Lauren had already been living in Georgia with her aunt, having just started her freshman year of college, and her parents had refused to give Seth her number. When her mom called to give her the message, Lauren had only cried for about ten minutes before going back to her regularly scheduled plan of get-over-Seth-and-move-on. End of contact. Until today.
“Lauren, I…”
“Hey, look guys, it’s Seth and Lauren! The king and queen of the prom are finally together!”
“Oh, fuck my life,” she muttered under her breath.
Seth’s quick, short bark of laughter told her she hadn’t been quiet enough.
Never had Lauren so wished for a time machine—she’d get in it and go back ten minutes, to the moment when she’d pulled up her rental car in front of this overly lavish place. Instead of parking, she’d have kept on driving. Canada was nice this time of year. Or Mexico. The Sahara. Anywhere else.
Though, honestly, if she had a time machine, she’d be better off going back to warn her young, vulnerable self to never say yes to Seth Crowder in the first place. She could even take an extra minute during the trip to offer herself a stock tip: Starbucks, yes. Borders, no. Oh, and since you’re single, cruise on up to Harvard and introduce yourself to this dude named Mark Zuckerberg. He’s single right now, too. He’s a bit of an egghead, but he’s got an idea for this thing called Facebook…
“Pose for a picture guys—the one you never got on prom night!”
“Fat chance,” she snapped, turning quickly. They could take a picture of her butt as she walked away.
“Lauren, we need to talk,” Seth said.
“No, we don’t.”
“Please!” He held out a hand and put it on her arm.
She shivered slightly, affected in spite of herself. Seth was here, looking at her with desperate longing in his beautiful green eyes, touching her with those strong hands that had once given her as much pleasure as a girl could get with her hymen still intact. This man had been born understanding a woman’s anatomy—no belly button confusion for him. He and her clitoris had made friends on their third date. By the fifth they’d been drinking buddies.
But it didn’t matter.
“Let me go, Seth,” she told him.
“Can’t you give me a chance to explain?”
“Nope.”
“Come on, a half hour, that’s all I ask.”
Considering she was already standing here thinking about her panties and her girlie bits, and his habit of making them sing, five minutes was already too long.
“It’s not going to happen.”
“Why not?”
She answered the only way she could. Truthfully.
“Because I have spent the past ten years either crying over you or hating your guts. I’m over the crying, and I’m past the hating. Now all I feel for you is…nothing. And I intend to keep it that way.”
Then, ignoring the wide eyes of their audience, and the tiny gasp of what might have been dismay that he didn’t try to hide, she stalked through the lobby and back out the front door of this dubiously named resort.
“Celebrations,” hell. They ought to call it “Nightmares.”
* * *
WELL, THIS WAS GOING to be harder than he’d thought.
Seth hadn’t expected Lauren to welcome him with open arms, or to smile and melt against him the minute he looked her way. He had never imagined it would be easy to get her to give him another shot, if not romantically, at least in friendship. Not that friendship was what he really wanted from her. But reconnecting in any way was better than the decade of silence he’d just endured.
Still, he hadn’t expected the sweet, funny, sexy girl he’d known to tell him she hated him. That stung; he hadn’t even known Lauren was capable of that emotion. Then again, she didn’t look like the girl he’d known, either. The pretty, vivacious cheerleader had turned into a stunning woman. Her hair was still thick and golden-brown, with highlights that framed her face. Her eyes were still a stunning ice-blue. But the rest of her was all grown-up, intoxicating woman.
“I’d call that being let down hard,” said a commiserating voice.
Glancing over, he saw his kid sister, Emily, who had convinced him to come this weekend. Em worked for Celebrations, and she was the one who’d confirmed for him that Lauren would be attending. He hadn’t even bothered to let the organizers of the event know he was coming. He just came. Heck, he’d skipped out on prom and graduation, why not crash the reunion?
“Ya think?”
“You knew this wouldn’t be easy.”
“Nothing ever is,” he muttered. And it hadn’t been, for a long time. Not since the day of his senior prom, when his entire world had fallen apart.
“You’ve got the whole weekend. You’ll find a way to make her listen.”
“And if I don’t?”
Emily squeezed his arm. “Then she doesn’t deserve you.”
“Dude, you got served!” someone else said. The voice was familiar—as was the chortle.
“How’s it going, Boogie?” Seth replied with a weary sigh as the other man walked over. He wished he’d followed Lauren out the door. But there wasn’t much chance of avoiding the rest of his former classmates in his quest to finally make things right with Lauren, so he figured he might as well get the greetings over with. Besides, he had a few old friends to whom he owed apologies and explanations. Nobody as much as Lauren, but she hadn’t been the only one he’d disappointed with his disappearance all those years ago.
The other man—never a close friend—cast him a sheepish glance. “Hey, keep the Boogie on the down-low, man, my wife’s over there and she doesn’t know that was my nickname.”
Does she know you used to pick your nose and flick boogers on girls in our freshman biology class?
By their senior year, Billy “Boogie” Drake had liked to pretend he’d earned the name because of his mad dancing skills. Seriously, Boogie? Did we go to school in, like, 1978? Of course not. And anybody who’d known him since middle school knew the true origin of the unattractive nickname.
What the hell am I doing here? He could be home in L.A., hobnobbing with his clients, some of the wealthiest, most successful athletes in the country.
Then he thought about Lauren—the picture Emily had shown him of her standing alone on the stage at prom, with the crown on her head—and knew.
He was here to apologize, to explain. To gain forgiveness.
And maybe to see if there was any chance at all of something sparking between them again. Because, as crazy as it sounded, she was his Achilles’ heel. Sure, he’d dated plenty of women over the years, some seriously, but Lauren was the one he’d never completely gotten over.
He’d loved her at eighteen. Really loved her, even though, at the time, he probably hadn’t quite understood what a momentous thing that was. Now, at twenty-eight, having never loved anyone else, he got it. If only he could get her.
“Dude, I can’t believe Lauren Desantos didn’t spit in your face. I’ll never forget how she looked on prom night. Harsh!”
“I heard.”
“What the hell happened? You, like, dropped off the face of the earth! We thought you got busted or deported or something.”
Seth and his sister exchanged a glance, both undoubtedly thinking the same thing. Busted and deported—that wasn’t too far off the mark. But he didn’t owe those details to Boogie, he owed them to Lauren. And one way or another, he was going to get her to sit down and listen to them.
“Long story,” he said.
“Well, you should probably go see if they’ll take you as a walk-in,” Emily said, pushing him toward the front of the now-empty A–E line in which Lauren had been waiting. Then she whispered, “You’re both in the Homecoming Tower, your room’s about six doors down from hers, number 1424.”
Homecoming Tower? Was it next to the Old Gym Wing and the Principal’s Office Ballroom? Gag me.
“See you at the dinner tonight…or tomorrow at t
he carnival?” Boogie asked.
Seth lifted a brow. “Carnival?”
“It’s one of Celebrations’ specialties,” Emily explained. “We have a whole graduation carnival set up on the grounds.”
He wondered if it had been his sister’s suggestion. She’d been a Grease nut in middle school, with the school carnival at the end being her favorite scene. Personally, Seth had always wondered why the cute girl had to turn into a tramp to get the dude.
“There are rides, games,” she continued. “Everybody loves it.”
Thinking about it, he recalled there had been a carnival at their school many years ago. A fall one, complete with pumpkins, scarecrows and hayrides. He and Lauren had ridden the rides together, already the “power couple” of the senior class…a good seven months out from Seth’s family’s date with disaster.
He wondered if she remembered. More importantly, he wondered if she’d be there, or if she’d walked out the door, gotten into her car and left altogether.
He didn’t think she had. Lauren was furious at him, but she’d never been a coward. When she calmed down and let herself accept the fact that he was here, she’d probably come back ready to tell him off, having thought of a dozen zingers to fling at him.
He could hardly wait to hear them. Because at least it meant she’d be talking to him.
Keeping that thought in mind, he quickly registered, saying hello but not getting involved in any deep conversations. None of his few close friends from high school had checked in yet, which gave him time to go to his room and clean up for tonight’s dinner. Tomorrow would be a formal dance—prom for adults? God, at least there will be booze—but tonight was a more casual event in one of the private banquet rooms.
Not wanting to risk running into Lauren en route to the dinner, for fear she’d then skip it, he left his room a half hour before it was scheduled to start. He figured he’d kill some time in one of Celebrations many lounges—he’d seen a list of the themed places in his resort guide.
He’d taken a half-dozen long strides toward the elevator, his eyes on her closed door, when he saw that door begin to swing inward. Almost stumbling, he came to a sudden stop.
Praying it was a maid leaving after delivering some extra towels, he held his breath, spying a swish of pink fabric and a delicate bare foot.
Lauren. It had to be Lauren.
He was about to be busted as a freaking stalker.
2
“OH, SHIT,” SETH MUTTERED. It looked like it was game over. If she found out they were staying on the same floor in this massive place—which couldn’t possibly be an accident—not only would she not go to the dinner, she’d probably change rooms. Or leave the reunion altogether.
Not thinking about it, he leaped into a small alcove, trying to cram himself between a small decorative table and the wall. On the table stood a huge vase filled with plate-size flowers, peacock feathers and curly sticks of wood. As he tried to shove himself into the pretty pathetic hiding place, he accidentally set the vase in motion. Lunging, he grabbed the thing in both hands and yanked it toward his chest, hoping not only to steady it but to try to hide behind its fronds and branches.
This is ridiculous.
He was acting like…a high schooler. No, worse, a middle schooler, a stalker-y, wimpy kid being led around by his hormones, hoping to make a girl like him. Jesus, he was Seth Crowder, successful sports agent, named as one of L.A.’s most eligible bachelors in a West Coast magazine last year. Yet around Lauren Desantos, he’d become an absolute basket case. This reunion thing was taking all his rational brain cells and mashing them to bits.
“I see you there, you moron.”
Gritting his teeth, he peered through the flowers and feathers, imagining the image he presented. Lauren was standing a few feet away, glaring at him, her arms curled protectively around an empty ice bucket. She wasn’t yet dressed for the evening. All she wore was a long robe—silky and pink against her skin.
He shoved away the want, want, want that filled his brain.
“Uh, hi.”
“Doing a little redecorating for the hotel?”
He pushed the vase back to the center of the table, then stepped out of the alcove. “I bumped into it and thought the vase was going to tip over.”
“So you leaped behind the table to steady it?”
Totally busted, he couldn’t prevent a self-deprecating grin from widening his mouth. “Would you believe I was trying to steal the flower arrangement? It would go so well with my color scheme.”
She snorted. “Not only are you the world’s worst decorator, you’re one step short of color blind. How did you get my room number?”
No point in denying it. “My sister.”
Her brow went up in surprise. “Emily’s here?”
Lauren had always liked his kid sister, and had been good to her. She’d taken the five-years-younger girl under her wing and treated her like her own sibling, as if knowing how badly Em needed an older female figure in her life. God knows their mother had never been a good one.
“Yeah, she works at this place.”
Lauren’s expression turned wistful for a moment. “I’d love to see her,” she admitted. Then, as if noticing how much that idea pleased him, she hurried to add, “To tell her to keep customers’ room numbers private!”
“Don’t be mad at her. You know she always loved us as a couple back then.”
She rolled her eyes. “Thirteen-year-olds love Edward and Bella as a couple, too.”
“I’m not a vampire.”
She hesitated, as if ready to argue that point. She had, after all, already called him a dog and a moron. What was a little you disgusting bloodsucker between old friends?
“Well, you sure don’t glitter” was all she finally said.
“And you’re not a vapid klutz.”
One brow arched up. “Do a lot of vampire-romance reading these days?”
He shrugged. “What can I say? Channel surfing on late-night cable.”
“Huh. I’d have figured you more for the porn type when you’re doing your late-night channel surfing.”
Zing.
He cleared his throat. Not to mention clearing his mind of the images her words elicited. Porn and sex weren’t something he should be thinking about while Lauren was around, not if he wanted to retain his sanity and his edge, both of which were pretty shaky right now. Damn, but the woman could cut the legs right out from under him…and make him laugh while doing it.
“Back to Emily,” he insisted. “She loved you. She always wanted you to be her sister-in-law.”
Another unladylike snort preceded her response. “Oh, and I suppose you’re here to propose to me now?”
If I did, would you say yes?
No, of course she wouldn’t. Nor was he here to ask that question. Getting her forgiveness and understanding was the first step, maybe dinner and drinks after that. He’d be lucky to get her to voluntarily touch him. Marriage seemed like a distant dream.
Funny, it had been what he’d dreamed about all those years ago when he’d been so suddenly separated from her.
Would she believe that?
Probably not.
He stepped closer, unable to resist leaning in to breathe some of that Lauren air. She wore a different perfume than she had in the old days. No longer innocent and flowery, it was heady, womanly, evocative.
Or maybe that was just her. She was incredibly womanly, amazingly sexy, from the top of her shining gold-brown hair down to the tips of her red-tipped toenails peeping out from beneath the robe. And, of course, everywhere in between.
The in-between was especially distracting. Beneath that pink silk was nothing but luscious female. Even with the ice bucket in front of her, he could see the way the V-neckline of the robe revealed some amazing cleavage. Lauren had been more slender as a teenager. Now she was all curves, all inviting and sultry, with full breasts, a small waist and hips that were meant to be clutched in a man’s hands. All that, wrapped u
p in a pink package he wanted to open like a Christmas present.
“Stop staring at me,” she said, her voice weak, breathless. As if even she wasn’t sure she meant it.
“I can’t help it,” he admitted. “You’re beautiful.”
Unable to stop himself, he moved closer, until his shoes nearly touched her toes. The robe flitted against his pants and he caught a glimpse of pale, soft leg.
Groaning low in his throat, he lifted a hand and slid it onto her hip. Memories flooded him, thoughts of how he’d like to encircle her waist in his hands and pull her close now. He’d brush his fingertips along the top curves of her bottom, teasing her lightly, knowing the caresses drove her mad. He would hold her like this, and pull her hard against him to kiss her until neither of them could even think.
She looked up at him, her blue eyes sparkling, and time fell away. Electricity sparked between them and for a half a second, Seth thought she might not punch him if he kissed her.
He leaned closer, needing to taste her. Needing to revisit that place where need and desire and emotion twirled into a quiet storm that both excited and fulfilled.
Their mouths met, a soft brush of lips, a quick tumble into memory, a time when they knew, without a doubt, they were meant to be together.
She tasted like heaven. Like sweetness. Like coming home.
And then she pushed her ice bucket hard against his chest and shoved him back. “That was way out of line.”
His hand dropped to his side. His fingers were tingling and hot, already missing the connection, and his mouth ached with the need to taste her more fully, to lick her tongue and plunge his deep, claiming her again.
“Sorry,” he said, not really meaning it.
“Just go away, would you?”
He would…except for the fact that his hand and her bucket-fumbling had done some damage to her robe and the thing was now practically gaping open. It was all he could do not to start drooling on the spot as the fabric played peekaboo with one perfect nipple, dark and puckered against the silk.
“And leave you like this?” Aroused? Unsatisfied?
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