Page 49 of Any Cowboy of Mine
Sophie was set up.
“Yep, but we aren’t going there right now. We’re here,” Jackie announced, smug and confident.
“Oooh, you are so lucky I’m in the mood to relax tonight, or I wouldn’t care who was around. You and I are talking about this tomorrow, Jackie. Don’t you dare try to get out of it.” Sophie pointed her finger in her friend’s face.
Jackie lifted her hands in the air as if to say, “I would never.” Love had struck her upside the head, rendering her stupid, as far as Sophie was concerned. But she didn’t get all dolled up for nothing. She had big plans to forget all about Drew and Brad and Jackie and Steve tonight, and celebrate all that was good in her life, even if all that amounted to was a new pair of shoes. She parked alongside Steve’s apartment and turned off the car, shaking her head.
She pushed ahead of Jackie and stomped up the icy stairs, indignant. She shoved open the door and was barely two steps inside when she stopped dead in her tracks. There, not ten feet in front of her, was Brad, looking painfully attractive in a charcoal-gray button-down shirt strategically unbuttoned so the top of his pec muscles peeked out. Sophie knew exactly what lay beneath them, and suddenly she wasn’t as cold as she’d been moments earlier.
He smiled at her, and as if he knew it would remove any and all logic from her brain, he ran his hands through his hair slowly, like he was caught in a slo-mo replay of a video. Damn it, he looked good. She’d hoped he’d have gained forty pounds in pizza and beer weight over the past week out of sheer missing-her devastation.
“What is he doing here?” Sophie hissed, her thumb jackknifing towards Brad. Jackie just smiled, her hands up and shoulders shrugged. Sophie was about to start the shaking-some-sense into her best friend right then and there, when Jackie’s face went white, and her smile vanished. It was so authentic, so abrupt a transition, that Sophie spun around. There, next to Brad and Steve, was Drew.
“No, what’shedoing here?!” Jackie whispered. Both women turned to look at each other, realizing that no matter what they had separately planned for the evening, it was all thrown out the window.
The night just got much more interesting.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Second Chances
Brad noticed Sophiethe moment she walked in the door, a full three seconds before she saw him. His heart sped up like he’d just finished a sprint workout and his mouth went dry.
She was breathtakingly beautiful, from the little bit of makeup that let her natural beauty shine through, to the dress she wore—if one could even call it a dress. His gaze trailed over her from top to bottom, marveling at how little Sophie’s outfit left to his imagination. The trickier thing was that even though a third of her exquisite body was (sort of) covered by the invitingly soft, black fabric, Brad had seen, touched, tasted each inch of what the dress attempted to hide, and he wasn’t fooled for a moment.
He was intimately aware of the ins and outs of the woman who caught him staring, including what the flush in her cheeks meant when she noticed his less-than-gentlemanly gaze. His only question was whether or not she felt the same as he did.
House music came from speakers Steve had seamlessly and invisibly installed in every room. While Brad appreciated that Christmas music was behind them for at least eleven months, this voiceless garbage wasn’t any better, especially not her taking up all the air in the room. A classic like Frank Sinatra or BB King is what Sophie deserved.
Though he was excited to see her, he couldn’t help but notice when her attention shifted suddenly to someone else in the room. Someone she was decidedly less excited to see than him, which piqued his interest. Brad’s gaze followed hers until it found the target. A well-dressed man in a suit stared back at Sophie with eyes that Brad could read clearly. Brad knew what the mystery man was thinking because he felt the same way. It was longing, pure and simple. But the closer he looked, he realized there was something else there.Sadness.
Brad pulled old memories from a purposely forgotten part of his mind to remember how he’d looked at Julia around the first month after their breakup. He’d ran into her, literally, as he rounded a corner at the grocery store. They’d both just stood there, mute and resolute, Brad in his sadness, Julia standing her ground, looking for all the world like she couldn’t understand why Brad was so upset. His eyes had reflected the sadness and sense of betrayal he felt toward them both for six more months. Until he’d met Sophie, actually.
Brad knew without a doubt the man he was spying on was Drew, the ex-boyfriend-and-boss Sophie’d told him about last week. What the hell was he doing at Steve’s?
He caught a whiff of the familiar and enticing aroma of plumeria and realized Sophie was heading his way. Just before she got to him, she lost her balance. He lunged and caught her, his hands knowing just where to hold her that would center her again. Brad concentrated on the juxtaposition between the strong arms he held and the kitten-soft skin touching his. Goose bumps rose on his own forearms, and he hoped to God she wouldn’t notice.
It wasn’t the time, not yet.
He had a lot of explaining to do and was in that moment eternally grateful to Jackie for making sure Sophie got there so he could have the chance.
“You’re here,” Sophie said, her voice like a whisper. It was as if the music wasn’t playing anymore, like all the other guests had vanished. All he heard, saw, registered, washer. Similar goose bumps rose on her shoulders but didn’t give her the satisfaction of taking his hands off her. He missed the hell out of her touch and would only move if she asked him to. God, he hoped she wouldn’t.
“I am, and I am so damn glad to see your face. Happy New Year, Sophie.” He gazed into her eyes, hoping the love he felt for her—by now he was certain it was love, not just a profound lust—came through.
“Happy New Year to you, too. But that doesn’t explain why, though.”
“Why, what?” His face changed. His brows pulled together in confusion.
“Why you’re here. I don’t blame you, not anymore, really, for what you did, but it doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it. Since we have to work together to help with the wedding, faster than we thought, but we’ll get into that later, I promise to be polite. But Brad, understand me now when I say I never make the same mistake twice. Never.”
Brad stared back at Sophie with the dawning realization that Jackie hadn’t prepped her friend at all. He scanned the room till he found Jackie—nuzzled up to Steve’s shoulder, of course—and gave her a “what-the-fuck” grimace.
She gave him a sweet little wave, a fake-as-hell beauty-pageant smile, and turned her attention back to Steve. So, she’d done it on purpose. Man, did she look like she enjoyed making him sweat. It wasn’t like he’d actually done anything wrong, either, or he could see the purpose in making this night even harder for him than it already was.
Oh well, fuck it. He was there for Sophie and nothing else. If he had to start from scratch with her, so be it.
“Sophie, can we talk?” His heart dropped as she scowled at him. He cursed Jackie under his breath. “Please? I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it would clear everything else up. Jackie and Steve already know, and that’s why we’re both here, Soph. So you can hear it from me.”
