“Thanks for the party, Gray,” Brynn said. “I know you’re friends with the owner of the restaurant.”

Gray gave a polite nod. “The planning was all Sophie. If it was up to me, I would have planned something more…”

“Dull? Bland? Introverted?” Sophie supplied.

Gray’s amused gray eyes met Brynn’s over Sophie’s head. “I was going to say ‘mellow.’”

Sophie sniffed. “Yawn. People like you and Brynn have plenty of mellow in your life.”

“Has anyone seen James?” Brynn asked, scanning the room for her boyfriend. He could hold his own in social situations, but she felt bad leaving him alone this long. Especially since he’d probably helped coordinate this whole disaster with Sophie. She should at least say “thank you.”

“He was talking with your dad,” Gray volunteered, taking a sip of his whiskey.

“The usual medical mumbo jumbo?”

“Yep. Didn’t understand a word of it,” Gray confirmed.

“Great,” Brynn muttered. She was glad her father and boyfriend got along. She just wished they were able to connect on something other than ER policy and the latest heart-valve technology.

“Seriously, I don’t know what you two talk about,” Sophie said as she eyed a tray of passing spring rolls with a critical eye. “James is nice, but the man’s like a machine. He’s practically been a part of the family for the past year, but I still can’t get more than small talk and lengthy lectures out of him.”

“You thought Gray was a machine when you first met him,” Brynn countered.

Sophie cuddled up to her husband’s side with a coy grin, and Brynn stifled the sting of jealousy at the easy connection between her sister and her husband. “Well, I may have made a mistake about that,” Sophie said softly.

“A mistake? You?” Gray said blandly.

“Just the one. Unlike you and Brynn, who have so much red tape running every which way that you couldn’t possibly make a mistake. You’re both overdue. Mistakes build character…”

But Brynn couldn’t hear her sister over the rushing in her ears.

He.

Was.

Back.

Look away. Look away now from The Enemy.

But she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the tall man with dark blond hair who was ogling a redhead in a killer black dress. His dark jeans and white shirt should have been too casual for the occasion. But nobody would notice that he was underdressed. They’d be too busy basking in his wide smiles and hot gazes.

He was back.

Why was he back?

“Brynn, are you listening?” Sophie asked. “I was just explaining how maybe if you would slip up every now and then you wouldn’t have to hide in the bathroom on your birthday.”

Sophie couldn’t have been more wrong about Brynn not making mistakes.

Because not so long ago, she’d made the most elementary of all mistakes.

And he was staring right at her.

CHAPTER TWO

Be polite, even to those who

don’t deserve it.

—Brynn Dalton’s Rules for an

Exemplary Life, #19

Will knew exactly the moment she’d seen him. He felt it like a shock to the balls, and he wanted a shot of whiskey. Now.

It had taken a full fifty-seven minutes since he’d walked into the room until her ice-blue eyes had locked on him, and that was including the ridiculous amount of time she’d spent in the bathroom.

She made him wait another twenty minutes before seeking him out.

But what was seventy-seven minutes when you’d already waited a lifetime?

Will watched her approach, her expression schooled into one of polite indifference. She stopped several inches in front of him, and only the slight narrowing of her gray-blue eyes gave any indication that she wanted him dead. Which, of course, she did.

“William.”

“Brynn,” he said, matching her prim tone.

He felt a little jolt of disappointment at her vapid smile. It was the same courteous, reveal-nothing expression she’d given everyone else in the room. He’d been kind of hoping for that special brand of bitchy that she’d always reserved just for him.

“You’re looking a little wider around the hips,” he said with an insulting glance up and down. She wasn’t, but the thought that she’d gained an ounce would keep her up at night.

Her smile slipped for a second, and for a moment he wondered if he’d struck a nerve. Normally he wouldn’t dare touch the subject of a women’s weight. He wasn’t a total ass. But Brynn had had the same perfectly slim figure as long as he’d known her—she wouldn’t tolerate anything else. Her physical appearance was flawless.

Her personality, however…

“And you’re looking…man-whorish,” she said with the usual venom.

Ah. There was the old Brynn. He nearly smiled. “So. Nice party,” he said blandly.

“Yes, it was sweet of Sophie to put it together.”

“Mm-hmm,” he said, taking a sip of his red wine. “And exactly how intense was the urge to strangle her when you learned that she’d planned a surprise party instead of the usual dull birthday dinner with your family?”

This time the smile faded altogether. “Don’t. Don’t do that thing.”

“What thing?”

“That thing where you make it a point of thinking you know me better than anyone else.”

Don’t I? He stifled the thought. For now.

She stepped closer and he caught the scent of her expensive perfume. The same one she’d been wearing for as long as he could remember. Change was not a concept Brynn Dalton embraced.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she hissed.

“Sophie invited me.”

“To my birthday party? Sophie knows full well that we can’t stand each other.”

He ignored this. “Has anyone told you that your shoes are boring? They’re the same color as your skin,” he said.

“That’s kind of the point. It’s a look. A classic look.”

Uh-huh. In Brynn’s world, “classic” was simply a synonym for “risk-free.”

Will pulled a champagne flute off a tray and handed it to her. “You need a drink.”

“I’ve had plenty to drink,” she snapped.

“Right, because you wouldn’t want to get a little tipsy on your birthday. Are you really only thirty-one? Between the sagging and the wrinkles…”

She made a small rattling noise before snatching at the glass he held out. He watched as her eyes scanned the room, probably to ensure they hadn’t caused a scene. She took a tiny sip of champagne and tucked a strand of honey-blonde hair behind her ears. Like the perfume, her hair hadn’t changed in years. It was still in the same long, stick-straight style she’d worn in high school.

When he was seventeen, he used to fantasize about how the ends of that perfect blonde hair would look against her bare exposed breasts.

When he was thirty, he’d had a chance to confirm it. Beautiful. His fingers itched at the memory, and he pushed the thought aside.

He was now thirty-three. And Brynn wouldn’t be wanting him anywhere near her bra straps.

“You didn’t answer my question about what you’re doing here,” she said, her thin body looking increasingly tense beneath her boring gray suit.

“That’s because you didn’t ask nicely.”

Her nostrils fluttered briefly. “You’ve been gone for three years. You haven’t so much as called my family on Christmas. You completely abandoned my parents without a good-bye and you never even come to visit Sophie, who’s supposedly your best friend—”

“I’ve visited,” he interrupted. “Not often, but I’ve been back to Seattle a couple times each year.”

She blinked in surprise. “Do my parents know? God, Will, you were like a son to them.”

Will leaned forward slightly. “Last time I was in town I stayed in your parents’ guest room. The time before that, I slept on Sophie and Gray’s couch. So you see, Princess…the only Dalton I was ignoring was you.”