Page 8 of Deal Breaker
I’m supposed to walk away.
Instead, I stare. Just for a second. But it’s long enough to feel what it was like to know her all over again. To love her.
She looks up.
Our eyes lock.
And the smile slips right off her face.
I should turn around. Forget about my coffee, go directly to the office and pretend I didn’t just make eye contact with the woman who blew my world apart. But I don’t because I’m a goddamn masochist or because part of me still wants answers I’m not ready to hear. Either way, my feet move before my brain does. One step, then another, until I’m standing at the edge of her table. Too close.
She straightens in her seat. Her mom, Carolyn, goes quiet, glancing between us with a slow, knowing look. “I’ll see you outside,” she says to her daughter, sliding out of the booth before Landyn has a chance to respond. “Ford, it’s good to see you,” she says as she moves past me and out the door.
Landyn doesn’t speak, just watches me with those wide, dark eyes I used to know better than my own.
“So, you’re back for good,” I say finally, voice low.
She nods. “Just moved into the cottage by the beach.”
Of course she did. She always said she wanted to live near the water, near the ocean. And now she’s doing it, settling into her life in Deep Cove like she never left.
“Deep Cove’s a small town.” My gaze locks on hers, sharp and unflinching. “You must’ve known you’d run into me eventually.”
Her chin tips up a fraction. “I did.”
“Well,” I say, leaning back slightly, the wood of the booth creaking under the shift of my weight, “here we are. And just so we’re clear, I’m not really a let-it-go kind of guy.”
Her throat works, and for the smallest second, I see something flicker across her face—guilt, maybe. Or regret.
Good.
Because she deserves to feel every ounce of the storm she left me with and I don’t owe her anything. Not after the way she left. Not after seven years of silence. Not after the worst goddamn heartbreak of my life.
Except when I look at her now—flushed cheeks, the faintest tremble in her jaw—I wonder for the first time if maybe she was broken too. I wonder if maybe she still is.
“I’ll stay out of your way,” she says quietly. “I’m here for the job. That’s it.”
I nod once. Sharp. Controlled. “Good,” I lie, and then I walk away because if I don’t, I might ask the question I swore I never would.
Why did you leave?
And I’m not ready to hear the answer.
By the timeI get to the office, I’ve just about convinced myself I imagined that conversation. The tightness in her voice. The flush in her cheeks. The way her eyes didn’t let go of mine.
It’s nothing. It’s in the past. She’s just a girl I used to know.
Jesse’s already in the lounge when I walk in—feet kicked up on the coffee table, sleeves rolled to theelbows, like he owns the place. Which, to be fair, he does. One-third of it, anyway.
He looks up from his phone, and a slow, wolfish grin spreads across his face. “Well, well,” he drawls. “If it isn’t our fearless leader, fresh from a run-in with the ghost of heartbreak past.”
I ignore him and head for the espresso machine.
“She still as hot as you remember?” he asks casually, like he’s asking about the weather. “Hotter? Don’t answer that, I saw her yesterday. Ten out of ten. Would self-destruct over.”
I shoot him a look over my shoulder. “You done?”
“Not even close.” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Come on, man. You show up here all broody, look like you haven’t slept, and you expect me not to bring up the fact that Landyn freaking Sinclair is working down the hall?”
