Acqua Di Gio was my kryptonite.

Just like the man who wore it.

“Hello, Natalie.”

The sound of that voice was like a caress. It skimmed over every nerve in my body, awakening it with a passion that had consumed me just as badly as my love for him once had. I closed my eyes and let the anger I still felt ten months later fill me. Anger was better than the love, the pain. It was so much better than having to prick myself on the sharp shards of broken heart that still lay in my chest because I hadn’t been able to put it back together after he had shattered it.

I felt him step closer to me and forced my eyes open. Downing the rest of my second glass of champagne, I resolved not to break the delicate glass over his head and stab him in the eye with the stem. Zander had beaten his ass pretty bad that night, leaving him with a concussion, so I wasn’t going to get violent with him. Of course, Devlin had beat Zander’s just as bad. Z had walked away with fractured ribs and a broken nose.

Was it bad that I had felt slightly vindicated every time I’d seen them wince or groan in pain for the weeks following that enlightening night?

Turning, I faced Devlin, refusing to let a gasp escape me when I saw how devastatingly sexy he was in his tux with his hair falling over his shoulder and those damn hypnotic aquamarine eyes gazing hungrily down at me. No one should ever be allowed to look that good. I wasn’t a petite woman, but I wasn’t tall either. Devlin Cutter was one of the tallest men I’d ever met, second only to Wroth Niall. When I looked up at him, I had to crane my head back a little so that I could take all of him in. In another lifetime, I had loved looking up at him, loved seeing that look in those eyes I had adored. Had loved how his long, nearly black hair would fall over one shoulder and shield us while he kissed me breathless.

Tonight, Devlin didn’t look like the badass rocker that he was. His ink was covered up with an expensive custom made tux, and his hair, while unconventionally long, only added to his charm. His honey-tan complexion was the product of a Spanish grandfather, but his eyes… Those damn eyes… They were the only gift his mother had ever given him.

I had to grit my teeth when I met his gaze. His eyes always told a story of their own. Of how much he still wanted me, how sorry he was, how much he missed me. I didn’t need to hear the words to know that Devlin was sorry. The only problem was I didn’t know what he was sorry for. For breaking my heart? For shattering me into a million and one pieces? For having his game exposed? I didn’t want to know the answer—was scared of the answer, actually. What if he was just sorry he’d gotten caught? My already broken heart would be annihilated and I would be left with nothing. Not even the broken pieces would remain.

It was safer not knowing.

“Hello, Devlin,” I greeted him coolly. “It was nice of you to come for Axton and Dallas.”

“I didn’t come for them. I wanted to see you.” He lifted his right hand and wrapped a lock of my long hair around his finger, his thumb rubbing over the silkiness. Some men had a weakness for boobs or asses, even feet. Devlin’s weakness? Beautiful hair. Sometimes I wondered if my hair was all he had ever seen, desired, and not me. It made perfect sense. It would have been why it had been so easy for him to make that fucking bet with Zander. “I miss you, Natalie.”

I jerked away, forcing him to drop my hair or hurt me. I had to turn away or I would have opened my mouth and told him that I missed him too. I missed him every day. Every damn day. I shouldn’t, but I did. I would wake up each morning with this ache in my chest because my bed was empty. I would go to bed at night with that ache multiplied by a million because he still wasn’t there next to me and silently cried myself to sleep.

It had been almost a year and I was still crying myself to fucking sleep.

Douchebag.

Devlin

The sound of a violin and piano playing drifted through the room but I didn’t hear it. Over three hundred people were in the huge ballroom, but I only saw one of them. Cameras flashed, people stopped to stare as I passed. I was oblivious to it all.

All I heard was the harsh pounding of my heart in my ears. All I saw was the gorgeous woman standing in the corner fifty feet away, sipping at a glass of champagne and watching the crowd with almost a bored expression on her elfin face.

Damn, she was beautiful. Large, blue-gray eyes in a face that could start wars—and had if you considered the war that I still had going on with my ex-best friend. A small, upturned nose over lips that just hinted at plumpness, but would swell to the lusciousness of Angelina Jolie’s after I’d kissed them. The silver evening gown she wore brought out the gray in her eyes and molded to every curve of her lean, albeit curvy, body. Tonight Natalie had on makeup, making her eyes pop and her lips look ripe. Her long, glossy dark-brown hair with its natural sun-kissed blonde streaks giving her peaches and cream complexion a natural glow was loose and hanging just past her shoulder blades.

Fuck, I loved that hair of hers. Call me a freak all you want, but hair was my biggest turn on. I loved it long, healthy and shiny. Natalie’s was all that and then some. But it wasn’t just her hair that had attracted me in the first place. It had been the graceful way she had walked in and taken charge the first time I’d met her. She was quiet, but under that quietness was a fiery woman waiting on simmer for someone to make her boil over.

I’d gotten to make her boil over for two months before my stupid ass had let her slip through my fingers. And for nearly a year I’d been trying to fix what I’d broken, to get back the girl who owned me body and soul. The thing about Natalie Stevenson, though, was that she was a lot like her brothers. Stubborn was just one of the things that topped the list of how she was so identical to them in personality. Very, very stubborn. She wasn’t ready to forgive me.

But I was stubborn too, and I wasn’t going to give up. Not when she meant so much to me. There had never been another person to touch my heart the way that Natalie did. No one had even come close and no one else ever would. I’d tried to fight it in the beginning, to not fall for her, but it had been a losing battle from day one.

As I neared her, I saw the way her nose flared and I tried to hide my grin. How many times had I sprayed a little Acqua Di Gio on before going to bed just to make her snuggle a little closer and bury her face in my chest? Not nearly enough, that was for sure. I’d never been one for cologne, but Natalie had given me a bottle for Valentine’s Day last year and I’d been wearing it ever since. Tonight I’d sprayed a little extra on, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to resist it.