I wasn’t sure what was worse, spending the entire day sitting next to him or the fact that he did a damn good job in oral arguments. At least Autumn never came up. Thank God. All I wanted to do was go home and commiserate to my plants, but Trent and Juliette weren’t having it. They’d practically dragged me to happy hour. And now, as I sipped on a beer I didn’t want, I realized why Juliette had been so gung ho about me coming tonight.

“Donovan, this is my friend Margo.” Juliette smiled. “I mentioned her to you. She’s the yoga instructor.”

I gave a curt nod. “How you doing, Margo?”

She looked me up and down, not even attempting to hide her interest. “My day just got better.”

Shit. The woman was beautiful. Petite with big eyes, full lips, and a tiny waist, but a hell of a lot of tits and ass—exactly the type I’d normally be attracted to, but I had no interest. Juliette, thinking she’d done me a solid, grinned at me and wiggled her fingers. “Tootle-oo. I’ll leave you guys to get to know each other better.”

Great.

Margo tossed her purse onto the bar next to me and raised her hand to get the bartender’s attention. “Can I buy you a drink?” she asked.

I wasn’t interested, but I also wasn’t an asshole. “No, thanks.” When Freddie, the regular bartender, walked over, Margo ordered a baybreeze. I lifted my chin to him. “Put that on my tab, will you, Freddie?”

“Sure, boss.” He knocked his knuckles against the bar. “You got it.”

“Thank you,” Margo said. She turned to face me. “So Juliette tells me you’re single?”

“I am.”

“And why is that?”

I lifted a brow. “Why am I single?”

She nodded.

“I didn’t realize I needed a reason to be single.”

Margo smiled. “You’re an attorney—a killer one from what Juliette told me. You’re obviously handsome. Don’t think that’s news to you since there’s a mirror right over there. And my friend says you’re a genuinely good guy. Men like that aren’t single for long.”

I smirked and rubbed my lip. “Juliette said I’m a killer lawyer and a good guy, huh?”

Margo shrugged. “She did. But don’t let it go to your head. She also said you could be a giant dick sometimes.”

I laughed. “Alright. Now that sounds more like the Juliette I know. I was beginning to worry maybe she was dying or something, saying all those nice things about me.”

Margo smiled and tilted her head. “So what’s your deal? Recent breakup? Manwhore? Commitment phobe?” She squinted at me. “I don’t take you for a momma’s boy.”

“Definitely not a momma’s boy. But I also haven’t had a recent breakup. I’m not afraid of commitment, and if I’m a manwhore, I’m not very good at it considering it’s been about four or five months since I had sex.”

Margo sighed and bowed her head dramatically. “Then you’re the worst kind of single man.”

She was amusing, and I was curious, so I bit. “What’s the worst kind of single guy?”

She held her hand over her heart and shook her head. “You have it bad for a woman who isn’t interested.”

My smile fell.

Margo noticed and rubbed my arm. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to bring your head down.”

I forced a smile. “It’s fine. You didn’t.”

Freddie walked over and slid Margo’s drink across the bar. “One baybreeze for the pretty lady.”

“Thanks, Freddie.” I nodded.

Margo sipped her drink while studying my face, then set her cocktail on the bar and rubbed her hands together. “Okay, lay it on me.”

I shook my head. “Lay what on you?”

“Your woman troubles.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Sure you can. Sometimes it takes a stranger to give you perspective on what’s going on—unless you already know what the problem is.”

Honestly, I felt pretty desperate. But this woman seemed nice, and she’d clearly come here with different expectations for the night. I didn’t want to be a total downer and ruin her evening. “It’s fine, but thank you for the offer. I appreciate it.”

Margo drank some more of her cocktail, and then as I was finishing off my beer, she said, “I’m in love with a married man.”

I coughed the alcohol down the wrong pipe and spoke with a hoarse voice. “Come again?”

She smiled. “You heard me. He owns the gym I work at and two others.”

“Shit. Does he know?”

Margo wagged her finger back and forth. “Not so fast. If we’re not going to go home together and try to make each other forget, we’re going to share our secrets fair and square. What’s her name, at least?”

“Autumn.”

“Pretty name. Does she have red hair?”

I smiled. “She does. And green eyes.”

“Nice. Donald has blue eyes.” She nodded toward a table. “Wanna go sit and talk? I don’t know if it will help either of us, but I don’t have anything better to do.”

I laughed. “Sure. Why not?”

Margo and I talked for the next two and a half hours. It was a shame I was so consumed with a woman who had no interest in being with me, because I really liked Margo. She was smart and a straight shooter. Plus, yoga instructor. Her advice to me was to do the exact opposite of what I’d done with Autumn—not walk away. She suspected the same thing I did—that Autumn had been in a bad relationship and gotten burned or lost someone, which made her lose trust in men. So she suggested I show her I could be trusted by not giving up so easily.

I wasn’t entirely sure her approach was correct, but it had been nice to look at things from a woman’s perspective. Unfortunately, my advice to her wasn’t as thought provoking. I’d told her to find a new job and not look back. Donald liked the attention he was getting from her, but was never going to leave his wife—who was currently pregnant with their second child.

We walked back over to the bar so I could close out the tab. “Let me ask you something… Do you have a type?”

Margo smiled. “Apparently married, balding, and a jerk.”

I chuckled. “No, I meant, have you met Trent?”

Her brows shot up. “The short guy who’s really young?”

I smirked. “That’s the one.”

“Juliette introduced me to him earlier. I’ll be honest, he’s not the type I’d usually go for.” She smiled. “You, on the other hand…”

I nodded. “I get it. But give him a shot. He’s a great guy. He’s also thirty, even though he doesn’t look it. Someday that will be a good thing.”

She bit her lip in contemplation before smiling. “Okay. What the hell? I will.”

“Come on, I’ll hook you up talking to him on my way out.”

It was still early when I got home, only about ten o’clock. I took a quick shower and watered my plants—this time, without bitching at them. Maybe my talk with Margo had done me some good after all.

The entire week I’d been pissed off, but I suddenly felt a bit more relaxed. So I sat down, took out my phone, and scrolled to my photos, going straight to my favorites file and the one lonely picture in the folder. Autumn. I’d had no idea that twenty-four hours after taking it, the picture would be all I had to keep me from thinking the entire weekend had been a figment of my imagination.