Page 43 of Second Go-Round

Closing my eyes, I told myself that if Christine wouldn’t bend her stance on taking a chance with me, I would walk away for good. But I would have one last taste, a final memory to remember her by…it would have to be enough.

Then afterward?

I would find a way to get back to the closed-off life I’d lived before she entered my life like a wrecking ball, making me wish for things I never thought I would want.

Chapter 19

Christine

Birthdays sucked ass.

The big 3-0 had struck, and I refused to celebrate aging, even threatened Dad against holding any type of surprise party. I’d already plucked two gray hairs from above my left ear, and when I frowned, a line indented the once smooth skin between my eyebrows. I even had a fucking age spot on my left temple.

At thirty!

“Fucking hell,” I whined to myself while peering into the fogged mirror above my bathroom sink. Using my fingertips, I pulled back and tightened the skin of my cheeks. Auntie Sophie had a facelift a few years earlier—it’d done wonders in removing a few years’ worth of sag and wrinkles. I turned my head side to side. Doing the same would probably change the appearance of my eyes though. They would end up all squinty, and with my luck, everyone and their mother would know I’d had work done.

Pride came before vanity in my brain.

Expelling a huff of air, I grabbed my empty wineglass off the tub’s side where I’d spent the last half hour soaking and sipping some merlot, trying to forget about the work day from hell. It was time for a refill, and I would spend the rest of the evening like a hermit in front of my TV watching some stupid reality show about people finding love.

The towel wrapped around my body and tucked between my breasts sagged as I poured another drink, my gaze flitting to the island.

“Fucking hell,” I muttered again, lifting my glass. I hadn’t gone out since that night I’d met Jarod. I had zero desire to meet anyone, let alone feel fingertips on my skin that didn’t belong to him. I swallowed down two big gulps of the dry wine. Forget fucking anyone else either.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked myself while topping off my wine and emptying the bottle.

My doorbell rang.

Growling over having my pity party interrupted, I strode toward my door and peephole that allowed me to check who visited before I decided if I wanted to actually be home or not since my car sat hidden in my garage. At least the exterior lights illuminated who stood on my front porch.

The limo driver from Elite, his black hair slicked back in a ponytail.

“Holy...” I cleared my throat as a thrill shot through me, but I hesitated from opening the door. Perhaps the dude was a perv and wanted a piece of what Jarod had gotten. Wracking my brain for why else the driver would be there, I came up with the only obvious other reason. Someone had bought me a birthday present.

The chain still attached, I turned the knob and peeked out through the three-inch crack, my towel-wrapped body hidden behind the door. I parted my lips to ask him what he wanted, but he held up a card, smirking as I read the three simple words.

* * *

Happy Birthday – Jessie

* * *

My gaze jerked back up to his face, and I blinked as I drummed up his name from my slightly buzzed brain. Ricky—that’s it. “Who do you have the pleasure of driving around this evening, Ricky?”

“Just you, Miss Gemberling, but Jarod will meet you at our destination.”

I swallowed against the dryness in my throat. “I don’t think that’s a good—”

“Jessie suggested I mention a certain fantasy if you declined to accept her gift.”

Oh, holy fuck. I wanted to kill my friend. I also wanted to kiss her.

“I’m to drive you to the hotel up the road a bit for a clandestine meeting—if you wish to join them.”

Them.

Heat flushed through me from head to toe, and my underarms prickled. So not just Jarod. Someone else hiding in the shadows who was meant to go nameless, exactly like the fantasy I’d spilled to Jessie months earlier.

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