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  “Steve’s been bothering you?”

  She shrugged, not wanting to admit how Steve still managed to get under her skin. She’d managed to ignore him for a week, until he sent her flowers and an apology. She hated the flowers and didn’t believe for a second he was sorry about anything, but dammit, she didn’t want him doing anything to the beach house she didn’t know about.

  The past two days it had been nitpickery of the highest order. He was all over her about changing the rental management company, claiming they were the reason he’d needed to break the window. He wanted to fire Joe. He wanted to raise the summer rental rates and offer more weeks, which would mean less time there for both of them even if it meant more income. It was stupid stuff, pointless and done solely, she knew, to get under her skin. He’d also started needling her about updating the decor.

  “Tell him to take a long walk off a short pier,” Mark suggested. “That’s what I told my last ex-wife when she wouldn’t leave me alone.”

  Colleen frowned. “It’s not that simple, and you know it.”

  Mark could be arrogant and wacky and inappropriate; he was also incredibly astute. “Come into my office.”

  “I have a client at four—”

  “Now.”

  With a sigh, Colleen followed him into his office, where he waved her onto one of the weirdly squishy chairs in front of his desk. She cupped her mug in both hands, warming them. With the harsh winter they’d been having, Mark’s office had become almost impossible to keep above sixty-five degrees.

  “Look. What’s it gonna take for you to boot him out of your life altogether? Get moving on? Start dating, for crying out loud? Beautiful woman like you, sleeping alone? No bueno. I’d have a go at you myself if I didn’t think it would get us both in all kinds of trouble.”

  “Totally inappropriate,” Colleen scolded, but she smiled.

  “So quit.” Mark sat back in his chair and propped his feet on the desk, his hands behind his head. “Walk out. Leave me and all this behind. Forge onward!”

  She’d thought about quitting more than once, though she knew there was no way she would. Mark had given her this job when she needed to escape from a bad situation, and he’d done it to help her, not because she was qualified. No matter how she’d proven herself in the interim, she could never forget that.

  “You don’t need me, you know,” Mark said. “You could go work anywhere.”

  His words touched that soft and rotten place inside her that shamed her even as it formed a big part of her core. Her smile faded. “I know that.”

  “This is a terrible place to work.”

  It wasn’t. It was weird, and Mark was hard to work for sometimes, but she’d had worse jobs. She shook her head in silence.

  “Steve’s an asshole, Colleen.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Mark stared at her, saying nothing. Colleen stared back. No way was she going to tell him about Jesse. Wild horses couldn’t have dragged it out of her.

  “I met someone,” Colleen said.

  Mark grinned. “I knew it! Tell Uncle Marky all about it. Is he a strong, powerful businessman with a penchant for rooms painted like cherries?”

  “Um, no.” Colleen shivered as she thought of how Jesse had knelt for her, then got herself under control. She gave Mark a stern look. “And you’re not my uncle.”

  “Doctor? Lawyer?”

  “No!” She shook her head, trying not to laugh because that would only encourage him, and dammit, Mark could be totally out of line and completely nuts, but he was damned good at getting to the heart of things.

  “He’s a professor. You always did like the smarty-pants types.”

  “No.” She paused, then with a sigh, owned up. “He’s a bartender.”

  Mark steepled his fingertips below his chin. “Ah. That’s quite a departure for you.”

  “Don’t you judge him for being a bartender!”

  “Are you sure you’re not judging him for being a bartender?” Colleen’s mouth closed with an audible snap. Mark grinned again. He shook a finger at her. “Ah, ah, ah. It’s not what a man does. It’s who he is that matters.”

  “I don’t know who he is. Just that he’s a bartender. And he’s younger. And if you call me a cougar, I swear I will jump across that desk and throttle you with your own tie.”

  Mark frowned. “So violent.”

  Colleen sniffed and sipped her terrible coffee.

  “I’d never call you a cougar. That’s entirely too predatory. And something tells me this younger guy, this bartender, pursued you.”

  Heat flooded her at the memory of it. She put her mug on the desk and linked her fingers together. “It was mutual.”

  “He made you feel something.” Mark shook a finger again. “I can tell.”

  “It was nothing. There was nothing, it was just...a weekend thing, we were snowed in. I was upset about Steve, and I went to the bar, and it was just... It just happened. That’s all. And then a few times after that.”

  “And you’re still seeing him?”

  “Oh. No.”

  It was all over now. She’d let herself get too close too fast. She’d let herself miss Jesse and want him. And he’d known it, too, because she’d admitted it.

  “You needed me,” Jesse had said.

  And it had been true.

  “You’re stupid,” Mark said flatly. “This guy blew your skirt up in a major way.”

  “I didn’t say that!”

  “You didn’t have to. I’ve known you for what, fifteen years now? And in all that time, I’ve never heard you so much as whisper the mention of another man’s name besides that asshole ex-husband.” Mark shrugged and recrossed his feet. “So this guy must’ve done something right.”

  Jesse had done everything right, that was the problem.

  “Can I get back to work now?”

  “Not until you tell me what it was about this guy that got you so flustered.” Mark flicked a glance toward the office door. “Then you can go make me more money.”

  Colleen sighed and rubbed gently at the spot between her eyes for a second, unwilling to put into words what she’d been avoiding thinking about since leaving Jesse’s apartment. Mark wouldn’t let it go. And there was something about confession being good for the soul, right?

  “He was really accommodating. Really sweet. And he seemed to know how to... He liked to... I mean, he was okay with me being... Shit.”

  Mark’s feet hit the floor with a thump and he leaned forward, face serious. “Spill it.”

  “Maybe Steve’s right, that’s all.” Colleen swallowed bitterness at the admission.

  “About you needing to control everything?”

  It burned that Mark knew that, but she nodded.

  He snorted derision. “The guy who’s trying to force you into putting up tacky copper schools of fish in every room of your condo is still trying to tell you that you’re the one with control issues?”

  “What were you doing, listening to my conversation?” Colleen fought for outrage but narrowly missed it.

  “The whole office could hear you. The walls in here are shit.” Mark shook his head, mock sorrow all over his face that faded into a stern look. “Listen up. All Steve knows is how to be bitter, bitter and more bitter because you didn’t want spend the rest of your life catering to his every whim.”

  “He’s not wrong about me, Mark. I do like things a certain way. I do like to be in charge.”

  “And?” Mark demanded, and waited for her to answer. When she didn’t, he sneered. “Any man who can’t deal with a strong, capable woman who knows her own mind doesn’t deserve her. The truth is, and listen to your Uncle Marky on this one, Steve was too intimidated by you. He was scared of you. And that’s his problem, not yours. If this bartender gave you a good time, where’s the harm?”

  “I liked being with him.”

  “That’s the way it works, Colleen. You meet someone. You hit it off. You like them—”