I was late. For my brother’s wedding.

And because I was late, the universe seemed to be conspiring to make me even more late. All three legs of my flight had been delayed. The last was the airline’s fault, the second, the fault of the weather, but the first… well, that was all me, so it was kind of a domino effect.

Once I’d finally touched down in Vancouver—thirteen hours late—it seemed to take an unusually long time for my bags to come down the carousel, and by the time I’d gathered my things, piled them onto a baggage cart and steered my way to the exit doors, I’d been traveling for over twenty-four hours. More than enough time to ponder how pissed off my brother was going to be.

I was weary and uncomfortably hot, sweating in my leather boots and faux fur jacket. I’d worn a thin T-shirt layered over a tank top and knit leggings with the jacket and boots, not sure what to expect with the weather. Vancouver was having a weirdly cold winter but the snow and ice was now gone, replaced with a faint, drizzling rain. The air that greeted me was cool and fresh but not cold as I walked through the sliding glass doors. And everything felt… familiar.

Much more familiar than I thought it would.

I took a breath and tipped my face up to the cloud-bruised sky. I glimpsed the peaks of snow-dusted mountains in the distance. And I felt an overwhelming sense of… joy.

Aside from the fact that I didn’t actually want to be here, that I was carrying the burden of a gut-gnawing sense of dread—the kind that came with knowing you were about to come face-to-face with things you’d never really figured out how to face—it felt good to be home.

Home.

I grinned as the wisps of rain hit my face…

Then I saw him.

Him.

Several feet to my left, there was a cue for the taxis, which I’d planned to get myself into. I’d get my ass to the ferry where I’d meet my old friend, Roni, my “date” for the wedding. On the ferry over to Vancouver Island, she and I would catch up and I’d generally get my shit together for what promised to be the most difficult weekend of my life. In the winding, four-and-a-half hour drive across the island, I’d run through the various tidbits of conversation I’d prepared in my head to get me through this; inconsequential, impersonal stuff like the latest celeb gossip, fashion trends from the front lines, and if I was really desperate, the weather. Canadians were always game to discuss the weather; it was kind of a way of life. Of course, I’d throw in a few decent jokes, too.

My old friends were always good for a laugh.

At the end of the road, maybe Roni would flirt with the boat guy and he’d let us grab a super-quick drink (or two) at the last bar we could find before heading out. On the private boat to the very posh and very remote resort up the coast where the wedding was taking place, I’d give myself the little pep talk I’d also worked out, in preparation for coming face-to-face with the man I’d painstakingly avoided for the last six-and-a-half years.

Basically, my entire adult life.

Along the way, Roni would provide distraction, entertainment and comic relief, as she always did. And when I saw him, him, she’d be by my side, drawing attention and generally providing a loud and lovely buffer.

And everything would work out just fine, right? Because no way seeing him could possibly go as badly as I feared it might.

Right.

That was the plan.

Instead, I was alone. I’d taken all of two steps into my hometown. I was weary and jet-lagged. I’d had not one drink. And my little pep talk? Completely out the window.

Because a dozen feet to my right, he was standing at the curb in the rain, staring at me… and my world fell apart.

“Brody,” I breathed.

Then I more or less went into shock. Because he was right there. In jeans and a black leather jacket, his dark eyebrows furled as he stared me down, rain droplets dripping from his soft brown hair and his full lips… the smoldering, overcast sky casting shadows in his eyes… looking just like he used to look, only… better.

“You’re late,” he said, his voice flat. He took a few steps toward me, then stopped, his gaze flicking down to my breasts. “Is that my shirt?”

I glanced down.

It was an old Led Zeppelin tour T-shirt. It said United States of America 1977 and had a rockin’ angel on it, a naked dude with outstretched wings. It wasn’t the kind of T-shirt you paid too much money for in some hipster boutique because it looked old and distressed. It was old. It was large on me to begin with and was now so stretched out I tied it above one hip to make it fit. The neck fell off one shoulder. It was worn to hell and had a few holes.

And yes, it was his.

I’d picked it up off his bedroom floor one sketchy morning when I was eighteen, and never gave it back. He’d never asked for it back. And even if he wanted it back after I’d worn the hell out of it, I wasn’t giving it back.

It was a piece of him. The only piece I had.

“No,” I lied, pulling my jacket shut. Butterflies skittered in my stomach as he reached past me, scooping my bags off the cart.

“Had a shirt just like that. Disappeared around the time you did.”

His blue eyes met mine and I felt the almost-electric jolt all the way down my spine. I felt it between my legs.

Holy hell.

I still felt it.

That same thing… that thing that should’ve died with all the years and all the miles between us… all the silence… all the time I’d wasted trying like hell to fight it, to deny it, to just plain numb it out. Coiling fast, hot and tight at the base of my spine… in my lungs, at the back of my throat, every cell of my body catching fire… as every nerve, every fiber lit up in protest of every second we’d been apart.

It was exactly the same. Only… worse.

It was more.

That crazy, irresistible pull I’d felt around him back then had only grown stronger.

His eyes darkened as his pupils dilated… and I knew he felt it, too. Then his gaze dropped to my lips. He breathed in, his nostrils flaring. His jaw clenched.

Then he turned and walked away. With my bags.

Oh my God.

I just stood there, watching him go, the air between us stretching thinner and thinner the farther he got, until I couldn’t breathe. At all.

I allowed myself two-point-five seconds to freak out. Then I forced some air, shuddering, into my lungs.

Then I went after him.

I caught up only when he stopped to toss my things in the back of a black Escalade parked at the curb, hazard lights flashing. I stood there, awkwardly, waiting for him to turn around, every part of me throbbing with the force of my heartbeat; my lungs as I fought to breathe, my brain as I fought to think, my clit.

My knees were shaking.

No man had ever made my knees shake before.

Well, no other man.

This was not how my body had ever reacted to other men.

And yes, I was aware that deep, deep down, there was still some part of me—maybe larger than I’d like to admit—that was still that skinny, dorky, lonely girl who’d been bullied on the playground. But making my living as a model over the past decade meant I’d grown a thick skin. Very thick. I’d also learned that no matter how I felt inside, the world did not see me as that skinny, dorky girl; that men, in general, found me beautiful. Way more beautiful than I’d ever felt. I still had a hard time reckoning me with those pictures of model-me in designer lingerie, my long brown hair highlighted with caramel and honey, my eyebrows perfectly shaped, my cheekbones and chin all somehow grown in to balance what I’d feared would always be an awkward nose, my full lips and long limbs somehow all working together to create an image that was something far and away from that girl inside. Even so, I’d learned how to carry myself with confidence, how to compete, perform, win and even lose with grace. I’d learned how to keep my cool under intense scrutiny, and mercifully, how to handle rejection. Because the world I lived in, even for beautiful girls, was rife with rejection.

What I’d never learned how to do, apparently, was look Brody Mason in his deep blue eyes and not lose my shit.

Lucky for me, he barely spared me a glance as he slammed the back of the truck shut. “Get in,” he said, disappearing around the driver’s side.

I walked up to the passenger side door as he got in the truck. Then I stood there, in the misting rain, still kind of in shock, just trying to get a handle on all the reactions set off by his sudden presence.

Because how could I still react to him like this? After all this time?

It was like no time had passed at all.

Worse; I knew exactly how long it had been, and according to my body, I had six-and-a-half years without him to make up for. Preferably immediately, nakedly, and repeatedly.

I took a deep breath, fumbled with the door handle and opened the door. “Thank you for the ride,” I managed.

He didn’t smile. He just swiped a hand through his damp hair and stared me down with those intense blue eyes. I started to register how much older he looked than the last time I’d seen him, though his eyes hadn’t changed. Time had been good to him. Very good.

Six-and-a-half years.

It hit me like a kick in the gut, all at once.

It wasn’t something I’d ever allowed myself to fully process: the agony of missing him, of wishing things had gone differently for us. If I did, I’d probably curl up and die, right on the spot. Because how could I live with it?

Now that he was here, though, right in front of me… all my carefully constructed walls, the armor I’d built up over the years against my true feelings, against him, cracked open, and everything came surging into the light. Every moment between us. Every breath I’d taken on this Earth since Brody Mason sauntered into my life.

And it was in those deep blue eyes, that he remembered, too.

He remembered everything.

“Get in,” he repeated, and started up the truck.

I got in.

As we pulled out into traffic he was silent, and I tried to think of something to say to fill the void. It was the perfect time, really, to tell him. The perfect opportunity to explain why I’d left, all those years ago.

I could tell him everything. Just come clean, like I’d told myself I should do… could do. Might do, while I was in town for my brother’s wedding.

Instead, I stared at his handsome profile, afraid to speak. The arch of his brow, his high cheekbone. The strong line of his nose. His square jaw, clean-shaven but slightly shadowed. His stylishly unkempt brown hair. The battered leather of his jacket.

I hadn’t laid eyes on him in years. Not until my brother’s well-meaning fiancée started texting me photos of her and Jesse, and Brody happened to be in some of them. I should’ve deleted those photos, but I didn’t. Instead, I’d gazed at them a thousand times. And now he was here.

So close to me.

I watched his throat move as he swallowed. I watched his knuckles turn white on the steering wheel as the wiper blades beat an angry rhythm against the rain.

I stared at the familiar tattoo on the back of his right hand, a mess of entangled vines that wound around his thumb and wrist and belonged to a small, black rose on his palm. So familiar, like we’d never been apart. How many times had I traced the pattern of those vines with my gaze?

A million, at least.

That tattoo, just one of the many things about Brody—the many small details that made him him—that I’d tried to forget over the years. But I hadn’t forgotten. I knew I hadn’t. And despite all my preparation for this moment, I wasn’t prepared at all.

I wasn’t ready.

Would I ever really have been ready for this?

Maybe I was totally kidding myself to think I’d ever be able to face him, those blue eyes staring me down, and come clean.

Maybe I’d just always be dirty and there was nothing I could do about it.

I looked out the window. “It’s raining,” I said. Yeah. Brilliant. But since I was a total chickenshit, I was going with it.

“Seven years,” he said. I looked over at him, but he didn’t look at me. “Seven fucking years, and all the times I’ve tried to talk to you and you shut me out, and now that’s all you’ve got to say? It’s fucking raining? It’s January. It’s Vancouver. Where you were fucking born. So yes, it’s raining, like it always does in January. What the fuck else do you want me to say about it?”

Okay…

So much for my Canadians-love-talking-about-the-weather theory.

I was judging by the number of F-bombs in that little tirade that he was pissed. At me.

Not that I hadn’t expected him to be a little mad. Among other things.

But the fact that he obviously was mad just proved that he still cared, right?

“Six-and-a-half years,” I said.

“What?”

“It’s been… six-and-a-half years,” I repeated, my voice fading, “since we… saw each other.”

He said nothing.

It’s just because he cares, I told myself. And he probably won’t be the only one who gives you attitude this weekend, so get used to it.

But I couldn’t get used to it. I had no experience with mature, pissed-off Brody. I’d barely been able to deal with the Brody I used to know. Young, wild, too gorgeous for common sense and angry at the world.

At all the world… except me.

We took a turn to the right, continuing back into the airport, and I struggled to get my bearings; it had been years since I’d been here, but this was definitely not the way to the ferry terminal.

“Where are we going?”

“To your brother’s wedding.”

“But… I’m supposed to meet Roni at the ferry.”

He shot me a look that could only be described as scathing. Come to think of it, it was the first time he’d looked at me since I got in the truck. “And I’m supposed to trust you not to skip out on the dinner tonight, or the wedding tomorrow? You’re already missing the rehearsal.”

Oh.

Jesus.

That’s what this was about?

He didn’t pick me up at the airport because he wanted to see me?

I studied his angry profile and it all became so clear.

No. He didn’t want to see me.

He’d only come to get me because my brother, the big rock star, had asked him to drive out here in the rain and deal with me. Brody was one of my brother’s best friends, so why not? Worse; Brody managed my brother’s mega-successful rock band, Dirty, so this was probably some sort of business deal. Like somewhere in his contract, my brother had snuck in a clause that it was Brody’s responsibility to deal with all the most tedious bullshit in his life, up to and including escorting his little sister to his wedding so she wouldn’t bail.

Definitely something my brother would do.

Well, if they had a contract. In their many years of working together, Brody and the band had never had a written contract between them. Because that’s just the kind of friends they were. A verbal deal, then.

You deal with Jessa. I’ll owe you one later.

“It’s really none of your business,” I told him, “if I go to my brother’s wedding or not.” And it wasn’t. Brody wasn’t my manager—much as he’d wanted to be, back when I was writing music with the band… but that was neither here nor there. He wasn’t the boss of me either, any more than my brother was.

Yeah, try telling either of them that.

Whatever. This was ridiculous. Offensive, actually, that they both seemed to think I needed some kind of chaperone for this event. That they were treating me like I was still a fucking teenager.

Yes, I’d screwed up six-and-a-half years ago—and okay, every day since then—but today was a new day, right?

“Jesse is my business,” Brody ground out. “Literally. If you skip out on his wedding or any of the other romantic bullshit Katie has planned for the next forty-eight hours, that shit will not fly.”

We made a sharp turn into the small parking area in front of the Flying Beaver, a little restaurant and bar on the water where the floatplanes docked, and panic started to rise. This whole thing was spinning way, way out of control. Because apparently I was about to be trapped in a very small plane with a very pissed off Brody for the next couple of hours, and he didn’t even want to be here.

“I told Jesse I’d take the ferry to the island. He was going to have a car meet me—”

“Yeah, well, you’re late.” He parked us at the curb and cut the engine, popping off his seatbelt.

“I was at a shoot, Brody. It ran late. I couldn’t just bail in the middle of—”

“Do not say my name.”

I blinked at him.

What?

“Go ahead and say and do whatever the fuck you’re gonna do,” he said, “but you do not get to say my name.” When I just gaped at him, he turned to me and leaned in, so close I could see the silvery-gray flecks around his pupils, and said in a low voice, “You wanted it, I’m giving it to you. Exactly what you’ve been asking for the last six-and-a-half years with a whole fuckload of silence. Consider me dead to you.”

I stared at him, speechless. At the lines of repressed rage on his handsome face; the coldness in those dark blue eyes.

“You’re… you’re angry with me,” I stammered.

He grunted derisively. “We can’t just go from being strangers to best friends, princess. Doesn’t fucking work that way.”

Princess.

He used to call me that, when we were young. It wasn’t a derogatory term, the way he said it now.

I looked out the window and sniffled a bit. It was the rain making me sniffly. It wasn’t his words that were making my eyes itch and blink, my stomach twist itself in knots.

When had Brody become such an asshole?

Right… Probably around the time I “disappeared.”

I knew that. I knew this was my fault. That I’d treated him badly.

No, not badly. Badly was when you forgot to tip a really decent waiter. Badly was cutting someone off in traffic.

I’d treated Brody horribly.

Horrendously.

I took a breath and looked at him again, watching him pocket his keys and generally ignore me.

“We are not strangers,” I said softly. “We never have been.”

He looked at me briefly. “I don’t know you,” he said, and my heart crushed in on itself.

“If you don’t know me now,” I told him, trying to keep my voice from wavering, “you never did.”

“You’re right. I didn’t.” He started to open his door.

I reached to stop him, catching his leather sleeve, and he stiffened like I had the fucking plague. Those ice-cold eyes locked on mine.

I shrank back in my seat, letting him go. “You don’t need to do this, you know. I can just take a cab to the ferry.”

He slammed the door shut and swore under his breath, an angry muscle ticking in his jaw.

“Let me tell you what I know,” he said, turning to me, his elbow on the steering wheel so his broad shoulders seemed to take up all the space in the cab. “What I know is exactly how fast and how far you can run. What I know for fucking sure is exactly what it does to the people you leave behind when you do, and I am not spending this weekend scraping together a trail of shit when you ruin Jesse’s wedding. So if you wanna hate me for it go ahead and hate me, but if you think you’re going to the ferry, you’ve got another fucking thing coming. You’re doing this my way and that’s all the fuck there is to it.”

Holy shit.

Not only had Brody become much more of an asshole than I remembered… he was kind of scary when he was pissed off. Colder than he used to be; harder. Bigger, too. A lot more muscular; I could tell, even with the leather jacket.

“Unless you want me to arrange to get your ass on a plane out of here right now,” he went on, leaning his big, muscular, pissed-off self into my space, “and we pretend you never landed. Because if anyone finds out you showed your ass in town and then you turned tail and took off, sweetheart, I am not gonna be the one telling Jesse to back off and give you space. You hear me on this? I’m fucking done with covering for you and making excuses for you and waiting for you to get a clue. Your brother loves you and the least you can do is show your face at his motherfucking wedding.”

My gaze dropped away from the accusation in those cold eyes. I studied the muscle ticking in his jaw, the veins standing out on his neck, and realized I’d been wrong. He wasn’t pissed.

He was seething.

And no, this was definitely not going as badly as I feared it might. It was much, much worse.

I felt the burn at the back of my throat, the stinging behind my eyes, but I took a deep, shuddering breath, willing myself not to do this… not to fall apart. Not in front of him. But shit. I totally felt like a teenager.

Maybe because the last time I’d been this close to Brody, I was one.

His hand went to my hip and I heard the click as he released my seatbelt, felt the straps slide over me as he reached across me…. his nose almost bumping mine as he pulled the latch on my door, opening it.

“Get out,” he said.

I didn’t move. Instead, I bit my lip.

I didn’t realize I’d done it until his gaze dropped to my lips, then flicked back up to my eyes. His eyes darkened and a slow, aching minute passed between us.

If he was any other man, I might’ve thought he was turned on.

As it was… he looked kind of disgusted.

The rain pattered down on the truck, encasing us inside, and yeah; it was just like I was eighteen and he was twenty-three all over again, sitting in his truck in the rain—except that day, he wasn’t telling me to leave. He was asking—no, begging me to stay.

But back then, Brody didn’t hate me.

Now…?

I couldn’t blame him for being mad at me. I’d expected things to be difficult between us. I did not expect this.

I did not expect hate.

But it was definitely hatred I saw in his eyes. Pure, ice-cold loathing, with a hefty side of revulsion and resentment.

And Brody Mason hating me? No amount of preparation could’ve helped me with this. Even if I’d told him everything I thought I might tell him, my harrowing confession… I didn’t think he’d hate me. I thought he’d like me less, and that was bad enough—bad enough to keep me gone for six-and-a-half years. I couldn’t even imagine how hard it would be to come crashing down off the pedestal he’d put me on so many years ago… but I knew it wouldn’t feel good. I knew it would be painful.

But this? This was pure hell.

“Are you getting out,” he asked in that stone-cold voice, “or do I have to drag you out?”

Um… no.

That would not be necessary.

Mostly because the thought of him putting his hands on me right now, in any way, was making my clit throb, because apparently, pissed off Brody turned me on about as much as he scared me. Because I was screwed up like that.

Yeah; pure hell.

“I’m here,” I managed. “I’m here for the wedding, okay?”

“Believe it when I fucking see it.”

“So you’re just kidnapping me, is that it?”

“I’d call it damage control, but if that’s what you wanna call it,” he said, “go right the fuck ahead.”

Then he opened his door and stepped out into the rain.

“I’m sorry,” I said to his back. Because I couldn’t think of anything else he might want to hear from me right now.

He looked at me but he didn’t say a thing. He just slammed the door. I watched him stalk over to a big, dark-haired man who’d appeared on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.

Oh, Jesus. Jude.

This was serious.

My brother’s best friend and the head of Dirty’s security team, Jude was pretty much permanently glued to my brother’s side. If he was here to accompany us to Jesse’s wedding, they really were afraid I might bail.

There was no way I was getting out of this.

Never mind that I’d actually been looking forward to the ridiculously long drive across the island, the time on solid ground to acclimate to being home and to prepare myself for two days at a remote resort with Brody.

Clearly, that wasn’t going to happen.

I climbed out of the truck as Brody got my bags from the back, handing them off to the pilot.

“Picking up Amanda,” I heard him say to Jude. “We’ll see you up there.” Then he was off, without a glance in my direction, heading back through the rain to his truck.

We.

I tried to squeeze out a smile as Jude grabbed me up in a hug, all muscles and killer dimples, and planted a kiss on my forehead. At least someone was happy to see me. I hugged him back, grateful for his solid comfort. He asked how I was doing and how my flight was and I did my best to answer, but I wasn’t sure my words made any sense.

Brody wasn’t even coming on the plane with us.

He was going to get Amanda.

Amanda.

I felt every letter of her name stab my heart.

I had no idea who Amanda was. Unfortunately, as far as I could guess, bimbos were never named Amanda. Smart, beautiful girls were named Amanda.

Amanda, who was going to my brother’s wedding with Brody.

Fuck. He had a date.

A girlfriend?

Which meant… No. Fuck, no. I wasn’t going to tell him. I watched him peel out in his truck, and I made the decision, fast; I wasn’t going to tell him anything.

What good would that do? He was already pissed at me for what I’d done—for leaving the band, for leaving everyone behind six-and-a-half years ago. For leaving him. He wasn’t going to be any happier about the reason I did it.

He wasn’t going to hate me any less.

“Jessa! Fucking! Mayes! You beautiful AWOL bitch, get your ass over here!”

I turned to find Roni stepping out of the restaurant. She strut toward me through the rain, arms held wide.

“Roni!” I gave her a big hug and she laughed, jumping us both up and down with little-girl joy. Fair enough, since Roni and I had been friends since high school. And I really hadn’t seen her in a long time. Like most of my friends back home, I remembered her looking younger than she actually was, but time had been good to her, too.

Tall, dark and the sort of sexy that had been known to cause at least one major traffic accident, if anyone could take focus off my arrival at my brother’s wedding, it was this girl. A girl who could turn any situation into a party; whether it was booze, drugs, or an epic hook-up you were in the mood for, Roni was your girl… a girl who’d once hooked herself up with Zane Traynor, my brother’s lifelong friend-slash-nemesis and the insane—and insanely gorgeous—lead singer of Dirty.

When I’d asked her to be my date for the wedding, she was incredibly keen, and I wasn’t naive as to why.

“Zane is in the wedding party,” I reminded her as she hooked her arm through mine and we followed Jude down the walkway toward the float plan dock. “Can I trust you to behave somewhat? This is a wedding, not an orgy. I think my brother’s new wife will be a little perturbed if the two of you turn it into one.” I didn’t worry that she’d take offense at the warning; we both knew it needed to be said.

“My orgy days are long behind me,” Roni lied with a grin. “Anyway, been there, done Zane. You know I never go back for seconds.” Then she winked at Jude as she climbed onto the plane. I watched Jude’s gaze fall straight to Roni’s ass in her skin-tight jeans.

Yeah, with Roni in the room, no one was even going to notice me.

One could hope.

I followed her, taking one of the leather seats and shaking the rain from my hair. Jude climbed in behind me and the pilot welcomed us on-board, launching into the safety spiel. I really should’ve paid attention, since crashing into the Pacific Ocean in a tiny floatplane was probably one of those life events I’d want to be prepared for. But I just couldn’t do it.

Picking up Amanda.

Shit, this was going to be a long fucking weekend.

Luckily, Roni pulled out a flask before we’d even hit the air. I took a swig of her infamous home brew—blackberry vodka—then a couple more, and tried really hard not to care.

So Brody had a date for the wedding.

So he hated me.

What the hell did it matter? I was never going to see him again.

As soon as the wedding was over and my brother and his new bride headed off on their rock star honeymoon, I was getting the hell out of here. And nothing would really change.

Okay, so Brody would hate me instead of liking me. But for all I knew, he’d hated me for a while now; I just didn’t know it yet. So now I’d be aware that the only man I’d ever loved couldn’t stand me—couldn’t even stand for me to say his name.

But so what? I’d be gone.

And this time, I was never coming back.