“He broke up with me.”

  “Two years ago, and he hasn’t seen you since. Maybe he’s been having regrets this whole time and now he’s back to fix that mistake.” She smirks.

  “What does that even mean, Chloe?” I ask her as I come out of the walk-in closet in the white lace backless jumpsuit that I’d bought among a million other white pieces of clothing when Parker and I got engaged. “Also, you’re not helping.”

  “It means that maybe you’re so worried that with Parker not being here you run the risk of you and Daddy JP falling back into old patterns.” She refills her glass and tops mine off too. “That Jacob will take one look at you and rip that jumpsuit off of you before you even have a chance to blink. That he’ll drop to his knees and confess that these past three years have been miserable AF and he misses you and loves you and to hell with Aunt Michelle and Uncle Kev; he’ll be damned if you marry another man that isn’t him,” she says dramatically, placing a hand across her heart and then over her forehead.

  My mouth drops open because if I was being honest with myself, that thought had crossed my mind. I didn’t necessarily want him to but I did think there was a possibility. “You read too many romance novels,” I tell her before moving toward my dresser to grab the Cartier watch that Parker had gotten me for my birthday last year as well as my engagement ring.

  “I sense deniiiiiial,” she sings.

  I ignore her as I move into my bathroom to finish my hair. I stand in front of the mirror at my sink staring at myself in the mirror. The bathroom has his and hers sinks and it’s extremely obvious which is which. My curling iron, bobby pins, Q-Tips, makeup wipes and face wash line my sink as well as my Chanel perfume that I’ve been wearing for years. I plug in my blow dryer and flip my head over and begin diffusing my hair. “He wants you back.” I hear from the entrance to my bathroom and I immediately flip it over and stare at my cousin with wide eyes.

  “No, he doesn’t. I mean… he does? Who said that? Did you talk to Trey? Who said he wants me back?” My heart begins pounding in my chest and adrenaline rushes through my veins at the thought.

  Chloe leans against the doorjamb. “I said, what if he wants you back?” She blinks her eyes rapidly. “But I think I just got my answer.”

  “I love you and I wish you were here,” I say into the phone as I stand in front of my parent’s house. Chloe and I had decided to take an Uber because I was already anticipating drinking too much, especially since I was already feeling a slight buzz from the champagne. Now I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach that I can’t decide if it’s nerves, anxiety, excitement or maybe a combination of the three. Regardless, the feeling is trying to convince me that another drink will calm whatever it is coursing through me. Chloe had already left to go inside when I decided to call Parker. I wanted to hear his voice. Wanted to hear him tell me that he missed me and wished he was here too. Instead, he’s given me a hard time ever since we’ve gotten on the phone.

  “You know how you get when you and Chloe drink too much. I can already hear it in your voice,” he responded without even an acknowledgment to what I said. “And your parents wait until I leave town to throw you some sort of engagement party? Without your fiancé?”

  “It’s not an engagement party, Parker. Our engagement party is next month. They are just having their friends over.”

  He sighs. “I shouldn’t even be surprised; your parents hate me.” I brace myself for the conversation we’d had at least a dozen times before.

  “They don’t hate you, Parker.” And they didn’t. Kevin and Michelle Monroe don’t hate anyone. My mother is practically a direct descendant of Mother Teresa and my father is like a giant teddy bear. They just don’t know Parker very well and struggle understanding him at times because Parker can come off… aloof. My parents are loud and exuberant and will ask you a million questions in an effort to get to know you and keep you involved in the conversation and that overwhelms and intimidates my introverted fiancé a bit. Therefore, he comes off standoffish which makes my parents try harder to get him to open up.

  It’s a vicious cycle.

  “Fine Whitney. I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go out later.” I’d made the mistake of telling him Chloe and I took an Uber and now he thinks we planned to get hammered. Though after a night of being around JP, I just might.

  “With Chloe and Mason? Come on Parker, you can’t be serious.”

  “I am serious. Mason won’t look out for you once he sets his eyes on the first thing in a skirt and Chloe will do the same the second, she decides who she’s going home with.”

  “Ouch, Parker, tell me how you really feel.”

  “I believe I just did and you know it’s true.”

  “Babe, I called you because I miss you and I wanted to talk to you. Not to get in a fight. Can’t you just tell me you love me and you miss me and can’t wait to see me?”

  “You know I feel all of those things.”

  “You’re acting like you don’t trust me and I’ve never given you a reason not to.”

  “It’s not that. It’s just if I’m not there to look out for you, who will?” I can remember having this conversation with another man once before and somehow it feels different now. Maybe I really was naïve with JP because I can remember him telling me he wanted to put me over his knee and spank my little ass pink after going out and getting drunk with Chloe one night.

  The difference was that was hot and he fucked you senseless with a red handprint still fresh on your ass.

  Nope. Shut that shit down, Whitney.

  “You’re right,” I tell him. “But you can’t tell me I can’t go out. Just trust that I’ll be careful, alright?”

  “Whatever, do what you want, Whitney.” His voice drips with passive aggression.

  “You want me to just sit in the house and wait for you to come home? That’s what you want?” Silence. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  He sighs and I can imagine him running a hand through this hair and bouncing his leg like he always does when he’s agitated. “I just don’t want you out being reckless when I’m not there. Sorry for being worried.”

  I begin walking up the walkway and up the stairs to my front door. “I appreciate that. I think it’s cute that you worry.”

  “Just call me when you get in later, alright?”

  “Time difference?” I remind him. Knowing that I probably won’t get home until around two a.m. if we go out, which puts the time at five a.m. on the East Coast where Parker is now.

  “Don’t care. I want to hear your voice and know you got home safe.”

  “Yes, sir.” I giggle and I hear him clear his throat on the other end.

  “Don’t start with that,” he says but I can hear the smile in his voice. It was odd, Parker was a little more dominant in our relationship except in the bedroom which actually kind of pissed me off. The place I want to be bossed around and told what to do and he’s actually quite passive. Whereas in our day-to-day life, he took control. Sometimes I didn’t mind it but other times it felt like I didn’t have a say in my own life.

  “Okay, well, I love you.” I turn away from the door when I hear someone coming up the stairs and I almost drop the phone when I see JP walking up the stairs looking like he just stepped out of a fucking GQ magazine. He’s wearing a pair of black jeans that shows his trim waist and a white button-down that emphasizes his olive skin that’s even more tan from his time in Mexico. I briefly wonder if he was doing hard labor or something between surgeries because he’s a little more muscular than I remembered. His dark brown hair is a little longer and curls slightly at the ends spurring vivid memories of pulling on it while his mouth was between my legs. Speaking of which, he licks his lips drawing my attention to his mouth before finding his eyes that are still roaming shamelessly all over my body.

  Of course, he looks even better than he did three years ago. Bastard.

  “I love you too,” Parker tells me back, but my brain barely registers that before I hang up the phone.

  “Hi Jacob.”

  He cocks his head to the side and narrows his eyes and I can almost hear his thoughts. Jacob, huh? So that’s how we’re playing it? “Hi beautiful,” he responds, and after three years of not hearing his voice, I almost melt at just those two words.

  Fuck. Where is Chloe? We discussed that I shouldn’t be alone with him for this exact reason. She probably just assumed we were fine for now because he wasn’t here yet.

  He’s still on the stairs so he climbs the final two and then he’s moving closer to me. I take a step back and he takes another step closer. I take another and he does the same and I immediately begin to panic. I don’t want him in my space. I don’t want him to hug me and I don’t want to be close enough to smell his cologne. I put a hand out to stop him from coming closer. He frowns and I shake my head.

  “I’m engaged.”

  His eyes darken and I see a flash of annoyance cross his face. Fuck. “So, I’ve heard.”

  “So… no.”

  “No, what?” He gives me that cocky smile that used to make my panties wet. The one where he revealed one dimple but none of his teeth and I am trying to ignore the fact that there is a tingling between my legs.

  “You know what.”

  “I’m simply saying hello and acknowledging the fact that you’re beautiful. Any person with eyes can see that.” He nods when I don’t respond because I’m actually holding my breath until I can move out of his space. “Congratulations, by the way.”

  I let out the breath I’m holding because this seems safe. Talking about my engagement implies he’s accepted that I’ve moved on. Maybe he really is just here to celebrate or maybe for closure. “Thank you.” I smile. “Parker is great. You’ll really like him.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.” My smile fades as he holds out his hand. “Let me see the ring.”

  I hold it out for him to see and just as I begin to pray that he won’t grab my hand, warm skin presses against mine. He rubs his thumb over my knuckles and the ring on my finger. “Hmmm, not what I would have picked for you.” My heart begins to pound and goose bumps betray me by popping up everywhere. Fuck fuck fuck.

  “Jacob,” I plead, because I really couldn’t continue down this road with him. He’d said less than one hundred words to me in three years and I feel like I’m regressing back to the day he left me.

  “Whitney,” he responds, holding my gaze and as much as I want to, I can’t pull away. There’s heat in his eyes and I feel my knees weakening under his piercing blue orbs. I bite my bottom lip on instinct but I immediately release it when I hear the sharp intake of air and the exhale through his nose.

  “I—” I start when the door opens behind me. Yes! Finally. I let out a breath, grateful for the intrusion though Jacob looks like he’s about to rip the head off of whoever has interrupted us.

  “THERE HE IS!” The voice of my father booms throughout the entire neighborhood and then he whisks past me and pulls him into a hug. “I fucking missed you.” I hear him. My mom comes running out behind me and I chuckle at both of them passing me to hug Jacob like he’s the prodigal son returning.

  “Oh my God, you can’t leave me alone with him for three years ever again,” my mom says as she hugs him and gives him a peck on his cheek. “Mexico was good to you. You must have been beating the women off with a stick down there.” Her gaze shifts and her eyes widen. “Whit! OH, my goodness, hi honey!” She pulls me into a hug and kisses my cheek.

  “It’s okay Mom, you see me all the time and I know JP was your and Dad’s first child.” I roll my eyes before moving into the house, grateful to be able to escape the awkward tension mounting between me and Jacob. I immediately find Chloe talking to Mason in a corner and I approach them both with a glare. “Not curious as to where I’ve been?”

  “I thought you were still talking to Parker?” Chloe says. “Why are you all hyper?” she asks as she brings her glass of sangria to her lips and takes a healthy sip.

  “Because JP is here. He arrived while I was still on the phone with my fiancé.” I say through gritted teeth.

  Chloe chokes on her drink and begins coughing. “You’re shittin’ me. The man always did know how to make an entrance.” She giggles and I shoot her a look. “Well how did it—holy fuuuuuck,” Chloe whispers under her breath. I turn around when I hear my father announcing who was back from Mexico and when I turn back to look at Chloe her eyes are wide. “He looks gooood.” She takes another sip and thankfully the room is full of people talking so I’m sure no one heard her. “Yeah, you’re fucked. He looks like a man that came here to play zero games.”

  “You’re not helping, Chloe,” Mason says as he takes a sip of what I assume to be whiskey. “Maybe I should go have a little chat with him.”

  “Mase…”

  “No, he doesn’t get to come in and make you so uncomfortable in your own Goddamn house,” he snaps and I see the fury in his eyes already.

  “Just leave it. He hasn’t done anything.” I plead.

  “He’s here and it’s messing with your head and your heart and while Parker isn’t necessarily my favorite person, he’s one of yours and I respect him as the man that loves you.”

  Chloe rolls her eyes. “Since when are you so holier than thou when you drink.”

  “The guy broke her heart, Chlo.”

  “And her showing up here, looking like this,” she says, waving her hand over me. “With a ring on her finger is the best revenge. Let him pine over her. She’s moved on.”

  Mason looks at me and I give him a weak smile, wishing I had as much confidence as Chloe thinks I have. “Let’s just go out on the patio and decide where we’re going when we get out of here.”

  My eyes scan the room just like they’ve done over a hundred times over the past hour. It’s how it always was, whenever we were in the room together in mixed company my eyes were always looking for her. My eyes would find her for no more than a second before moving on. It was just enough time to know exactly what she was thinking, what she needed or if she needed me. Over half of the time, her eyes would meet mine. Sometimes she’d smile, sometimes she’d wink if she knew it was safe and sometimes, she’d bite her lip which was code for: get me naked now.

  I stare at her through the blinds, my hands flexing into fists with the need to touch her. Her hair is longer than the last time I saw her and visions of seeing it wrapped around my wrist as I pound into her from behind infiltrate my brain.

  Her, Chloe, and Mason went to the patio as soon as I entered the house and have been out there since. One of them has been by her side all night leading me to believe that one or both of them know about what happened between us.

  They’re protecting her from me.

  I wince at the sting that causes. I hurt her so deeply that she can’t even be around without a layer of protection around her heart. Or she still has feelings for you and she doesn’t trust herself around you.

  More than likely it was a combination of the two. Either way, Mason and Chloe weren’t going to be easy and they weren’t going to back down. I down the rest of my gin and tonic before deciding that I’d had enough. There were at least thirty people here and though I’m sure Kevin and Michelle wanted to spend the night talking to me, they were polite hosts and had left me to tend to some of their other guests leaving me free to try to get Whitney alone.

  I get up from the chair where I’m seated and open the door to the patio and make my way outside. The backyard looks different than I remember it. The stones on the terrace were different and there was a fountain that flowed into the pool now. There was also a hot tub in the corner that I didn’t remember being there. Kevin and Michelle were always going somewhere during the summer, whether it be cruises or European vacations especially tacked onto Kevin’s trips for work. During the time Whitney and I were together, there were more than a few times I stayed with her while Kevin and Michelle were gone and we had fucked numerous times in this pool so I know if there had been a hot tub then we would have defiled that too.

  I make my way over to them and I’m grateful there’s at least ten people out here so I don’t have to worry about Mason or Chloe getting loud if my suspicions are correct.

  “Mason.” I nod at my oldest godchild as I approach the table where they’re all seated. There’s a fourth chair available but I don’t make an effort to sit. Yet.

  I remember Mason’s birth like it was yesterday. Kevin was scared shitless and almost passed out but the second he was out of Michelle, he was in love. His firstborn. A son. I’m fairly certain the second he turned two, Michelle rarely even saw Mason. He was attached to Kevin and me and went wherever we went. We even had him on the golf course when he was just three years old just in case, we had another Tiger Woods on our hands minus the sex scandals of course.

  “Uncle J.” He nods back and I know now that he knows about me and Whitney because he usually has the same reaction to seeing me as his father does. I do actually see the war in his eyes about wanting to hug me but also being angry at me and protecting his sister. “How was Mexico?”

  “Hot.” I chuckle. “But it was good. I feel great about the work we did there. I missed home though.”

  “I am suuuure you did.” Chloe snorts and I shoot her a fake grin.

  “Miss Chloe.” I lean down and place a kiss on her cheek. “It’s good to see you. How have you been?”

  “Good,” Chloe says without offering any more information. “Thriving,” she exaggerates and I wonder if she’s hoping I’ll share that with my brother.

  I meet Mason’s gaze and he stares at me over his glass as he brings it to his lips, and I feel like he’s daring me to say something.

  “Let’s take a walk, Uncle J,” Mason speaks up. “I want to hear about Mexico.”

  “Mase…” Whitney starts and just hearing her voice again makes me want to drag her into the closest room with a bed.