Page 12 of Homecoming Heartbreaker

Themoron.

Molly pushed her chair back and stood, all traces of her embarrassment gone and replaced by cold anger. She met his eyes and when his widened, she knew that he’d clocked her temper. “Are you freaking kidding me? Why would you assume that?”

“Uh—”

Molly slapped her hand on his hard pec and pushed him, annoyed that she couldn’t budge him. “How incredibly arrogant of you to think that, just because you are back in my life, I’d welcome you back into my bed. I may have missed you, but you left me without a word. I haven’t had a proper conversation with you in years and I’m solidly, completely, massively pissed at you! You acted like a jerk and I’d rather sleep with a snake!”

“Then why did you kiss me like I was your last hit of oxygen?” Mack demanded.

Calm down, Molly, and do not let him see how rattled you truly are.

“C’mon, Mack, we’ve been combustible since the first time we made out. We may have changed but that hasn’t,” Molly said, trying to lighten her tone. “It was just a kiss, no big deal.”

“It feels like it’s a big deal,” Mack countered.

Arrgh, why was he pushing this? “I’ll admit you broke my teenage heart but I’m very over you, Holloway.”

Mack scrubbed his hands over his face and when he dropped them, Molly saw remorse within those dark depths. Too little, too late.

Knowing he was about to apologize and not wanting to hear it, she lifted her hand to speak. “Let me just say this, Mack, and then, hopefully, we can move on. I missed my boyfriend, but God, Imournedmy best friend. And you will never, ever get the chance to hurt me like that again.”

Squaring her shoulders, she pushed away the tang of acidic emotions and stepped into the hallway. She’d visit with Jameson and Giada and then she’d head back to her office. It was getting late but she had work to do, reports to read, staff schedules to post, requisitions to authorize...

A business to save.

Mack watched Molly’s lovely figure walk away and pushed a frustrated hand through his hair. He was all about control, it was his guiding principle, a core tenet of his life. As an adult, and intellectually, he knew his mom’s death was not his fault—how could it be?—but that hadn’t stopped his biological dad from blaming him and taking his anger out on his young son.

His dad’s uncontrollable temper scared him and he loved Jameson’s steadiness and lack of volatility and tried to emulate his nonblood father. The one time he lost complete control had disastrous consequences, so these days he always thought twice—thrice—and acted once. He never ever allowed emotion to guide him and what he wanted was always tempered with thoughts about what he needed and whether he could live with all the possible consequences of his actions.

Since leaving Asheville he’d been careful, thoughtful, conservative...

But Molly Haskell could blow him out of the water. She still smelled the same, looked, in many ways, the same, but there was a strength to her now that intrigued him, a confidence that hadn’t been there fifteen years ago. And that, he supposed, made sense. She’d grown up.

And, Mack thought, remembering her perfect breast under his hand, the curve of her stupendous butt, she’d grown up damn fine.

Stop it, Holloway, for crap’s sake.She’s just another gorgeous woman. He’d met, and bedded, quite a few since he was eighteen. But none of his past lovers had Molly’s ability to crawl under his skin, upend his life and muddle his brain.

Molly, damn her, wasn’t someone he could easily dismiss.

So far life in Asheville was anything but boring. In between trying not to throttle his irascible and demanding father, Mack kept tabs on what was happening with his chain of breweries and gastropubs and, when he had a spare moment, tried to get a handle on what was happening with the resort. But uncharacteristically, he was often distracted by the memories of how Molly loved him so long ago. His lips on hers, her hand on his shaft...

The memory of her pain and disappointment slapped at him, hard and fast. If they were going to work together, Mack reluctantly conceded, they were going to have to address the past. Properly. Their brief conversation last week had barely scratched the surface.

And...

He’d rather have a hot ember rammed into his eye.

But he’d hurt her and he regretted that. Mack wondered what she would say if he told her that he spent many nights thinking of her, missing her with every atom of his being. Would she be surprised to hear that, in the weeks and months after leaving, he’d often woken with a wet-from-tears pillowcase, feeling like a bowling ball was residing in his stomach? That he, on a hundred occasions, maybe more, picked up his phone to call her, just to hear her voice?

He was pretty sure that she had no idea that when he’d left, he cut out his own heart, too.

But he hadn’t been able to stay. The guilt had been intense, his relationships with his brothers were annihilated and Mack couldn’t fathom how Jameson could love him after what he did. In losing control, he’d failed his father and his brothers.

After he left Asheville, school slid into work and he immersed himself in his business, establishing brewery after brewery, adding gastropubs to the mix. He had a fancy loft apartment, a cabin in Whistler, cars and toys and a crap-load of cash in the bank, numerous women he could call on if he needed company...

He worked. Played a little. Worked out. Worked and worked out some more.

Existed.

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