Dylan rested his booted foot on the bottom rung of the rail and shifted his stance to a more comfortable position. “Sniper 1 Security is willing to buy us out,” he told her. “It’s not a done deal, but Alex is finalizing the negotiations.”
Not that they had much room to negotiate. Dylan knew he played a big part in their company’s failure over the years thanks to his depression and the downward spiral from the booze. He’d accepted that responsibility, but it didn’t change anything. Alex didn’t seem angry, though Dylan knew his closest friend had every right to be. They’d gone into business together, had planned to do great things, and Dylan hadn’t lived up to his end of the deal, so yeah, Alex should’ve been pissed.
“I figured as much,” Ashleigh told him. “I hate pushing him on the subject because I know how hard it is for him right now.”
It was hard for all of them. They were trying to be as transparent as they could with their clients and their employees, while still working the logistics out with the owners of Sniper 1 Security, the largest security company in the nation. CISS had a lot to offer, especially when it came to corporate security, and that had caught the attention of Sniper 1, a company that focused more on personal security. The discussions had been slowgoing—nine months, in fact—but they were all finally accepting their fate. It was inevitable.
“Where’s Riley?” Dylan asked, looking around to see if Ashleigh had brought his niece to the party.
“She’s with Sierra and Hannah,” she told him. “They’re sittin’ this one out at home.”
“Needed a break, huh?” Ashleigh’s daughter was a handful. She was probably the cutest kid he’d ever laid eyes on, but she was at that age—having turned three in December—where she wanted to get into everything and didn’t appreciate anyone trying to rein her in.
“A little,” she said with a small smile. “I love her so much, but…”
“No need to explain.” He chuckled. “I get it. I’ve got two of my own, remember?”
Granted, his two were all grown up and on their own.
Sort of.
Neither of his kids were technically on their own yet, nor making their own way, for that matter. Stacey, twenty-three—not to mention rebellious like he’d been at her age—would be graduating from UTD in May and currently didn’t know what she intended to do past that. And Nate had decided at twenty-one that his associate’s degree from the University of North Texas was enough for him. Regardless of their education, both of them still lived at home with Pops, Dylan’s eighty-four-year-old grandfather, but, if you talked to either one of them, they were making it on their own.
Yep. Uh-huh. If on their own meant living in a ten-thousand-square-foot mansion, all expenses paid, including their tuition and brand new cars that Pops had insisted they have for Christmas last year.
Spoiled was what they were.
But Dylan accepted it for what it was. He was blessed with two intelligent children, and he wouldn’t change a single thing about them even if he could.
“So, have y’all shared the news with the teams yet?” Ashleigh asked.
“Not yet. We’ll be working on that in the coming weeks.”
“Does Nate know?”
Dylan nodded. “We sat him down last week and explained what was going on. Alex has informed Sniper 1 that it’s imperative they bring Nate and Jake on in the current roles they’re in.”
“And you?”
“I’ll be leaving the company,” he informed her. It had been a tough decision to make, but one that he needed to follow through with. It wasn’t that he enjoyed his job at this point, but he still had reservations about making big changes in his life. Dylan wasn’t fond of change, and starting over in his career at the ripe old age of forty-two gave him pause. But it had to be done.
“You haven’t changed your mind?” she asked, her smile once again forced. “I’m sure Sniper 1 could take you on if you wanted them to.”
Dylan shook his head. “I think having them take Nate and Jake on is enough.”
“How is Jake anyway?” she asked, briefly glancing his way, then back to the people around them. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”
“He’s—” Before he could get his response out, Ashleigh cut him off.
“Holy shit. Is that…?”
Dylan felt eyes on him and he turned in time to see… Holy shit was right.
He swallowed hard, standing up straight and placing one hand on the rail as he peered behind him into the ocean-blue eyes of the woman who’d haunted his dreams for the past three years.
“Wow, Sarah looks different,” Ashleigh whispered, her voice being carried by the wind.
Different was an understatement, Dylan thought, never looking away from the woman he hadn’t seen in … far too long. Previously Sarah Fulton, now Sarah Davis since she’d taken her maiden name back, was standing less than ten feet away, her expression reflecting every bit of the surprise Dylan felt.
But Ashleigh was right, the woman looked like an entirely different person than the one he remembered from that night so long ago and the months leading up to it. The innocence he’d once seen in her eyes was long gone, replaced by something darker, more resolute.
Sure, she was just as beautiful as he remembered, possibly more so standing there in a short off-white dress that hugged every curve and knee-high brown boots that made his fucking mouth water. The blood-red lipstick on her succulent mouth made his dick thicken, his jeans becoming far too tight. The tattoos that decorated her arms beneath the sheer sleeves of her dress were probably the most notable difference aside from the fact that she’d lost weight and no longer had the perfect hips he’d once held in his hands. Also gone were the short, silky blond curls she’d once sported, and now the wind teased her long golden locks. He could practically still feel the silkiness against his fingers.
“Who is that with her?”
Dylan forced his gaze away from Sarah and over to the man standing at her side. He shrugged, although he had an idea. He’d heard Jake mention that his aunt had started dating someone recently. A fact that Dylan had done his best not to dwell on.
“Are you gonna go talk to her?”
Jerking his attention back to Ashleigh, Dylan fought to keep himself anchored in the present, rather than drifting back to that fateful day when he’d last seen Sarah… The night he’d fucked her up against her living room wall.
“Dylan?” Ashleigh nudged his arm with hers.
“No,” he answered abruptly, turning his attention back to the water. “I doubt she wants to hear from me.”
“Why?”
Dylan shook his head. He was not going to go into the details, not even with his sister, who’d become one of his closest friends in the years since his wife had died. As much as Dylan wished he could talk to her about that night, he was too embarrassed to admit what he’d done. It was just a damn good thing Sarah had come to her senses and sent him on his way. Otherwise…
Damn it. He didn’t want to think about it.
Ashleigh moved off the rail and touched his arm again. “Well, I’ve got to go find Alex. I’ll talk to you later, ’kay?”
He offered his sister another nod, grateful for the reprieve.
For some reason, he needed a minute to collect himself, and he didn’t need any witnesses to the meltdown he felt coming on.
“YOU OKAY?”
Sarah yanked herself back to the present at the sound of her nephew’s voice, forcing a smile while she willed her heart to stop pounding against her chest. A mere few seconds of looking at Dylan Thomas had brought the memories of that long-ago night back in full force.
She could practically still feel his hands on her, his mouth, the way he moved inside her body. Three years had done little to help her forget.
It took a moment to remember where she was, who she was with. Finally, she forced a smile and glanced at her nephew. “Good. Why?”
Jake passed her a glass of wine and handed Bill, her date, a bottle of beer. “You look like yo
u just saw a ghost.”
Well, that was because she had. She’d seen a ghost from her past, a man she thought she would be able to handle seeing again. For nearly two weeks, ever since Jake had asked her to accompany him to this party, Sarah had attempted to mentally prepare herself for an unavoidable reunion. Hence the reason she’d invited Bill at the last minute. Though he wasn’t her boyfriend, they’d gone on a few dates and she’d thought he would be a good distraction.
Yeah.
That hadn’t worked out too well.
In fact, she hardly noticed that Bill was there now that Dylan was standing ten or so feet away from her. So much for mentally preparing for this. Apparently, thinking about seeing Dylan again and actually seeing him were two very different things.
Being that Dylan was part owner of the company her nephew worked for, running into him tonight had been inevitable. As much as she’d wanted to avoid this event for that reason alone, telling Jake no wasn’t in her nature.
As it was, Jake was the closest thing she had to a son. A child of her own wasn’t in the cards, but Sarah was okay with that. She’d spent most of her adult life as a teacher, getting the opportunity to frame the minds of other people’s children, and she’d never been left wanting more.
Granted, in recent years, Sarah had shed her old life, making some major changes in an effort to make herself whole again. Not only had she sold her house and bought a new one, reclaimed her maiden name, decided to get healthy, changed the way she dressed, and invested in some self-expressive body art, she’d also changed everything else about herself that she could. She’d cleaned out the metaphorical clutter and transformed her … whole life. Some might call it a mid-life crisis, but Sarah liked to think of it as self-preservation.
Yet, as she stared back at Dylan, she felt like her old self—sad, broken, uncertain, miserable—and that wasn’t a good thing. Sarah had decided she despised the woman she’d once been, hating how vulnerable she’d allowed herself to be, and had purposely reinvented herself. It had worked.
Or so she’d thought.
Her gaze strayed to Dylan once more. He looked almost exactly as she remembered. Tall, broad, and obscenely handsome wearing a pair of dark blue Wranglers that hugged every glorious inch of his impressive lower body. The scruff on his face was sprinkled with gray; his once short, dark hair had been shaved almost completely bald. She wondered if that was because it had been receding or if he merely preferred it that way. Whatever the reason, he looked good. Rugged yet distinguished. Better than before, for sure.
What surprised her the most was that the hard years he’d had didn’t show in the beautiful lines of his face. And she’d heard all about his struggle back from the dark side—his battle with depression and alcohol—thanks to the fact that her nephew worked for him and because, at one point, Dylan’s sister had asked her to help.
Remembering Bill and Jake were standing there, watching her intently, Sarah forced another smile and looked up at her nephew. It still surprised her that he was so tall, registering somewhere close to six one. He definitely got that gene from his father and not his mother, being that she and Sarah hadn’t even broken five feet.
“Aunt Sarah?”
“Sorry. Just a little cold, I guess.”
It wasn’t true. With the heaters planted randomly around the outside area, it was rather warm, almost cozy.
“Do you want my jacket?” Bill offered, referring to his ill-fitting suit jacket.
Touching his arm, she smiled at him. “I’m good. I’ll just go back inside in a minute.”
“You sure?”
Since she wasn’t really cold, she nodded her head, doing everything in her power to keep her attention riveted on Bill’s face and not wandering back over to where Dylan was still standing. From the instant she’d stepped outside and noticed him, she’d been doing her best not to think about the last time she’d seen him. It’d been … God, it’d been so long ago that that incredible night was merely a fuzzy collage of images in her head at this point, so she wasn’t sure why she was even affected by him.
But she was.
“Dinner’s gonna be served in about ten minutes,” Jake informed her. “Do y’all need anything else?”
“No, I’m good. Really.”
“Thanks,” Bill stated kindly.
“Okay.”
Her nephew’s eyes strayed in Dylan’s direction, and Sarah prayed that he wasn’t going to want her to go over and talk to him. She prided herself on being strong, but having to deal with him so soon after seeing him for the first time since…
Yeah.
Sarah wasn’t sure she could handle that right now.
It had taken every single second of the last three years to get her world in order, to discover who she really was after spending so many years walking in the shadows of the people who had derailed her life. Her deadbeat sister. Her dead husband. Her overbearing but well-meaning mother. Dylan.
You’re not that woman anymore.
No, she wasn’t. Gone was Sarah Fulton, the sweet, innocent schoolteacher who had mourned the death of her husband until it had consumed every part of her. She was Sarah Davis once more. The new and improved version. Strong, confident. Unbreakable.
“I’m gonna go talk to Dylan. You wanna come over and say hi?”
She shook her head quickly, realizing her adamant rejection probably looked rather suspicious, but she couldn’t help it. For the past three years, Sarah had stayed away from these people. Thankfully, being that they lived in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metropolitan area, that wasn’t difficult. As the area had a population of over seven million, randomly running into them was highly unlikely. She spent time with her family and her closest friends, talking to Jake on a daily basis but choosing not to venture into any social settings until she could sort things out in her head. Based on the way Dylan had looked at her when she’d walked out onto the patio just now, she’d succeeded in reinventing herself.
“You sure you’re okay?” Jake asked again, his blue eyes searching her face, and she could see the worry creasing his brow.
Smiling up at the young man she’d practically raised after her older sister had abandoned him when he was just a child, Sarah recognized the concern on his face. They were close, always had been. But right now, she wished he didn’t see as much as he did because she wanted—no, she needed—him to drop the subject.
“Go talk to him,” she encouraged. “We’re gonna go back inside. There’s someone I want to talk to.”
“All right,” Jake agreed with a curt nod. “We’re at a table on the far wall. They’ve got name cards out. I’ll see you in a few.”
Nodding in understanding, Sarah started for the door, her gaze once again drifting over to Dylan as her nephew walked up to him.
His dark eyes met hers and she fought to keep her breathing under control.
Shaking off the memories of a time best forgotten, Sarah stepped inside and glanced around at the many familiar faces. It had been a long time since she’d seen these people. Probably the last time had been at Nate’s high school graduation a few years ago, back when she’d been starry-eyed and stupidly infatuated with a man she could never have.
Luckily, that had lasted all of a minute.
“Who’re you looking for?” Bill asked from beside her.
“Oh, just an old friend,” she told him as though that was the most natural answer in the world. Truth was, she wasn’t looking for anyone; she had simply used that as an excuse for Jake.
“Would you like to find our seats?” Bill questioned.
Because she didn’t have anything else to suggest, Sarah nodded and resigned herself to dinner. As kind as Bill was, it was awkward to be with him. He was such a nice guy, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to feel anything for him.
“That’d be great,” she told him, tossing back the rest of her wine.
Before she turned to follow Bill, Sarah looked over and caught Dylan standing a few feet away,
still watching her intently. She noticed the way Dylan’s eyes locked onto her empty glass. Then she remembered that he was a recovering alcoholic and she felt bad—
Wait.
No. She didn’t.
She did not feel bad for drinking wine. She did not feel bad for accompanying Jake to this party or for bringing Bill. She did not fucking feel bad for any of it. She was damn tired of feeling bad for everyone else.
Sarah instinctively ran her fingers over the tattoo on her forearm. She’d gotten the intricate phoenix design as a reminder that she wasn’t that same broken woman anymore. The fact that she’d been so easily sucked back to a different time only pissed her off.
Knowing these people didn’t deserve her wrath, Sarah fixed a plastic smile on her face and turned to follow Bill.
She damn sure wasn’t going to let two minutes in Dylan’s presence destroy years’ worth of effort.
chapter TWO
THE REST OF THE EVENING went exactly as Dylan anticipated it would. He managed to speak when spoken to, smile when prompted, and even endured the pity glances he’d received from some people. As much as he hated the way people watched him—as though he was a wild animal about to break his chain—he understood. A lot of these people had been around long enough to have seen his downward spiral, but it appeared that no matter how hard he tried to redeem himself, most people didn’t believe he was working himself out of the hole he’d dug.
However, that was exactly what he was doing. He’d picked himself up by his boot straps and made something better of his life. It had taken time. A long damn time, but Dylan was confident in who he was now. He’d made some serious mistakes, he had a lot to atone for, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t comfortable with who he’d become and the path he was on. And the good news was that he was the only person he had to convince of that.
His attention was drawn across the room when he spotted Sarah getting up from her chair and walking away from her table. He noticed the way her date peered up at her, the gleam in his eye lecherous. Dylan wanted to punch the smarmy bastard for even thinking about Sarah that way. Not that Dylan had any right to do so, nor could he deny that he’d had those same lascivious thoughts every time he looked at the woman.
Distraction (Club Destiny Book 8) Page 3