he wanted to see in Chicago—within hours of his arrival—were too ridiculous to compute. There were two and a half million people in this city. No way could fate be that cruel. No way would he be thrown back into the path of—
Before the thought even formed in his head, though, Peyton knew. It was her. Ava Brenner. Golden Girl of the Gold Coast. Absolute ruler of the Emerson Academy for College Preparatory Learning. A recurring character in the most feverish dreams he’d ever had as a teenage boy.
And someone he’d hoped he would never, ever see again.
Two
“Ava?”
As if he’d uttered an incantation to free a fairy-tale princess from an evil spell, her eyes fluttered open. He tried one last time to convince himself he was only imagining her. But even in the semidarkness, he could see that it was Ava. And that she was more beautiful than he remembered.
“Peyton?” she said as she pushed herself up from the sofa.
He stumbled backward and into a chair on the other side of the room. Oh, God. Her voice. The way she said his name. It was the same way she’d said it that morning in her bedroom, when he’d opened his eyes to realize the frenetic dream he’d had about the two of them having sex hadn’t been a dream at all. The panic that welled up in him now was identical to the feeling he had then, an explosion of fear and uncertainty and insecurity. He hated that feeling. He hadn’t felt it since...
Ah, hell. He hadn’t felt it since that morning in Ava’s bedroom.
Don’t panic, he told himself. He wasn’t an eighteen-year-old kid whose only value lay in his ruthlessness on the rink. He wasn’t living in poverty with a drunk for a father after his mother had deserted them both. He sure as hell wasn’t the refuse of the Emerson Academy who wasn’t worthy of Ava Brenner.
“Um, hi? I guess?” she said as she sat up, pulling up her covers as if she were cloaking herself in some kind of protective device. She was obviously just as anxious about seeing him as he was about seeing her.
As much as Peyton told himself to reply with a breezy, unconcerned greeting, all he could manage was another quiet “Ava.”
She pulled one hand out of her cocoon to switch on a lamp by the sofa. He squinted at the sudden brightness but didn’t glance away. Her eyes seemed larger than he remembered, and the hard angles of her cheekbones had mellowed to slender curves. Her hair was shorter, darker than in high school, but still danced around her shoulders unfettered. And her mouth—that mouth that had inspired teenage boys to commit mayhem—was... Hell. It still inspired mayhem. Only now that Peyton was a man, mayhem took on a whole new meaning.
“You want coffee?” she asked. “It should be ready. I set the coffeemaker for the usual time, thinking I would wake up when I normally do, but I don’t think it’s been sitting too long. If memory serves, you like it strong, anyway.”
If memory serves, he echoed to himself. She had brewed a pot of coffee for them at her house that night, in preparation for the all-nighter they knew lay ahead. He had told her he liked it strong. She remembered. Even though the two of them had barely spoken to each other after that night. Did that mean something? Did he want it to?
“Coffee sounds good,” he said. “But I can get it. You take yours with cream and sugar, if I recall correctly.”
Okay, okay. So Ava wasn’t the only one who could remember that night in detail. That didn’t mean anything.
She pulled the covers more snugly around herself. “Thanks.”
Peyton hurried to the kitchen, grateful for the opportunity to collect himself. Ava Brenner. Damn. It was as if he’d turned on some kind of homing device the minute he got into town in order to locate her. Or maybe she had turned on one to locate him. Nah. No way would she be looking for him after all this time. She’d made her feelings for him crystal clear back at Emerson. They’d only shone with an even starker clarity after that night at her parents’ house. And no way would he be looking for her, either. It was nothing but a vicious twist of fate or a vengeful God or bad karma that had brought them together again.
By the time he carried their coffee back to the living room, she had swept her hair atop her head into a lopsided knot that, amazingly, made her look even more beautiful. The covers had fallen enough to reveal a pair of flannel pajamas, decorated with multicolored polka dots. Never in a million years would he have envisioned Ava Brenner in flannel polka dots. Weirdly, though, they suited her.
She mumbled her thanks as he handed her her coffee—and he told himself he did not linger long enough to skim his fingers over hers to see if she felt as soft as he remembered, even if he did notice she felt softer than he remembered. He briefly entertained the idea of sitting down beside her on the couch but thankfully came to his senses and returned to the chair.
When he trusted himself not to screw up the question, he asked, “Wanna tell me how I ended up spending the night with you again?”
He winced inwardly. He really hadn’t wanted to make any reference to that night in high school. But her head snapped up at the question. Obviously, she’d picked up on the allusion, too.
“You don’t remember?” she asked.
There was an interesting ambiguity to the question. She could have been asking about last night or that night sixteen years ago. Of course she must have meant last night. Still, there was an interesting ambiguity.
He shook his head. As much as it embarrassed him to admit it, he told her, “No. I don’t remember much of anything after arriving at some restaurant on Michigan Avenue.”
Except, of course, for fleeting recollections of green eyes, soft touches and the faint aroma of gardenias. But she didn’t have to know that.
“So you do remember what happened before that?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Not that he was going to tell her any of that, either.
She waited for him to elaborate. He elaborated by lifting one eyebrow and saying nothing.
She sighed and tried again. “When did you get back in town?”
“Yesterday.”
“You came in from San Francisco?”
The question surprised him. “How did you know?”
“When I offered to take you home last night, you told me I was going to have a long drive. Then you told me you live in an area called Sea Cliff in San Francisco. Sounds like a nice neighborhood.”
That was an understatement. Sea Cliff was one of San Francisco’s most expensive and exclusive communities, filled with lush properties and massive estates. His two closest neighbors were a globally known publishing magnate and a retired ’60s rock and roll icon.
“It’s not bad,” he said evasively.
“So what took you to the West Coast?”
“Work.” Before she could ask more, he turned the tables. “Still living in the Gold Coast?”
For some reason, she stiffened at the question. “No. My folks sold that house around the time I graduated from
