Winter's Kiss

“Let me tell you a story,” she began.

He raised his eyebrows. “I’m going to need more coffee for this,” he muttered as if listening to one of her entertaining tales was some hardship.

“Hey,” she said as he stood up, handing him her cup to refill as well. “I’ll have you know my stories are very well told.”

“They are,” he agreed, pouring coffee into their cups and rejoining her. “They’re also long. And are filled with repetitive, and at times, irrelevant information.”

She waved that away. “Now, don’t get all lawyerly on me. No one likes that. Sit back and relax and drink your coffee. You wanted to know why I came here, but before I can get to that part, I have to start at the beginning.”

“I already know all that. Your cousins tricked you into going out to dinner then forced you to go to a club where several men—”

“Several? I’m flattered. But it was only the two.”

“Where two men vied for your attention—”

She snorted. “Believe me, it wasn’t my attention they were vying for.”

He frowned and she noticed his fingers had gone white on his cup. She hid a smile behind her own mug as she lifted it to take a sip.

“You got drunk,” he continued in what she assumed must be his professional voice. Laying out the facts as he knew them in a deep baritone. “The cousins who took you to said club all left you alone to your own devices. You had enough sense to get a cab, but had to go to the bathroom and didn’t want to travel the distance from the club to your apartment so you, in a moment of clarity, gave him my address. Have I summed up your previous statement clearly?”

She blinked. God, but he was so freaking cute with his courtroom tone and wide shoulders. Smart, funny and good-looking. Was it any wonder she was stuck on him?

“That was very concise and, yes, that is accurate,” she said, turning to face him then crossing her legs. His gaze dropped, briefly, to the movement before he brought his attention back to her face. “But what I didn’t tell you was the reason my cousins got it into their tiny brains that I needed a night on the town, one that preferably ended with wild, kinky sex with a stranger.”

“Your cousins wanted you to hook up with a stranger?”

She lifted a shoulder. “Well, not all of them. Two were for, two were against. Nadine and Steph were hoping I’d meet my soul mate. But they all agreed that I needed a night out, that I needed to put myself out there.”

“Because?”

This was the tricky part. The embarrassing part. “They think I’m heartbroken over Ricky.”

“Ricky? As in your ex-boyfriend?”

“Ex-fiancé,” she corrected primly. They may not have been engaged all that long but he had proposed and she had worn the diamond he’d given her. That made him her fiancé—even if only for a few short months. “He’s back in town.”

She watched him carefully but there was no stiffness to his shoulders. No jealousy tightening his features.

Too bad. She could use some encouragement here.

“Has Ricky contacted you?” Oakes asked, again in lawyer mode. “Does he want to get back together?”

“He’s contacted me,” she said slowly, “but not to get back together.” Though when she’d broken up with him six months ago, she’d imagined him trying a bit harder to get her back. Guess she was easy to get over. “We met for coffee the other day and he told me he’s getting married.”

“I see.”

“I’m fine,” she told him because he was looking at her with sympathy. As if she was someone to be pitied.

Well, why wouldn’t he pity her? He thought—as everyone did—that Ricky had been the one to call off their engagement.

Probably because that’s what she’d told them all.

“I’m sure you are,” Oakes said quickly. Too quickly to be believed. “But if you need anything,” he said, giving her hand a pat, “you know I’m here for you, right?”

Her throat tightened. She did know that. It wasn’t just because he cared about her. It was because he was that kind of guy. The kind who was always there for people, for his family and friends, someone they could count on, could lean on.

And she was going to take horrible advantage of that very trait, one she found super sexy and one of the many reasons she was attracted to him.

And she was almost certain he was attracted to her, too—he just needed some help realizing it. And if that took a teeny, tiny bit of manipulation, a few half-truths and some serious acting chops on her part, then so be it.

She sighed, hoped it was the long, drawn-out sigh of the brokenhearted. “Thank you. I know I shouldn’t be upset about Ricky moving on, it’s just...it was a shock.” Partly because she’d never thought he’d return to Houston from Dallas, where he’d moved after their breakup. Or that he’d find someone else so quickly. Someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with after he’d begged her to come with him. When she’d told him she couldn’t marry him, he’d acted devastated. Had insisted she was his one true love and he’d never get over her breaking his heart.

She’d felt horrible. Ricky was a great guy and she’d hated hurting him but it seemed he’d managed to rebound nicely from his heartache.

“The worst part,” she continued, “is that he and his new girlfriend—fiancée—are getting married in a few weeks and, if you can believe this, he invited me.”

“That’s very...”

“Movie-of-the-week, I know. I don’t think he did it to be vindictive or to rub my nose in it, though.” She chewed on the inside of her lower lip thoughtfully. “I mean, he said all the right things, about how he knew it might be awkward, but that he still cared about me and hoped we could be friends and still be a part of each other’s lives...”

“You don’t believe him?”

“I believe he believes it. The only logical conclusion I could come up with was that Jenny—his fiancée—thinks Ricky and I need the closure that my witnessing their wedding to him would provide.”

Oakes grinned. “Glad that psychology degree is paying off.”

“Hey, if I can’t psychoanalyze ex-fiancés, what’s the point?”

“You’re not going to his wedding, are you?” Oakes asked.

“I don’t want to,” she admitted. Fact was, she’d rather pour hot sauce in her eyes than attend. “But I’m afraid if I don’t, Jenny—or worse, Ricky—will think I’m not attending out of spite. Or because I’m still in love with him.”

Oakes studied her, his gaze intense and searching. “Are you?” he asked quietly.

“Of course not.”

“All I’m saying is it’s only been six months since he broke things off—”

“Us splitting up was for the best,” she said, realizing she sounded like a jilted lover trying to act as if she was fine and dandy with being dumped. Guilt pricked her about not clarifying who, exactly, had done the breaking up, but she couldn’t tell Oakes the truth about her and Ricky. Not without giving too much away. “We weren’t meant to be. It happens.”

Oakes took her hand in his, held it lightly. “No one would blame you if you still had feelings for him.”

“Oakes, I said that I’m over him. I’m twenty-three years old—old enough to know my own feelings.”

That Oakes thought she didn’t was another blow to her ego and one of the reasons she couldn’t admit to her feelings for him. He’d never believe her. Would think this was a continuation of the crush she’d developed on him as a teenager or that he was some kind of rebound.

“Seems to me you said the same thing when you got engaged.”