Author: Bella Andre

Brooke held up her phone. “We could do a Google search on him to find out.”

Every one of the thousand times Mia had wanted to look up Ford’s past on the Internet, all she’d had to do was remind herself how pathetic it was to long for tidbits of his life from journalists and Twitter feeds.

“No.” She took Brooke’s phone from her hand and dropped it back into her soon-to-be sister-in-law’s purse. “Imagine how it would have felt for you to have to dig into Rafe’s past on Google. My brother cares so much about you that he dug deep and told you everything about his past and how much it had messed him up, even though it was really hard for him to do that.”

Brooke put her hand on Mia’s arm. “You’re right. And I’m sorry if I sounded like I was defending Ford when I said he’s still hooked on you. It’s just that—” Brooke shook her head. “No, never mind.”

“I’ve always hoped I could take the truth from my best friends as well as I can dish it out to them,” Mia said softly. “What were you going to say?”

Her friend sighed, as though she knew there was no getting away with a never mind this time. “We all know what Ford Vincent looks like, and I can imagine what poetry falling from his lips would sound like, especially if the sex really was as great as you said. Honestly, I don’t know how easy it would be for anyone to get over someone like him.”

Mia’s stomach twisted tight at Brooke’s words. She could always lie to herself. But to her friends? It was another one of the big reasons she’d never mentioned her week with Ford. Because she wouldn’t have been able to lie about what it had done to her.

“He’s the only man I’ve ever loved. And no matter how many times I look back and remind myself that I was young and foolish and still in a place where I believed that fantasies were possible, and that it was perfectly normal for me to lose myself entirely in him and his oversized life...” She sighed. “What I felt for him was still real, despite all of that other nonsense.”

“You know,” Colbie said slowly, “maybe there’s another reason why he was able to get past your defenses this morning. From everything you’ve just told us, it sounds like you never got a chance to give him a piece of your mind, not five years ago and not today either, because he made sure to take you by surprise. I, for one, would sure like to hear you rip him to shreds.”

Though Mia had already said what was supposed to be her final goodbye to Ford, she couldn’t help but feel that Colbie was on to something.

Brooke gave Mia a pointed look. “The only problem is, do you think you could give him a tongue-lashing without yours ending up in his mouth again?”

It was the same question Mia was already asking herself. Because she hadn’t yet figured out the honest answer to it, she said, “What has my brother done to you, Brooke? I never thought you’d talk about tongues lashing in any way.”

Her friend was flushing but grinning a wicked little grin as she said, “Don’t you mean, what have I done to him?”

Halfway through her friend’s sentence, Mia’s hands were over her ears. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear you say that. Although it’s totally my fault since I keep forgetting how weird it is to think about my brother’s sex life. Especially when it’s with one of my best friends.” She made a show of scrunching her eyes up and shaking her head hard a couple of times as if to toss the vision away. Far, far away from her brain.

“Does that mean that it’s not weird for you to think about my sex life with Noah, since he’s not related to you?” Colbie teased.

“Are you kidding?” Mia replied, glad to feel like she was back in the normal world for a few seconds. “If you knew how many times I’ve thought about your fiancé naked...”

The three of them laughed, but all the while Brooke’s unanswered question hung in the air between them. Mia had never been a woman who wavered. She had neither the time nor the inclination to waffle back and forth on important decisions. She wouldn’t start now.

“We’ve got Marcus and Nicola’s wedding in Napa this weekend,” she said to Brooke, who would be attending with Rafe, “which should give me a little rational distance from Ford’s sudden reappearance this morning. Monday morning I’ll call him and finally get it all off my chest.” Having a plan made her feel better, back in control of her life, the way she should be. “I’ll even let him make whatever apologies he feels he needs to make and then I’ll forgive—and forget—him completely.” She met her friends’ gazes, one after the other, before adding, “And I promise there will be absolutely no instances of my tongue going into his mouth during any of it.”

“Here’s to only putting our tongues into the mouths of the men who deserve us!” Colbie said as she raised her glass in a toast.

“To Mia, for being one of the most strong and amazing women I’ve ever known,” Brooke added as she raised her glass.

Mia lifted her glass to press it against those of Colbie and Brooke. “And to both of you for being the very best friends a girl could ever have.”

Chapter Eight

Saturday flew by with back-to-back estate showings for a big-money CEO who was planning to move from New York to Seattle. It wasn’t until Mia boarded the plane to head to Napa Valley late that afternoon that she finally had a chance to take a full breath.

She’d always had plenty of energy—her poor mother had had to chase Mia all over Seattle when she was a little girl just to try to wear her out by bedtime—but today she’d had to work twice as hard to keep a smile on her face. Because despite the girls totally coming to her aid the night before at the wine bar, Mia still hadn’t been able to get Ford all the way out of her head as she’d tossed and turned for most of the night. Even worse, one of the properties she’d taken the CEO to was the tower house that Ford had liked so much. When the CEO said that he thought the tower was a “terrible addition” to the otherwise “decent” house, Mia had been dismayed by the relief that flooded through her, almost as if Ford should be the only person to have the house. Where, she’d wondered again and again since the previous morning, was her legendary self-control?

Usually, she was more than happy to accept a glass of champagne from the First Class flight attendant and strike up a chat with whatever sexy, single businessman was sitting beside her on the plane. Today, however, she not only turned down the bubbly, but also paid more attention to the spreadsheet she was going over on her computer than the hot guy who’d slid into the seat next to her. The problem was that if she let herself relax for even a second with a glass of wine, she was afraid memories of the super-hot, toe-melting kiss Ford had given her would rise up...and leave her aching for him at thirty thousand feet.

Unfortunately, just the thought of trying not to think about Ford’s kiss was enough to distract her from her computer screen. When the guy sitting next to her thought she was trying to make eye contact with him, he immediately asked, “So, is your trip to Napa for business or pleasure?”

She couldn’t even muster up so much as a flirty smile as she simply said, “My cousin is getting married,” then pointedly shifted her attention back to her computer.

What the hell was happening to her? First, she’d booted James out of the wine bar last night, and now she seemed to have lost not only the ability to flirt, but the will to do it as well. Ford had already stolen her heart all those years ago. She wasn’t going to give up the joy of flirting and her enjoyment in meeting new people, too.

Mia slammed her laptop closed and shifted so far in her seat that she was practically sitting on the guy’s lap. “What I meant to say is that I’m Mia and this is a pleasure trip.” She waved over the flight attendant for one of those glasses of champagne. “What about you? Business...” She purposely lowered her voice before saying, “Or pleasure?”

Instantly forgiven for the way she’d blown him off a minute ago, she learned his name was Scott, that he was a thirty-four-year-old sales rep for an Italian shoe company, and that he’d noticed her in the airport’s waiting area before the flight and couldn’t believe his luck at being seated beside her. The conversation was engaging, everything he said to her was flattering, and any way she looked at it, he was pretty much the perfect guy.

But as they got off the plane and she walked toward the limo waiting for her outside the small Napa Valley airport, she couldn’t bring herself to care one single bit about whether she ever saw Scott again.

* * *

The limo took Mia straight to her cousin’s house in Napa. Marcus Sullivan owned Sullivan Winery, a very successful vineyard and wine business in the heart of the wine country. He and Nicola lived there together when his bride-to-be wasn’t on the road touring the world in support of her music career. Mia was amazed by the way Marcus had shifted his life around in such a huge way so that he could be with Nicola as much as possible. He ran a huge, very lucrative business, and she knew he could easily have stayed in Napa three hundred and sixty-five days a year to focus on his winery instead of the woman he loved.

What, Mia wondered, had made Marcus decide to do that? Had Nicola given him an ultimatum like Ford had given her, demanding that he choose her over everything else in his life or else she’d leave him, love be damned?

No, Mia thought with a shake of her head as she headed up the crushed-gravel walkway to Marcus’s front door, I can’t imagine Nicola ever doing something like that. Because when you were really in love the way Marcus and Nicola were, you just didn’t hurt the person you loved like that. Instead, what Mia had always thought from watching her own parents’ marriage, was that real love meant you tried to support your partner in any way that you could, while they also did everything they could to support you right back.

That was the kind of man Mia was waiting for. One who put her first at the same time that she put him first, too. A true partnership, rather than a quick flash of heat that was doused at the first drop of rain.

Speaking of great men, when she looked up and saw her brother Ian standing in front of her, she dropped her dress bag onto the gravel and ran into his arms.

“You made it!”

Her oldest brother was living in London running his investment business, and since his past few trips home had been canceled at the last minute, she’d begun to miss him terribly. Of course she loved her other brothers Adam, Rafe, and Dylan, but she’d always had a special relationship with Ian.

His arms were strong and steady around her as his hug lifted her off the ground. “I’ve missed you, little girl.”

He was the only one who could get away with calling her that. Well, there was the way her father called her Pumpkin. But that was it for nicknames that she would tolerate, and only because her father and brother were two of her all-time favorite people on the planet.

“I’ve missed you, too,” she said. “So much. Please tell me you’re going to move back to Seattle soon.”

Normally when she said that, he would shake his head as though there was no chance of his coming back to America. But this time he simply smiled and said, “I’ve got a few things to wrap up in London first.”

Joy shot through her as she immediately forgot her grumpy mood. But as she gave a happy shout while hugging him tight, absolutely thrilled at the thought of having her big brother nearby again, he said, “Don’t say anything to Mom and Dad about it yet. I’d hate for them to be disappointed if my plans change.”

She pulled back to poke him in the chest. “Well, you’d better not disappoint me, either.”

He kissed her on the forehead, then frowned as he finally got a look at the dark smudges beneath her eyes. “I hate not being close enough to watch over you. You’re tired. What’s going on?”