As the recent ex-wife of Miami’s favorite homegrown politician, fading into the background was impossible for Kate, especially with a heavy social schedule looming ahead. And for the first time since she’d started dating Dalton at sixteen, she was faced with the prospect of attending an event by herself.
The pitying looks she’d received from complete strangers were bad enough, but the public scrutiny was bound to get worse. Imagine how awful the tabloid headlines would be if she showed up at her high-school reunion alone?
Former Prom Queen Jilted by Her Onetime King
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Inhaling a calming breath, she forced her muscles to relax and renewed her resolve to ask Memphis for help, even if he was her childhood nemesis turned hot-shot stuntman … and a living reminder of the biggest mistake of her life. Apprehension threatened to crack her composure, and she stared up at the window far above the ground.
Where was the condolence hug when you really needed one?
There was a crackle of walkie-talkies from the crew on the street, and Kate caught her breath. One second later the window exploded, glass fragments spraying outward and fanning around the stuntman’s form, Memphis following a graceful descending arc before plummeting toward the bone-breakingly hard, air-bag-less pavement below.
Kate’s mouth turned to dust, her heart turned to stone and her every cell froze as, for several terrifying seconds, Memphis free-fell past twenty-one rows of windows. At the last possible moment the cable slowed his fall until he came to a jerky stop, just inches from the camera trained up at him from the ground.
Applause broke out around her. Dizzy, Kate sucked in a fortifying breath while her heart pulsed back to life, pounding with the aftereffects of an adrenaline surge so strong it had surely melted her nervous system. Kate released the barricade, her palms slick, and tried to brush off the grains of sand that had embedded into her skin during her tight grip. And she watched in shocked annoyance as Memphis calmly and coolly disconnected his harness as the crowd continued their cheering.
He had plunged to the ground at high rates of speed while she had aged five years in the process.
Since the day her twin brother had befriended the then thirteen-year-old hellraiser, Memphis had elicited so many heart-pounding reactions in her body that if her nervous system ever burned out completely, ninety-nine percent of the blame belonged to Memphis.
When Kate spied him heading off she abruptly brought her doubts up short. Without a second thought, she rounded the barricade and strode toward his retreating, blue-jean-encased figure. His well-formed backside and powerful legs brought back memories she’d done her best to forget.
A shout of displeasure came from the security guard to her left, but she ignored it and called out, “Memphis!”
Either Memphis hadn’t heard or chose to ignore her call, but more warning voices came as the crew and security began to target her more aggressively. Sensing time was running out, Kate broke into a brisk walk that bordered on a jog, her casual sundress flapping around her legs and her high-heeled sandals pinching her feet, as if to remind her they weren’t intended for giving chase.
“Memphis, wait!” she called again.
This time Memphis came to a stop and turned on his heel, and she knew the second he recognized her. For a brief moment, his expression froze. The reaction stopped Kate in her tracks, a mere ten feet from the man who was looking at her with those mesmerizing caramel-colored eyes …
Like a movie special effect, immediately she was transported back five years to the last time they’d been together. She had just yelled at him to get out of her brother’s hospital room. A yell fueled by fear for Brian, fury at Memphis and confusion at the memory of him making love to her in a fit of passion that had stripped her of the ability to function. Too bad the feel-good heights had been followed by the inevitable crash.
Dizzying emotional highs and death-defying lows.
Ecstasy and disaster.
Memphis never brought about humdrum emotions, and she needed to remember that truth. But her body was too busy appreciating the light brown, casually cut hair that blatantly defied refined society, the melt-in-your-mouth, thickly fringed eyes and the hard, masculine jaw that was sexily covered in half a day’s growth. His walking, talking, sex-on-two-legs attitude had intimidated her as a teen and aroused her as a young adult.
For a moment she questioned the sanity of her plan. Maybe attending the social events alone and exposing herself to more public ridicule was the better option.
A security guard grabbed her arm, his gruff voice unhappy as he said, “You can’t be back here, miss.”
But Kate dug in her heels and didn’t budge, her gaze locked on Memphis.
Memphis raised a hand. “Let her go, Hal,” he said, his gaze targeting hers as he walked closer, her heart pumping harder with his every step.
“You know her?” the security guard said.
A half smile curled the corner of Memphis’s lips with a familiar teasing humor, his sheer sex appeal cutting all the way to Kate’s heart. “Yeah,” Memphis said, coming to a stop four feet away. “I know her very well.”
It was the slight emphasis on the word very that infused Kate with warmth, and her palms—already damp from the hair-raising fall and the hell-raising man before her—grew even more damp, remembering the passion. The pleasure …
Quietly inhaling another calming breath, Kate pulled a hand wipe infused with organic lavender from the travel container she kept in her purse. Shake enough hands during a campaign and later as a representative’s wife and you learn to carry the necessary accoutrements. The ritual was soothing. Calming. And a vast improvement over the lingering grit on her palms left from the barricade. With the heated way Memphis was looking at her, a cold hosing-off was in order, but cooling her hands was the best she could do.
For a brief moment the apprehension returned, and she fought back the certainty that he’d never agree to her plan. She knew from personal experience that Memphis James did what Memphis James wanted. He always had and always would. Getting him to cooperate was going to require every ounce of the diplomatic skills she’d honed through the years.
As the daughter and granddaughter of two political giants, and a political ex-wife, God knows she’d had plenty of practice engaging in small talk. And given her history with the man in front of her, keeping the conversation superficial seemed wise.
She glanced up at the high-rise. “I see your death wish is still intact,” she said lightly.
He sounded amused. “If I had a death wish I would have jumped without the cable.”
“I heard you did while making the movie The Indestructibles.”
“That was a special circumstance,” he said.
“Special as in ‘crazier than usual’?”
He lifted a shoulder nonchalantly. “All in a day’s work.”
“Jumping off tall buildings? Leaping out of helicopters?” She lifted a brow. “Driving cars off cliffs?”
Good
