CHAPTER FOUR
“UH-HUH. YES.”
Mike Valentine listened unabashedly to the half he could hear of his lunch companion’s phone conversation the first Monday in March.
“I know. Mmm-hmm.” Her tone was more flirty than not. Glancing at Mike, Kacey rolled her eyes. And then mouthed, Bo.
A guy she’d been talking to in LA for the past several months. She said she wasn’t in love with him, but she liked him a lot. He fit her life in the city. She’d never, ever bring Bo to Santa Raquel, which was where Mike lived, and where he and Kacey volunteered at a local domestic violence shelter, the Lemonade Stand. Bo was part of her Beverly Hills life. And, Mike assumed, her sexual partner.
A subject that had nothing to do with Mike.
“Okay, tomorrow night. But only if it’s just a few of us. I meant it when I told you I don’t want to go clubbing.”
While she listened, she ate a French fry. Or as much of one as she’d allow herself. Just the tip. Off Mike’s plate.
She fell for the wrong guys. It didn’t take a genius to figure that one out. Besides, she’d told him so herself.
“No, I’m not going to change my mind...” Her tone of voice changed from playful to deadly serious.
While she couldn’t seem to control her propensity to date the wrong types, she was determined to make serious changes to her life and had already.
Like the drinking. She still did it. Socially. She might have been teetering on being a drunk, but she wasn’t an alcoholic. Her body didn’t have a chemical dependency on the stuff. And she hadn’t been drunk in ten months, not since she’d made up her mind to change her life. He knew...because she’d told him.
“I do want to be with you! It’s the clubbing I don’t want.” She was smiling now—not at Mike. She’d never smiled at Mike that way.
For which he was utterly thankful. That smile...it was the one reserved for the disposable men in Kacey’s life. The ones who were part of the soap opera star’s Hollywood life.
He’d
