The wine bar was just around the corner from the mattress store, exactly as Will had planned.

“What is it with women and wine bars?” he asked, as Brynn led them to a spot at the bar. He would have preferred sitting at a table so he could see her—read her—but he knew that was too date-like for her.

“They’re our response to sports bars,” she said, gracefully sliding onto the high stool and arranging her skirt around her knees like the perfect lady she so wanted to be. “Except there’s no peanuts on the ground, no obnoxious TVs, and very few leering men.”

“Except for me.”

She smiled at him, and then looked surprised for smiling. “Yeah. Except for you.”

Two cheese appetizers, a crème brûlée, and a bottle of wine later, Will was guiding a very tipsy Brynn toward his car. He’d deliberately let her drink more than her share of the bottle, not only because he was driving, but because she’d clearly needed it to forget that she was with the enemy. Maybe even enjoying herself with the enemy.

For the first time in their history, they’d shared a meal, just the two of them, and there hadn’t been a single argument or jab. She’d even laughed.

God he loved her laugh.

“I’m drunk,” Brynn said with emphasis, swinging her purse into the backseat of his car and dropping messily into the passenger seat.

She didn’t object when he scooped her legs up, tucking them into the car. Didn’t object when his fingers lingered on her smooth calves.

“You’re not drunk. Just…happy,” he said, closing the door carefully behind her.

The ride home was mostly silent, other than the radio, which she changed every two seconds.

It started to rain as he exited the freeway, and though it was raining more often than not in Seattle, he wondered if she remembered the only other time they’d been alone in his car together.

It had been raining then too, but she hadn’t been tipsy. Just good and pissed about something he’d said and his own temper had spiked until he’d almost told her everything. And then he’d lost his mind and kissed her. Their first kiss.

He wondered if she ever thought about it.

Will pulled into her driveway, and she gave him a puzzled look. “You could have parked in your own garage. I could have walked.”

“It’s raining,” he said, not looking at her. And if I let you anywhere near my house right now, I won’t let you go.

“Don’t tell me there’s a gentleman hiding in there,” she said with a giggle, stabbing at the buckle on her seat belt and getting it on the third try.

“If there is, I’ll never tell,” he said, reaching into the backseat for her purse.

“Well, thanks,” she said, clutching her purse to her chest. “I um…I had a good time.”

“You sound surprised.”

She snorted. “Well, yeah. It’s probably the first time I didn’t want to kill you.”

“Unlike the last time we were in a car in the rain.” Whoops. He hadn’t meant to go there.

Her eyes clouded over. So she did remember.

“You were mad at me,” she added softly.

Dammit. Her voice sounded tiny and hurt.

“Honey, we’re always mad at each other,” he said, trying to lighten the mood.

But she wasn’t having it. “No, I mean you were really mad at me. You told me I was vapid and selfish because I was trying to boss Sophie around, and Sophie’s all you ever cared about.”

He refused to let his expression change. “I don’t remember that.”

“Well…I do. And then because yelling at me wasn’t bad enough, you had to punish me by kissing me.”

He swallowed, desperate for the flippant sarcasm that normally came so easily to him. But it was nowhere to be found. Her eyes were open and wounded and a little raw. As though that evening had hurt her. As though his opinion had mattered.

“I didn’t kiss you to punish you,” he said finally. It was more than he wanted to say, but he had to do something to vanquish the lost look in her eyes.

“Then why?”

Her eyes were locked on his lips and his hand was cupping her cheek before he was even aware that he’d moved.

“You don’t know?” he asked, his voice a little gruff.

She gave a sad smile. “I do know. I’ve always known.”

His heart lurched and he forced himself to swallow and keep his gaze on hers. “Yeah?”

She nodded. “You wanted what you couldn’t have. So you took it. Just like when we slept together. I was the lone holdout on your endless line of bedpost notches, and once you checked me off the list, the challenge was over. And then you left.”

His heart felt like it tumbled into his stomach, and he didn’t know if it was in dismay or relief. His hand dropped away from her face.

She didn’t have a freaking clue.

He didn’t know if he was disappointed or relieved.

He let himself shrug. “Yeah, well…if it’s any consolation, you were worth the wait.”

He expected her to get pissed, but the wine had made her soft. “You’re not getting in my pants again with the sweet talk, Thatcher.”

She patted him playfully on the cheek climbing out of the car and going into the house without a glance backward.

Will waited until the door closed behind her before dropping his forehead onto the steering wheel and letting out a string of oaths.

He’d known that the game he was playing would be difficult.

But he hadn’t anticipated it being painful as well.

CHAPTER TEN

There’s no indignity in ending a

relationship—as long as you’re

doing the ending.

—Brynn Dalton’s Rules for an

Exemplary Life, #44

Brynn had barely had time to take off her shoes after a particularly hellish day of removing braces when there was a knock at the front door.

She took a deep breath, rolling her shoulders in an attempt to prepare herself for the confrontation. She wasn’t entirely sure she was ready to see Will again. It had been three days since their surprisingly amiable day of shopping together.

Three days since that…moment in the car. Three days since she’d thought he was going to kiss her.

Three days since she’d wanted him to.

Three days to feel guilty about wanting it.

And as though her guilt had some sort of beckoning power, it wasn’t Will on the other side of the door.

“James!”

“You sound surprised,” he said with a small smile. He looked every bit as exhausted as she felt; she was oddly reassured by the tension around his eyes and the strained smile. It reminded her that they were the same. Serious adults with grown-up jobs. Not playboy entrepreneurs who spent all day working on their six-packs and flirting with the recently divorced Tammy Henderson across the street.

Not that she’d been spying or anything.

“Well, I am a little surprised,” she admitted, standing aside to let him in. “You haven’t exactly been returning my calls.”

Calls she’d made out of guilt. Out of need for a reminder that she should not be even close to thinking about kissing Will Thatcher.

“Sorry,” he said, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. “Terry has the flu, so I’ve been on call for five days straight.”

Brynn made the appropriate sympathetic noises as she pulled a bottle of Pinot Noir off the wine rack and poured them both a glass before joining him on the couch.

“You want to order in?” she asked. “Or I could make some carbonara? I have some of that good pancetta.”

He shook his head slightly, taking a healthy swallow of wine. And then another. “I can’t stay long.”

Brynn frowned in confusion. “You drove all the way over in rush hour, and you’re not sticking around for dinner? You’re the one who’s always informing me how out of the way I live.”

He didn’t respond, just took another of those big swallows before topping off his glass. Brynn’s frown deepened. James was a total wine snob. He was a big fan of what he liked to call the three Ss. Swirling, sniffing, and sipping. There was no gulping of wine in James’s world.