Page 8 of The Re-Proposal

Cody Bolton.

A.K.A my biggest heartbreak.

My biggest mistake.

My biggest life lesson.

Our gazes collide and, even though I’m one hundred percent sure I despise him, my body flashes with warmth.Oof.I hate that he’s more handsome now than he was in college.

His bone structure is chiseled, hewn from marble and granite. His lips are hard and firm, surrounded by the kind of stubble that I’ve only seen in men’s magazines and cologne commercials.

If life were fair, terrible people should be ugly. So why does he still look like a Disney prince?

“Ris?” He whispers my name the way he used to. The way that once made shivers dance down my spine.

But I steel myself against it.

I’m not that girl anymore.

He destroyed her.

And I buried her body where it can never be resurrected.

“Excuse me,” I snap, knocking into him as I try to get on the elevator.

He drops his hands a couple inches to bar me from entering. I careen to a stop, my nose mere centimeters away from his upper arms.

Really muscular arms.

Attached to delectable hands—wide palms, elegant fingers, a wrist coated bythemost expensive watch I’ve ever seen.

My heart starts pounding.

“It’s good to see you,” Cody says. His tone is gentle, but it’s wrapped in a voice that’s too deep and gravelly to be innocent. Every word sounds way more sensual than it should.

Slanting him a scathing look, I grind out, “I can’t say the same.”

“I guess I deserve that.”

What he deserves is my foot down his throat.

His hands dive into the pockets of his slacks. “What are you doing here?”

“None of your business.”

Seeing that he’s dropped his arm, I march past him and enter the elevator. Like a woodpecker going to town on a tree trunk, I stab the button to close the doors.

Cody spins around, his hand stopping the elevator from closing.

I let out a silent groan.So close to freedom.

“What do you want?” I hiss.

He watches me with a wrinkle between his brow. That wrinkle… I know it. It popped up frequently in college—first when we studied together and later, whenever he ran into a problem while building his start-up.

Cody was one of those overachievers who established his own business while getting top gradesandbeing involved in the student council. It’s not surprising to me that he’s successful. Every choice he made back then was for the sake of his dreams.

Every choice.

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