt at marriage making sure he would never be in a vulnerable position with a woman again. Sure, he flirted and he fucked but he didn’tfeelanything.

It wasn’t fair that Sabrina could make his blood hum with just a bat of her eyelashes and a flash of toned calf muscle—and he couldn’t even begin to think about the strange sensations she’d inspired when she gripped his hand and slept on his shoulder on the plane the day before, the strange mix of calm and protectiveness that had rapidly usurped his usual state of annoyance. What the fuck was he supposed to do with that?

When the audience around him burst into applause, he realized he had hardly heard a word of the keynote—he’d been too busy hating himself for wondering what Sabrina Page wore under her skirt. There was no way he could go back to their shared hotel room and risk being cooped up with her in that confined space for hours on end. It had been hard enough to sleep on the couch for the last two nights, to slip in and out of the room without having to converse with her, to force himselfto fall asleep in a room that smelled like her. He wasn’t sure he could do it for another night.

Which only left two options: he could get absolutely shit faced and pass out for the rest of the night, or he could find a willing woman who was interested in helping him work out some of this…whatever this was. Either way, the initial destination was the same.

***

He heard Sabrina before he saw her.

Hardly two steps into the hotel bar and Sabrina’s laugh slammed into his chest like a battering ram. He scanned the room, skipping over the table of women wearing tiaras adorned with penises surrounding a very drunk looking bride-to-be, until his eyes landed on Sabrina. She sat at the polished mahogany bar, one black patent leather pump dangling from her toes and her conference materials in a stack forgotten at her feet by her open purse. She smiled at the bartender when he slid a fresh margarita in front of her, the expression not quite meeting her eyes despite the flirtatious way she ran her finger over the bartender’s hand.

Baz stalked across the room before he even registered that he was moving. As he drew closer, Sabrina stiffened where she sat, her shoulders straightening and her head swiveling, as though she could sense him approaching. Their eyes locked and her mouth fell open in a surprised little ‘o’ before stretching into a wide smile, white teeth flashing against red lips.

“Sebastian!” She threw her arms out to the side, wobbling on her stool. Then, to the bartender, “This is Sebastian. He hates me.”

“Jesus Christ,” Baz grumbled as he slid onto the stool beside her, nudging her purse further under the lip of the bar and out of sight of any would-be thieves. “I don’t hate you.”

Sabrina took a long sip of her drink, popping off the rim of the glass with a smacking of her lips. “Yes, you do. You hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” he repeated, louder this time.

Her eyes sparkled. “Oh, that’s right. What was it you said?” She drew her brows down and scrunched up her lips in an adorable pout before lowering her voice in a ridiculous impression of him. “I don’t feel anything for you at all.”

“That’s not what I sound like.”

“Mmhmm. Yup. Yuppers. It definitely is.” She drew her finger through the salt on the rim of her glass and popped the fingertip into her mouth, sucking it clean.

Baz closed his eyes against the sight, willing the filthy, inappropriate thoughts flooding his brain to leave him the fuck alone. “You’re drunk.”

“I am?” She gasped in mock surprise and pressed her hand to her chest.

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