“Everything’s done. Kate paid the musician, the officiant...and sent her bridesmaids off on the helicopter ride over the island that she’d booked as a wedding present for Cooper.”
Oh, poor, strong Kate. Hayley’s heart ached for her. And Chase. The whole family. “I’m so sorry.” She sounded like a moron but all she could say was I’m sorry. What else was there to say at a time like this?
His face softened slightly. “Listen, I’m sorry for being such a jerk earlier today on the phone. I was just disappointed that we’d been found out.”
“Don’t apologize, please. This whole thing got out of hand.”
“Out of hand, sure...but in a good way,” he said, walking toward her. He touched her bare shoulder and traced a hand along her tanned arm.
The words she needed to say abandoned her along with her strength to say them, and a long silence fell between them.
He closed his eyes and ran a hand over the stubble at his chin. “Oh...Hayley,” he said moving toward her.
She took a step back as he reached for her, stumbling as the three-inch stilettos slipped on the sandy beach walk. “Please, Chase, let’s not make this harder, okay? I mean, we agreed this was a one-week thing. I just wanted to say...goodbye.” She’d come there to say so much more. But how could she say anything else in light of what had happened?
“That changed and you know it. The moment we kissed that first night I knew I was in trouble, and my attraction and longing for you, to be near you, to see you smile, to hear that smart-witted humor...my feelings only grew.”
“It wasn’t real, though. I mean, look at this place—who couldn’t be fooled into believing they were...”
His grip tightened on her wrist. “Believing they were what?”
She sighed. “It wasn’t real. Chase, why are we even doing this?” Why was he insisting on making this hard? Surrounded by the eerie aftermath of a union that failed before it had begun, how could she possibly risk everything on a chance that things could be different for them? Stealing a glance toward her resort, she said, “I have to go. You should be with your family.” She moved away from him, ignoring the hurt reflected in his eyes.
The music coming from Whalers Village filled the air around them and he took another step forward. “Dance with me. Before we go our separate ways... Before you disappear...”
“I thought you said you don’t dance?”
Pulling her into his chest, he wrapped his arms firmly around her waist as he closed his eyes and kissed her forehead. “I also said I’d never fall in love again, but it turns out, I just hadn’t met you.”
She shivered as he tipped her face upward to look into her eyes. “Chase...”
“Don’t say it.” His plea was barely more than a whisper, as he gently kissed her lips. “If you’re leaving... If you’re walking away from me, for one last time, let’s just pretend no one knows what we have isn’t real and kiss me like everyone’s watching.”
She could do that. She needed to do that. Her bottom lip quivered slightly before she stood on tiptoe in his arms. Wrapping her arms around his neck, her lips claimed his with a passion that overwhelmed her. One she could almost fool herself into believing would last for eternity.
Cupping the back of her neck, he held her tight against him, deepening the kiss, until they both ran out of air and she reluctantly pulled away. He rested his forehead against hers and loosened his hold on her. “I would have believed that.”
12
CHASE TAPPED HIS pen against the desk and stared at his computer screen. Hayley’s driver’s license lit up the monitor... Beautiful Hayley, the woman whose face he saw every time he closed his eyes. The woman he couldn’t stop thinking about. The woman who’d yet to change her address on her driver’s license from the one in New York. He shook his head. A surprise, I was in the neighborhood was out of the question. Man, it irritated him that people didn’t change their addresses in a timely manner.
“If she’s a suspect in one of your cases, I want to be assigned better cases,” Jay said behind him, peering at the picture of Hayley.
“Nah, she’s just a woman I met in Maui.” How nonchalant he sounded. That was the thing about the uniform. Once he put it on, he was Officer Hartley—cool, distant, observant and unaffected. Not the desperate, heartbroken man who, for the first time in his life, had taken a chance when he hadn’t been prepared to deal with the outcome. Since watching her walk away that night on the beach, he replayed everything over and over in his mind. He still couldn’t believe he’d fallen for her in such a short period of time...or that he’d let her walk away.
“She lives in New York?”
“No, here in Los Angeles.”
“A model?”
“A lawyer.”
His friend raised an eyebrow.
“A divorce lawyer.”
Jay sat across from him. “Speaking of, I heard about what happened to Kate—I’m sorry, man.”
Chase sat back in his seat and his jaw clenched, the way it did every time he thought about Cooper. “It was tough...but she’s tough, she’ll get through this.” If any of the other men talked to that gutless slime bag, he wanted to make sure he knew that Kate would be fine without him. Cooper didn’t deserve to know the truth—that he’d broken his sister’s heart.
“I just can’t believe he would do something like that. He seemed like a nice kid. Where was he reassigned?” Jay asked.
“I don’t know and I don’t care. As long as he doesn’t come anywhere near me, his ass is safe.”
Jay patted his shoulder as he stood. Nodding toward the computer screen, he said, “So, what are you going to do about the girl?”
If only he knew. “Probably mess it up...” Again, he didn’t add.
Jay laughed. “Without a doubt. That’s what we do best.”
Chase hesitated. “You’ve lasted thirty years...how?” Everyone else he knew on the force was either divorced or hadn’t taken the plunge yet.
“The right woman. I knew Lorette was the one for me the day I realized she was stronger and braver than I ever could be. We were dating about a year, when someone broke into her apartment one night. I jump out of bed and tell her to stay put. She grabs a pool cue from under the bed, and in no uncertain terms tells me to stay put.” He laughed, shaking his head at the memory.
“Did you?” Chase asked.
“Hell, no. I was right behind her down the hall,” Jay said. “But she was the one who threatened the poor kid’s life if he didn’t drop her mother’s silverware case and get out of her apartment. I was just there for reinforcement. And that’s when I realized that was what I needed in my life, as well—reinforcement. Someone to share the good times with and someone who had my ass when shit went sideways. She was it. And she only asks the same of me. Together we are great, but we’d also be okay on our own—that’s why we work.”
Chase nodded. Together they were great, but they’d be okay on their own... He wondered if that would be the case with Hayley. She was so strong and determined, but could she handle the life of a cop’s wife the way Lorette did—he wasn’t sure. And until he was, he had to stay away from her.
“Good luck, man,” Jay said, tapping his shoulder as he left.
Luck. Seemed like he needed more than luck to fix things with the beautiful woman staring back at him from the computer monitor.
* * *
“SO, WHAT ARE you going to do now?” Terri-Lynn asked from her downward-facing-dog pose at their evening yoga class.
“There’s not much I can do. You should have seen his face when I walked away... Argh,” Hayley moaned as she went through the yoga poses. So far this attempt at relaxation wasn’t helping at all.
“I still don’t understand why you did. There was nothing keeping you two from at least seeing each other. Enjoying
the best sex of your life,” she said.
As if she needed that reminder. For three days whenever she thought about Chase, two things happened—she got aroused and her chest ached. Two very different feelings for her. And two emotions she could do nothing about.
She’d thought the pain would ease as the days went by, but instead she found herself feeling more depressed and anxious with each passing moment with no word from him. A part of her had been hoping... For what? That he’d call? Text? Appear on a white horse and sweep her off her feet? Whatever happened to her common sense? Holding hard and fast to her beliefs had prevented things like this from happening to her. Kept her from hoping for a different reality. Given her a reason to feel better when things ended. But this time was different. Somehow, hope had already crept in and things had gotten out of hand before she’d even realized she’d crossed the point of no return. “I don’t know. After the wedding didn’t happen, it was like the fantasy shattered and reality reared its ugly head.”
“But you’d like to see him again. There’s no point in denying it—I can tell you’re crazy about the guy.”
Going crazy over him was more like it. She nodded.
“You could try speeding,” Terri-Lynn suggested.
Hayley shook her head, unwilling to admit that she’d already tried that—twice. Two tickets from two different police officers had made her realize she was one desperate move away from losing her license. She’d even hung around at the courthouse after her case was over, hoping that by some miracle or twist of fate, he would be there. She wondered now how many times their paths may have crossed and they’d never realized it.
“Have you called him? Texted him?”
“No, there’s no point. And he hasn’t tried to contact me, either.” She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but the silence was killing her.
Terri-Lynn switched to child’s pose and lowered her voice. “I’m meeting with Kate and a new client on Thursday. You could come to the store...”
“No way.” She would have no idea what to say to Kate. Hayley slid down onto her mat next to her friend. “How is she anyway?”
“She’s hiding her suffering well, but I can tell she’s miserable. She’s thrown herself into work and that’s probably the best option. Better than sleeping the day away and losing her business on top of everything else. I know that personally and she’s handling things much better than I did after my divorce from Lee.” Terri-Lynn sat cross-legged on the mat.
Hayley was glad to hear that Kate, though hurting, wasn’t letting her pain ruin the other important things in her life.
How different the three of them were. Terri-Lynn’s emotions dictated her entire life, which translated into passionate success or sometimes ultimate failure. Kate buried her emotions and found a way to heal by focusing her energies into her work. And she... Well, she had no coping mechanisms, having never opened her heart to this intense feeling of loneliness before.
* * *
“HAVE YOU CALLED her yet?”
“No,” Chase grunted.
“So, let me get this straight—you find one of the few women in Los Angeles who works as much as you do, is not interested in marriage and doesn’t feel a need to have a house full of children before she’s thirty-five, and you let her walk away?” Jay asked, picking up a new set of weights.
When his buddy put it like that, it did sound stupid. But he hadn’t been completely honest with Jay and admitted he was also in love with her. Which meant he couldn’t ask her to be with him and constantly worry if he would come home at night.
“Can you make yourself useful and take this?” Chase said, finishing his set, his arms shaking under the increased weight. After a week off from the gym, working out felt like starting over. Just another reason why he didn’t take vacations. Other people could take a trip and come back feeling rested, renewed, energized. Not him—he’d come back feeling confused, agitated and more sexually frustrated than ever, which amazed him as he’d had more sex in Maui than he’d had in almost a year. A week with Hayley had seriously put him in a postvacation depression now that he was without her. And it had only been a few days. He groaned, extending his arms and motioning for his friend to take it.
“I don’t know, maybe a bar falling on your face might be the wake-up you need to call this woman,” Jay said, reluctantly taking the bar and placing it back on the holder on the bench.
“We had a business deal, that’s it.” Chase sat and reached for his water bottle. He guzzled its contents and set it aside.
“Did you sleep with her?” Jay asked.
“None of your business.” There hadn’t exactly been much sleeping involved...
“That’s a yes. Well, believe me, this was more than a business deal. She may not be interested in marriage and kids, and stuff, but no woman believes sex is just sex.” He removed his shirt, revealing a flat stomach and muscular chest that no sixty-year-old should possess.
“What do you know? You’ve been married for thirty years. Women have changed, man.”
“They haven’t changed that much.” He pumped through his set with ease, not even breaking a sweat, and set the bar back without assistance.
The man was a machine.
He stood and reached for a towel to wipe an invisible bead of sweat from his neck. “Look, they can say what they want, but every woman still wants a man to listen, to pay attention, to care... Unfortunately, no genius has developed an easier way to get laid yet,” Jay said with a laugh.
Listen, pay attention, care—it wasn’t that he couldn’t do all of that. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t do that and anything else required to win her heart, either. The problem was it meant letting go of his fear of “what if?” What if shit happened and he was no longer there for her? What if his job became too much for her? All of the what-ifs that had kept him from committing. But he couldn’t bring himself to admit his insecurities to his buddy. “Well, thanks for the advice.” His phone rang and he dove for it. Kate. “Hey, sis, can I call you back? I’m working out.”
“No problem. One question, real quick, though.”
Chase rolled his eyes.
“Kate?” Jay guessed.
He nodded, grabbing his towel and wiping the back of his neck. “What’s up?” Since arriving back in Los Angeles, Kate had continued on as normal as if she hadn’t just been left at the altar. Against his suggestion, she hadn’t taken time away from her job, claiming work was what she needed to keep her mind off Cooper and the humiliation of being the wedding planner who experienced the greatest wedding fail. Chase could only imagine how being surrounded by crinoline and lace was affecting his baby sister, even if she refused to admit it.
Her voice sounded extra cheerful as she said, “Your birthday is tomorrow and I’d wanted to plan a party, but with the catastrophe with fuck-head...”
Chase smiled. Finally some sign of a normal response from his sister over all of this. Her eerie calmness had started to worry him. But anger was good. He’d take anger. “Don’t worry about it. I’m probably going to order in and watch porn.”
“You’re disgusting,” Kate said with a laugh.
“Made you laugh, though, right?” In actual fact, he’d probably be working late the following day, catching up from the week he’d missed. If he could only get his mind back into the game and off Hayley.
“Hayley’s birthday is tomorrow, too,” Kate said.
So much for getting through one conversation without her name coming up. “Yeah, I know.”
“So?”
“So what?” He opened his locker and grabbed his uniform.
“Are you going to call her?”
“Probably not.” He’d gone back and forth on it a million times over the last few days. He could call her but then what? Getting himself in any further with her was not a good idea. The f
all from where he already was would kill him.
“You should. Say happy birthday and see where it goes from there.”
Ever the matchmaker, even in the wake of her own relationship disaster. “I’ll think about it.”
Kate huffed. “You’re an idiot.”
“Or smart.”
“Nope—idiot. You love her and you need to tell her.”
“Whoa, hold up. Love? Kate, I barely know her.” Okay, now he was a liar. He knew her better than he knew most people. Knew the way she’d stop at nothing to achieve her goals. Knew the way she smiled at his lame jokes. And the way she looked asleep on his shoulder with the glow of the early-morning sun on her face. He knew her. Too well.
“Call it what you want, Chase, but I think you’re scared.”
Fine, his manly ego could take that. “Listen, Kate, I’d love to keep chatting. No doubt you have a few other bullying tactics to try, but I got to get to work.” His shift didn’t start for another hour, but if he didn’t occupy his mind with something else soon, he was going to lose it.
“Okay, fine. I’m just saying—”
“Bye, Kate.”
“Wait!”
He sighed. “I’m still here.”
“Remember if you see Cooper...”
“Make it look like an accident. Yes, I got it.”
* * *
AS HAYLEY ENTERED her office the next day, she gasped. A large bouquet of yellow roses sat in a vase on her table near the window. The soft smell of the flowers reached her nose and she touched one velvet petal. Her hand trembled slightly as she took the small card from the tiny pale yellow envelope. “Happy birthday to the best fake fiancée a guy could ever dream of. Love, Chase.”
He remembered. He’d sent flowers. And a hand-addressed card...signed love. She hugged it to her chest as tears brimmed her lower lids.
“He stopped by to deliver them while you were in the meeting. I offered to interrupt, but he said he couldn’t stay...” the receptionist said in the open doorway behind her.
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