one person in the world called her Stevi. And that person had gone out of her life almost seven years ago.
Her body and limbs suddenly leaden, Stephanie found herself turning stiffly toward the source of the voice—determined to prove to herself that she hadn’t heard what she thought she had.
Praying she hadn’t.
Praying she had.
Eye contact was made instantly. Stephanie felt her heart stop beating for a second, then slam into her rib cage, accelerating so fast it threatened to make her dizzy.
Like a defense mechanism on a hair trigger, anger sprang up, immediate, full-grown and strong.
Life wasn’t fair. Not on any count. Sebastian Caine wasn’t supposed to be here, wasn’t supposed to be so damn good-looking he could move a portrait of a woman to sigh in abject desire.
His face was leaner, tanner than she remembered. His expression—that “bad boy” look her father had always ranted about—seemed as if it was now permanently chiseled in. Sebastian looked all the more sensually attractive for it.
As if he needed that.
He’d always been sensuality itself, just by breathing, by the way he’d looked at her. By the mere set of his shoulders.
Stephanie stayed where she was, her hands fisted at her sides. Her car, her condition, everything else forgotten but the man who had suddenly materialized in her life without warning.
Just the way he’d disappeared.
If life had been fair, Sebastian would have gotten fatter, ugly and been balding, not have dark chestnut hair curling from the humidity at the back of his neck and along his forehead. Hair she’d once dived her fingers through, glorying in the feel of it.
Damn you, Sebastian. Not now. Not after I’ve gotten over you.
A little voice inside her said, Ha, sure you’ve gotten over him, but she ignored it.
Her feet felt glued to the asphalt. As Sebastian walked toward her, she could almost see each muscle moving independently, yet in harmony, like a jaguar that was stalking its prey.
Except that he had nothing to stalk.
Unless jaguars stalked overly pregnant women, she ridiculed herself. She felt as if she’d gained a thousand pounds within the last two seconds.
What did it matter? He hadn’t wanted her when she’d been model-thin and completely willing to give up her world for him, she reminded herself. She’d made it clear she was willing to go anywhere with him, follow him to the ends of the earth. All that had mattered to her was being with him.
But she hadn’t mattered enough to him.
Stephanie lifted her chin as the distance between them decreased, searching for something to say even as her eyes swept the parking lot, trying to locate her car for a quick getaway. Why did she always forget where she parked? And why now of all times?
What were the first words out of your mouth when you saw, after seven years, the man who broke your heart and set fire to your dreams? Did you rant? Did you ignore him? What? she thought in utter frustration. Emily Post and her cohorts didn’t cover this in their books on proper etiquette.
Maybe because proper ladies didn’t get dumped, Stephanie thought ruefully. Proper ladies didn’t pour out their hearts and let the man they loved know they loved him. There had been no mystery between Sebastian and her. Except the ultimate one—why he had left.
There it was, her car. One aisle over.
Because it was too far away to reach without passing him, she summoned all the years of training her father had tried to drum into her head—“So that I will never have reason to be ashamed of you”—and pasted a meaningless, distant smile on her face.
“Hello, Sebastian. How are you?”
The frost in her voice hit him like the steep, sleek side of an iceberg. He should have just kept driving, Sebastian told himself. But he’d had to see her up close. Had to look at her, even though she belonged to some other man now.
There’d been no choice on his part.
He wasn’t that strong, hadn’t had the time, since arriving yesterday, to reinforce his shield against the only woman he’d ever allowed himself to love. He wanted to look into her eyes just one more time.
Maybe, if he was lucky, there’d be nothing there. For either of them.
“I’m all right.” Never really talkative, he knew his reply sounded more stilted than even he could bear. Without thinking, he took her hand, to shake it.
To touch her.
“You look good.” His eyes swept over her swollen form and he forced himself to smile. “I think the proper term is glowing.”
“That’s the heat,” she answered dismissively.
Damn you, Sebastian, why did you walk out on me? Why did you leave me, wondering where you were? And why in the name of heaven are you back now?
But he was back and she had to deal with it. Like a soldier, Stephanie squared her shoulders. “Are you back for a visit?”
The slight smile on his lips turned enigmatic. “It’s a little more complicated than that,” he told her.
God, but you look good, Stevi. Too good.
Sebastian felt old urges rising up, as if they’d never faded away. Maybe they never had.
He had no business feeling that for her now.
He glanced over her head. There was a small, trendy coffee shop with half a dozen tables for two scattered out before it. New, he thought. Everything was new except for the way he felt about her.
Leave it alone. Say goodbye and go, he told himself.
He took a chance, knowing he shouldn’t. “Maybe we could step out of the sun somewhere, have a cup of coffee for old times’ sake and I—”
There is no “old times’ sake,” Sebastian, she wanted to yell at him. Instead, she looked at him with a coolness that belied the churning emotions scrambling through her. With a snap of her wrist, Stephanie pulled her hand free as if it were being scalded.
“I don’t think that would be very wise.”
Well, what had he expected? Still, disappointment shredded the veneer he was attempting to construct around himself.
“Sure, I understand. Jealous husband, eh?” He had no idea why he’d even said that.
Deep blue eyes, eyes he’d loved to get lost in, cut him dead. “You lost the right to ask questions like that a long time ago, Sebastian.”
With that, she turned away, knowing if she didn’t, she’d probably do something stupid, like throw her arms around him. Or demand to know why he’d hurt her the way he had. It would have been a humiliating waste of breath
