Bad enough having to run into her fickle ex-lover on the very same night she felt as if her personal life and world were imploding. Worse, though, was that he was so obviously furious about it, apparently having hoped to never lay eyes on her again.

  She had, many times, told herself she wished she’d never met him. Right now, she actually believed it.

  “This must be quite a surprise then,” the groom said.

  “Surprise. That’s one way to put it,” said Heather.

  Sick might be another way.

  Still, queasy or not, her heart was fluttering as she recalled that last morning in bed at the hotel. Nate had been so attentive, so sexy, so adoring, as if he had meant it when he’d said she was becoming his addiction.

  That seemed, sometimes, to have been her last truly happy moment. By that afternoon, everything had gone to hell. First, she’d been cornered by some obnoxious reporters about the rumors of her being the “other woman” in a celebrity love triangle. Before she’d even had a chance to process those rumors, or what he’d supposedly said about her—a nobody?—she’d gotten the call that Dad was in the hospital, in critical condition.

  She’d barely made it home to say goodbye. He’d died the next day. And every moment since, she’d been busy trying to hold herself together, and her mother, too. All the while, she’d wondered if she’d already met the love of her life and if he would end the silence and come find her.

  She’d wanted that, desperately. Wanted a once-in-a-lifetime love like her parents had had. Wanted a man who would adore her the way her dad had adored her mom. She’d fantasized about having that kind of love with Nate.

  Boy, had she been wrong.

  “Isn’t this fun,” her mother said, clapping her hands together and looking absolutely delighted. “You two are already friends...and now you’re going to be siblings!”

  Oh, my God. Nate Watson, the lover she’d almost flown off to Florida with last spring was about to become her stepbrother.

  Heather suddenly couldn’t breathe. How could her world have turned so completely upside down so fast?

  Before she could think better of it, given the presence of the parents, she said the only thing that made sense right now.

  “Fuck my life.”

  * * *

  NATE DIDN’T SAY the words, but he echoed Heather’s sentiment. Because, damn, how could he be expected to deal with his father’s crazy, impulsive engagement to someone Nate totally believed was a money-grubber...when said money-grubber was the mother of the woman he’d lost his head over last year?

  It really was her. Heather Hughes. In the flesh. He hadn’t believed his eyes at first, but once she’d spoken and he’d heard that soft, sexy voice, he’d been unable to deny it.

  The beautiful woman hadn’t changed since he’d last seen her. Well, maybe a little. He’d certainly never seen her with such a dark frown on her face. The faint shadows of sadness he noticed in her eyes were unexpected, too.

  Had he contributed to that sadness? He knew he’d probably hurt her by never reaching out after their fling in Vegas. He’d had her number and could have used it at any time. Unfortunately, his life had become so ugly he couldn’t bring himself to do it. There’d been tabloid reporters digging through his trash, private investigators following him and lawyers subpoenaing his medical records. Just crazy crap for months, right through his first losing season.

  The experience had changed him, hardened him. Frankly, he hadn’t been fit company for anyone, much less a woman. Which was one reason he hadn’t ever tried to reach her.

  The other reason was...well, he’d been burned by Felicity. Badly. As much as he liked to think Heather was different, in truth, he’d only been with her a few days. He’d begun to question every decision he’d made—including the decision to ask a near stranger to come home with him. His judgment could have been screwed up about her, too. Maybe she’d been aware of who he was all along. Women constantly pretended to feel things they didn’t feel when it came to men with money. He should know.

  So, he feared, should his father, who’d been married three times and messily divorced twice.

  And was about to embark on adventure number four.

  With his ex-lover’s mother.

  Heather was right. Fuck my life.

  “Shall we all go inside? I’m sure the other guests have already arrived,” Amy said, choosing to pretend she hadn’t heard her daughter’s muttered obscenity. She tucked her arm into his dad’s and added, “We’re going to have a lovely party.” Her comment sounded more like a threat than a promise.

  Nate was left to escort Heather, who was glaring at him as if she’d scraped him off the bottom of a shoe. Not even one of hers, maybe a garbage man’s shoe. Or a...a dogcatcher’s.

  “I can’t believe it’s really you,” he managed to mutter as they walked into the club and followed the sounds of laughter toward a nearby banquet room.

  “Yeah, seeing you here is the highlight of my decade, too.”

  Sarcasm. He wasn’t used to it from her, but he had to admit he kind of enjoyed it. Sharp, sassy Heather was someone he hadn’t met before, and he found her incredibly attractive.

  “We should talk.”

  She glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes, which sparkled and snapped with emotion. Anger, he’d venture to guess. “Funny, I can’t imagine a single thing I want to say to you.”

  “Then I’ll talk and you can listen.”

  Whatever else happened—if he succeeded in getting his father to reconsider this insane marriage to her mother or not—he needed to apologize to Heather. He had to explain why he’d said those things about her and why he’d dropped completely out of her life. He only hoped she’d believe he’d done it to protect her. After that, they could go their separate ways.

  The Nate of a year ago might have considered making another play for her, seeing if those sparks were still there and if the two of them had a connection that could last. The newer, more jaded Nate knew better. Considering he believed her mother was out to marry his dad so she could suck his bank account dry, he had to wonder if Heather was a chip off that block. Even if she weren’t, once he broke up this insane engagement, she’d never want to speak to him again. So, yeah. Best to apologize and then forget all about her.

  Inside the crowded room, where the bride and groom were getting lots of kissy-huggy greetings from a bunch of people he didn’t recognize, he and Heather headed, by silent consent, toward the bar. Nate noticed the attention Heather got—God, who wouldn’t stare at her? Two thirtyish men who’d been standing at the bar talking real estate both lowered their drinks, exchanged Whoa, look at that one! glances and offered her very warm smiles.

  Nate had no claim on her, none whatsoever, but he still had a serious urge to smash a jaw or two.

  The one in the blue suit snuck a quick glance at Heather’s ass. Definitely two jaws.

  He shouldered his way between Heather and the nearest jerk, keeping his back to them, blocking her from their view.

  The bartender, however, he could do nothing about, and the young guy was already flirting with her as he asked, “Would you like the signature drink for tonight’s event? Sex on the beach?”

  Nate felt a little sick, thinking of next week’s beach wedding. “We’ll each have a dry martini, two olives for the lady. Three for me,” he said, remembering her drink of choice.

  She frowned, but didn’t correct him, apparently needing the alcoholic fortification more than she needed to put him in his place. Nodding her assent to the bartender, she didn’t even look at Nate as she muttered, sotto voice, “Let’s just retreat to opposite corners and pretend we don’t know each other.”

  “That’ll work well on a yacht,” he said.

  “Maybe I’ll just push you overboard.”

  “I’m a good swimmer.”

  “Into a school of sharks.”

  Her curmudgeonly attitude coaxed a laugh from him. It sounded rusty. Unused. “You’d have to add a lot of chum to the water to get a whole school of great whites on my tail.”

  The bartender slid her drink over, his fingers deliberately brushing hers on the glass as she took it.

  Nate gritted his teeth.

  “Thanks for the tip,” she said as she lifted her martini and sipped it. “I’ll start gathering dead fish guts now.”

  He sighed heavily. “Speaking of guts—you hate mine, huh?”

  “Well, you certainly didn’t make me feel like you were any happier to see me just now.”

  “I was,” he admitted, his tone low, the admission startling even himself. “Heather, I have to explain some things.”

  “Don’t bother. I got the message. I happen to be fluent in silence—it’s one of my favorite languages. And yours was pretty deafening.” She smirked, then sauntered over to a table in the back corner, obviously thinking she’d had the last word.

  Nate followed, unable to prevent his attention from traveling over her long, wavy red hair. His hands tightened as he remembered the feel of that silky mass twined around his fingers. Her green sheath dress did amazing things to the body he’d worshipped for three days straight, and the gentle sway of her curvy hips as she walked soon had him panting.

  Whatever had happened during the past ten months, one thing was sure: he still wanted her.

  Heather didn’t chat with anyone, obviously wanting to sit in a corner, alone, to lick her wounds. But he couldn’t let it go. If he didn’t succeed in getting his father to change his mind, they were going to be stuck together on a yacht for several days. He had to clear the air before that happened.

  He sat beside her at the empty table, getting right to the point. “I was trying to protect you.”

  She blinked and finally peered at him. “Excuse me?”

  “What I said to the reporters—about you being a nobody.”

  She tossed her head. “Oh, that. No big deal.”

  Her tone was as breezy as a woman who’d just told her husband she didn’t mind that he’d forgotten their anniversary. I.e., blasé, but not quite hiding a promise of retribution.

  “It was a big deal and I apologize. I hated myself the minute the words came out of my mouth, but you have to understand...”

  “You had a pregnant girlfriend to mollify?”

  He squeezed his glass. If the glass had been of lesser quality, it might have shattered in his hand. “God, no.”

  “I guess I was the only one on the planet who was unaware you were involved with a pop star when we met.”

  “That she had been my girlfriend is true. But we broke up before I met you.” He put a hand on her shoulder, urging her to believe him. “I swear, I’m not a cheater.”

  She stared into his eyes, searching for answers. He hoped she recognized the truth. Whatever else he might have done in the past year—and he wasn’t proud of some of his actions—he’d never betrayed anyone in that way.

  “Okay,” she finally said with a nod. “So you didn’t cheat.”

  He didn’t breathe easily just yet. “Nor did I dump a woman who was pregnant with my child.”

  “Yeah, I heard DNA tests proved the baby wasn’t yours.”

  “The media reported that eventually,” he muttered. “But not until I’d been raked over every coal Kingsford ever made.”

  Her tense posture finally relaxed a little. “I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “Not apologizing. Empathizing. I’m truly sorry you went through all that.” She licked her lips, then, her voice a little softer, asked, “Were you disappointed? I mean, when you found out that the baby wasn’t yours?”

  Nate barked a harsh laugh. “There was no chance in hell he could have been mine. I was sure of that from day one.”

  Her pretty brow furrowed. “But, I mean...”

  “She got pregnant two months after we stopped sleeping together. I guess she figured because I was a football player I couldn’t count all the way up to nine.”

  Heather’s green eyes rounded. “You mean, it was all a lie? She knew all along it couldn’t be yours?”

  “Yeah. Pretty sick, right?”

  “How did she ever believe she would get away with it?”

  “Felicity always gets what she wants, and never imagined she couldn’t get me back. She assumed she could get me into bed soon enough for me not to question who’d fathered her baby.” He offered Heather a jaded smile. “When her private eye spotted me with you in Vegas and told her he thought it looked serious, she panicked and called the press.”

  “That evil bitch!”

  Yeah. She was. Not that the world had seen her that way, even after the paternity had been proven. He was still the guy who’d broken poor Felicity’s heart and hadn’t stood by her after her, uh, mistake. He was also the subject of her last hit song, Broken Promises, an honor he would have happily gone without.

  The married producer was out of the picture. No matter how furious Nate had been, he’d never outed the affair to the press. So the baby-daddy was now a big mystery. With no other face or name to dog, the tabloids remained focused on him, to hell with biology. Or decency.

  “Anyway,” he said, thrusting off the ugly mental images, “it all started to break that day in Vegas. You were already getting caught up in it, and I knew the paparazzi would be on you, making your life miserable. That’s why I said what I did, to throw them off track. I apologize for how it sounded, and how it must have made you feel.”

  She remained silent for a moment, considering. Eventually, she nodded. “All right, I can accept that.”

  As for the rest—why he’d never called her—well, that was a long story, one not suited to their surroundings. Besides, he wasn’t sure he could explain it without sounding like an asshole who feared he could never trust another woman. He wasn’t a misogynist. He still liked and respected women. But the trust thing was going to be hard to get over.

  So all he said was, “I stayed out of touch because my life’s been pretty screwed up ever since.”

  She downed her drink. “Join the club.”

  Hearing the pain in her voice, he asked, “They didn’t—I mean, nobody from the tabloids ever came after you, did they?”

  “No. I escaped their radar.” She fished an olive out of her drink with her long, slim fingers and popped it into her mouth, the movement as graceful as it was sexy.

  Damn, he was still so affected by this woman. He had to drag his eyes away from those lips as he asked, “Then what do you mean? What happened? Was it something about the emergency you mentioned in your note that day?”

  “Indirectly, I guess.” She nodded toward the happy couple, who were dancing to a big band number on the otherwise empty dance floor. “Essentially, that’s what happened.”

  “So you’re not happy about this, either?”

  She shook her head, and a rush of relief flooded him. He had been worried Heather would support the romantic lunacy when, in fact, she might actually be an ally.

  “Thank God,” he said, lifting his own drink and tossing back a mouthful. “I thought I was gonna have to break up this wedding all by myself.”

  Shock widened her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I flew here today to convince my father how crazy this whole thing is. We’ve been fighting about it all day.”

  “Fighting...”

  “He’s such a romantic. A sucker for a pretty face. Two out of three of his former wives have swindled him out of fortunes. My dad can’t see clearly when it comes to women.”

  “Swindled?”

  “What’s that old saying? Marry in haste, repent at leisure. Believe me, his accountant always repents,” he said, thinking how lucky he had been that his own romantic misadventure hadn’t actually led down any aisles other than in a courtroom. “Desperate, middle-aged women see the name and the dollar signs and can’t resist trying for the brass ring. He falls for it every damn time.”

  Heather stared at him for a long moment, her eyes flashing. Her whole body had grown rigid, and her mouth opened and then snapped closed, as if she were trying to control herself.

  Which was when Nate remembered exactly who he’d been referencing as a desperate, middle-aged woman.

  “Oh, crap, Heather.”

  “My mother is no swindler.” She launched from her chair.

  He rose, too. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...”

  “Yes, you did mean. You think my mother’s marrying your father for his money?”

  No backing off that now, and no way to say it nicely. “She wouldn’t be the first bored divorcée to want what a rich man can give her.”

  Heather gasped, drawing a hand to her chest. Her fingers pressed so hard they left red marks on the pale, creamy swell of her cleavage. It was as if she were trying to hold her heart in place, as if he’d wounded her.

  He was so out of practice talking to women. He’d lost his charm, and tonight, it seemed, even his tact. Maybe it was her nearness that had loosened his tongue, and his own recent history that had made his words so bitter. Maybe the martini he’d just consumed—and the two he’d had earlier—had contributed, too. In any case, Heather appeared as furious as a tornado.

  Without another word, she swooped her nearly empty glass off the table. To his shock, she tossed the contents—liquor, melting ice, one olive—right into his face.

  “Stay away from me, Nate Watson,” she said, her whole body shaking. “Or I swear to God, I will pitch you off that boat right in the middle of the Caribbean and laugh while you drown.”

  3

  DURING THE FLIGHT to Florida two days later, Heather was fortunate enough to be seated far away from Nate. That wasn’t too difficult, since there were about twenty other people in their group. Jerry had invited a few of his employees, and her mother had asked a bunch of her friends to come, plus Heather’s two cousins and their wives. Other than a brunch yesterday, she hadn’t had to see Nate, and she’d managed to avoid saying much to him there.

  When they arrived in Miami, stretch limousines waited to take them to a beachfront hotel where they would spend the night before the cruise got underway the next morning. Heather was supposed to ride in a limo with the bride, groom and best man. Like that was gonna happen.