Everything inside him began to shut down, the familiar numbness of the protective wall seeping in.
No. He ground his teeth together and clenched his fists at his sides.
He would not let anyone, not even Willow, take his self-respect. He’d fought too hard to win it back, to find his place in the world. Where he belonged and what he was good at.
He had a successful business and a good education. He’d fought tooth and nail for everything and was grateful for the struggle because it meant he appreciated what he had.
Willow Portis didn’t want him in her life. Fine. He refused to stay where he wasn’t wanted. Or beg. He’d survived the damage one Portis sister had done, surely he could survive the other.
* * *
FOUR DAYS LATER, back in his life in Atlanta, he was failing miserably. Until he’d walked away from Willow, he would have said that nothing could have been more painful than leaving Sweetheart the first time.
He’d have been wrong.
And it wasn’t just about Willow. Somehow the entire damn town had wormed its way back into his good graces. He missed the place. The nosy busybodies who’d stopped him on the street to threaten him about hurting Willow. Knowing everyone.
Hell, he’d lived in his house for four years and didn’t even know his neighbors’ names. And until two weeks ago that hadn’t bothered him. It did now.
The pub, the diner, that damn club and the sense of belonging he hadn’t wanted to feel but couldn’t stop.
Everyone in his office was walking on eggshells. He knew they were talking behind his back, speculating about what had happened in Sweetheart to leave him prowling the hallways like a wounded bear.
Today he’d barked at Gladys, the sixty-year-old grandmother he’d hired to answer his phones. Everyone loved Gladys. She baked chocolate chip cookies for the office every Friday.
Her eyes had gone steely and her mouth had thinned, but she hadn’t reprimanded him even though he’d definitely deserved it. He’d growled an apology at her, feeling guilty that he hadn’t been able to manage anything more. He’d give her an extra day off instead.
It had been easy to bury himself in work, throwing all of his focus at the projects and bids he’d neglected while he was out of town. He had plenty of competent people to handle most of it, although if he didn’t cool it he was going to lose all of them.
Pushing himself to the point of exhaustion so that he could fall into bed and shut off his mind was one thing. Demanding his employees act like they didn’t have lives outside the office was another.
He’d founded the company on family values and insisted on flexibility. Not just because it was the right thing to do, but because when employees knew their families were taken care of, their time at the office was more productive.
Just because he didn’t have anyone to go home to didn’t mean no one else did.
A pain lanced through his chest. Dev tried to ignore it, but found himself rubbing a hand across his sternum anyway.
Pushing up from the sofa, he crossed to his fridge and grabbed a beer. While he’d been able to hold everything back so far, the weekend loomed huge and lonely in front of him.
Maybe he’d get drunk tonight and then visit the local Habitat for Humanity project he was helping sponsor tomorrow. If they weren’t ready for him to start on the landscaping they could always use a pair of steady hands elsewhere. Backbreaking, mindless work was exactly what he needed.
But before he could put the first step of his plan into action, his cell phone rang. A bubble of hope burst in his chest before he managed to tamp it down.
If Willow had wanted to talk to him she would have already called. That didn’t stop him from looking at the screen. And then groaning when he realized the call was from his ex-wife.
He’d spoken to the woman more in the past month than he had in six years. He couldn’t ignore her, though.
“Natalie,” he answered.
“Dev,” she chirped, her voice bubbly and full of happiness.
Part of him wanted to resent the hell out of her for it. But he couldn’t do that, either. While it had been a long time since he’d been in love with her, he still wanted her to be happy.
“Did you hear? The final decree came through today. We’re officially divorced.”
“Beautiful,” he grumbled, tacking on, “about four days too late,” under his breath.
But she heard him anyway. “What do you mean four days too late?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t do that,” she scolded. “I always hated it when you did that. Dangle a tiny piece of information that I knew meant so much more than what was on the surface and then refuse to follow it up with the rest.”
“I don’t do that.”
“Yes, you do. And it’s annoying.”
Dev sighed, closing his eyes and searching for some center of peace that he wasn’t sure existed anymore. He might not have spoken to his ex-wife much over the years, but he hadn’t forgotten just how tenacious she could be when she wanted something.
He could either answer her or live with her incessant pestering until she uncovered whatever it was.
“Fine. I met someone. She found out we were still married and told me to get lost.”
Natalie sniffed. “If she wasn’t willing to wait for you to get the divorce finalized then she wasn’t worth your time.”
He should keep his mouth shut and let her assume that the fault had been Willow’s, but for some reason he couldn’t do it.
“Well, I...uh...didn’t tell her right away.”
“Dev,” Natalie groaned. He could practically see her eyes rolling with frustration. “What is wrong with you? If you were serious about her why wouldn’t you tell her?”
“It’s complicated. Willow and I have a history.”
Silence buzzed down the line, for some reason making him restless. Dev stood and paced over to the windows that faced out onto his back garden.
“What kind of history?”
He shook his head, unhappy to be having this conversation with anyone, let alone his ex-wife. “It isn’t important.”
A heavy sigh gushed down the line at him. “You’re doing it again, aren’t you?”
“Doing what?”
“Pushing everyone away. Pretending that things are perfect when they aren’t. Putting up the walls to keep people out.”
He had no idea what she was talking about. “No.”
Natalie scoffed. “I don’t even have to ask if you care about her. Do you want to know why?”
Something told him he really didn’t. The skin at the back of his neck tightened with apprehension. “Not particularly.”
“I’m going to tell you anyway, sweetie. You run from anything that scares you.”
His hands clenched into fists. “I do not.” She was calling his masculinity into question.
“Pull back the porcupine quills. I’m not judging you. I do the same thing. Ask my fiancé. It’s a defense mechanism, Dev, one you’ve developed honestly.”
A dull roar began in the back of his head. Reaching up, Dev tried to rub the relentless pounding away, but it didn’t help. In that moment he would have given anything to shut Natalie up, but he didn’t know what to say to stem the tide of words that had started.
“Everyone in your life has hurt you. Your mom, your dad, your grandfather, even me. Everyone you trusted and depended on let you down. The minute you feel yourself letting anyone in, you shut down. I should know. I spent two years banging my head against the walls you put up. Every time I thought I’d made a crack that I could wiggle through somehow you found another way to shut me out.
“I cared about you, Dev. Still do. But no matter what I did you wouldn’t let me in. And I got tired of fighting. It was easier to walk away, and t
he fact that you let me told me I’d made the right decision.”
Dev opened his mouth to argue with her, to tell her that the only reason he’d let her go was because that’s what she’d wanted. But he couldn’t make the words form. Because they weren’t true.
He’d been relieved when Natalie had told him she was taking a job in California and that she was going alone.
“I’m sorry” was all he could manage.
“Don’t be,” she said, her sweet voice breezy with dismissal. “I’m not. We would have made each other miserable and I knew that no matter how unhappy you got you’d never leave. Not only did you make a vow to me, but there was no way you’d walk away from a family, even if it was the right thing to do.”
Jesus, she made him sound like a masochistic prick. “I didn’t mean to hurt—”
She cut him off. “You didn’t. You might have cared about me, but you obviously love this woman.”
The protest was on his lips before he could form the thought, “No, I—”
Again, she interrupted, refusing to let him get the words out. “I can hear it in your voice, Dev. The kind of longing that was never there between us. I know because I’ve found it, too.”
“I’m glad.” And he genuinely was. Natalie was sweet and giving, bubbly and open. But she didn’t make his blood sing. Never had.
That was something he’d only ever found with Willow.
“I’m going to give you some friendly advice. Consider it a parting gift. Go to her. Find a way to work out whatever’s wrong. Grovel. Buy her diamonds. Tell her your deepest, darkest secrets. Whatever it takes.”
“She told me to leave.”
“And you did it, no doubt with barely a glance on your way out. Better to leave before she hurt you more. You deserve to be happy, Dev, but you’ve got to be willing to fight for it.”
Every muscle in his body bunched tight. The hard edge of his cell bit into his palm.
With very little help, he’d dragged himself out of the gutter. He’d worked his ass off for everything he had and didn’t regret a single moment.
Every struggle had taught him something.
But that had been easy. Hard work was never anything he’d been afraid of. Opening himself up...now that was another thing.
It had been a long time since he’d bothered to fight for someone to love him. When he was young he’d tried. He remembered making sandwiches for his hungover mother, hoping that the gesture would make her happy. Make her wake up and pay attention to him...if only for a little while. But no matter what he’d done, the drugs were always more important to her.
When his grandfather had gotten so angry...had he really tried as hard as he could to convince him of the truth? No, he’d accepted the anger and disappointment because that’s what he’d come to expect. What he knew how to deal with.
He hadn’t argued with Natalie or tried to convince her not to take the job. Or that he could go with her. He’d just let her walk away.
And he was doing it again with Willow, silently accepting that he wasn’t good enough for her. Ten years ago he might have been right, but not anymore.
Almost before the thought was formed, he was racing for his truck, the red monstrosity pointed straight for home.
14
DEV WAS GONE. And she was devastated. But she had no one to blame but herself.
For days she’d gone through the motions. Everywhere she went the soft rustling of whispers followed. She hadn’t bothered to tell anyone the truth. Not because she didn’t believe Dev, but because it was none of their damn business.
That didn’t stop people from talking. And staring at her with hard questions in their eyes. For the first time in her life, Willow understood how Rose must have felt those last months before she moved away— under a microscope, her life open for public discussion.
The difference was that Rose had signed up for that response, had invited it every time she walked out of the house in skintight clothes and stumbled down Main Street drunk. She’d solicited the scrutiny, and looking back Willow realized, reveled in it.
Dev had been right. Rose was exactly where she wanted to be, beneath the spotlight in Vegas.
But unlike Rose, Willow had done nothing wrong. And neither had Dev.
More than protecting her own image, she’d come close to putting some gossiping busybody in her place a couple times on Dev’s behalf. He’d lost so much because of Rose’s lie. It bothered her to realize it was easy for everyone in town to believe the worst of him. But she’d bitten her tongue and hated herself for letting her own fear and weakness make her no better than anyone else.
She’d let him go. Not because she hadn’t believed him, but because the moment had given her the escape she’d desperately needed. The longer she spent with Dev, the more panicked she became. The harder she fell for him, the more damage losing him was going to do.
But not even knowing she’d made the right choice seemed to stem the pain. It hurt, but the fact that Dev had disappeared proved that she’d made the right decision.
He’d walked away from her without a second glance.
Two days later a For Sale sign had sprung up on the lawn of his grandfather’s house.
How could a piece of cardboard and metal hurt so much?
But she hadn’t had time to stop and crumble. The Nashville princess had shown up that same day for her final fitting. The dress wasn’t exactly what she’d ordered, but it was better. And the glowing expression on her face when she slipped it on told Willow the bride agreed. She looked amazing in the creation and Willow was almost grateful to whoever had broken in and destroyed the first dress.
This design would get her noticed—in a good way. Paparazzi, magazines and gossip sites would splash pictures of her dress everywhere. The positive press gave her something else to concentrate on.
The second bride’s dress had been breathtaking. Perfect for her slender body, clinging to her curves in all the right places and letting hints of bare skin peek through at her back and shoulders. While Willow’d had to improvise on the intricate crystal design she’d wanted down the back, they’d both ended up pleased with the final result.
The mother and daughter had even invited her to the wedding. And while she appreciated the gesture, the last thing she wanted right now was to watch someone else walk down the aisle toward their happily-ever-after.
She wished the woman the best, but she just didn’t have that in her right now. Not while her own life was falling to pieces.
Macey had insisted she take a few days off, telling her she’d earned the rest. But the inactivity was just driving her crazy. She was restless and achy. If she hadn’t known better she would have thought she was coming down with something, but it wasn’t her muscles or joints that hurt. It was the big gaping hole in the center of her chest.
And no over-the-counter drug could fix that.
She just needed time. And possibly a week on a white, sandy beach. But she couldn’t make herself book the trip.
Even with all the hard stares and whispers, Sweetheart was home. Her friends were here and right now she needed them more than the healing heat of the sun.
What surprised Willow most in those few days was realizing she didn’t really care if everyone was talking about her and judging her choices. Somewhere between her teen years, when that had been her worst nightmare, and today she’d discovered there were more important things than public opinion. It was a revelation to discover she just didn’t care what most people thought about her. And the ones who did matter had only sympathy and support to share.
Willow finally reached her breaking point and, disobeying a direct order, went into her studio. She’d hoped to find some comfort there, lose herself in the creative process.
But sitting at her worktable, staring at her blank sketchpad,
nothing came. The only thing she could think about was the first night Dev had invaded her sanctuary. How he’d wandered around her space, his wide, masculine hands running softly across the feminine trappings of her job.
He should have stuck out, but instead he’d blended in. As if he belonged there. A heavy band squeezed tight across her chest, making it hard to breathe.
Willow wasn’t sure how long she sat there, her mind spinning in unproductive circles, but a noise at the door finally pulled her out of the mental quicksand.
Startled, Willow jerked her gaze up to find Erica Condon standing just inside her workroom.
A frown creased the spot between her brows. “Erica, what are you doing here? How’d you get in?”
She’d been alone, slipping in after Macey had locked up the boutique for the night. Glancing at the clock on the wall she realized it was almost ten. How had she lost two hours sitting here?
Erica closed the door and leaned against it, her hands remaining locked around the knob.
“I’m good with locks.” She shrugged, and a tiny frisson of alarm shot into Willow’s system.
“It’s a little late to be shopping, Erica. We’re closed. But Macey will be here in the morning.”
“I don’t want a dress, certainly not one that you’ve designed.”
Standing, Willow darted a glance around her. Coming to the studio had been a spur-of-the-moment decision. She’d grabbed her keys and phone and nothing more, but now she couldn’t remember where she’d set them down.
Maybe they were buried beneath the scrap material piled on the table. Shifting slowly, she tried to put the wall of her body between Erica and the table so she could search surreptitiously.
She had no idea what was going on or what Erica wanted, but whatever it was couldn’t be good. She’d been so caught up in the ravages of losing Dev that it had been easy to forget someone was stalking her, especially when nothing had happened since her workroom had been destroyed.
“Don’t move,” Erica’s harsh voice slipped through the room.
Willow froze, realizing for the first time that the other woman held something black and slender in her hand. Cold panic rushed through her along with a burst of adrenaline when Erica raised the snubbed nose of a weapon in her direction.
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