As I hung up with my client, I walked out of the back stairwell and made my way down the hallway. I’d escaped there for some privacy since it was far too loud in the suite to hear anything she was saying. With the phone still in my hand, I quickly checked my email, making sure nothing had come in that needed my immediate attention.

Knowing I was just a few suites away from the one we rented, I slipped my cell into my back pocket and looked up.

My feet stopped moving.

There was no way I could take another step.

Not with Jack Hunt standing in front of me, his eyes so locked with mine that I couldn’t breathe.

He had come into my life eight years ago, uprooted every emotion I’d ever had, violently shaken them, and then stomped on them like they were bugs scurrying around his feet.

“Samantha.”

It was a little louder than a whisper.

But it was enough to make my heart clench.

Because I’d thought about him every day since he left me in New York.

Because I’d cared about him.

Because he had owned my body for far too long.

“Jack,” I gasped. “Hi.”

Oh God, he was handsome. Even more so than he had been all those years ago.

He was older—we both were—but he’d aged so perfectly. He had crinkles around his eyes and deeper ones beside his lips. I remembered running my fingers through the scruff on his cheeks, which was now a full beard, and how it had roughed up my lips. His smile was sharp, piercing, and it still had the ability to make me wet. But what stood out the most were his eyes. They were a deep blue, the color of the sky right before it turned to dusk, a color I still saw every day.

“I was hoping you’d be here.”

Hoping I’d be here?

Part of me wanted to laugh.

Part of me wanted to slap him.

And part of me wanted to wrap my fingers around the lapels of his suit jacket and scream, Why?

But I didn’t say a word as he was joined by three other people—a woman and two men. One of the guys I knew was Brett Young, James Ryne’s fiancé.

I should introduce myself to him. He was my client after all.

But I couldn’t imagine opening my mouth. I certainly couldn’t imagine trying to make any sense of the thoughts in my head.

“I’ll meet you at the suite,” Jack said to the others as he stayed standing by the door, blocking it so that I’d have to move past him to enter.

As the three of them went by, I felt their gaze.

I didn’t look in their direction. I didn’t say anything. I just focused on Jack, on that sexy face that had visited so many of my dreams, and I tried to keep it together.

“Samantha, you look amazing. How’ve you been?”

There were so many things I wanted to voice, and none would answer his question.

The safest thing to say was, “I’m good.”

The grin on his lips was small, but it was growing.

I hated it.

And I loved it.

And I hated that I loved it.

“I’ve never seen you at any of his games.”

He’d noticed.

That was interesting.

I wasn’t nineteen anymore. I’d grown a backbone.

“After the last text you sent me, I’m surprised you’ve been looking for me.”

I didn’t glance away from the blue of his eyes.

It was holding me.

It was keeping me captive.

It was making me feel, and that was the last thing I needed right now.

He peered off to the side, rubbing his hand over his long whiskers. “I wish things had been different; you know that.” He took a breath. “Will you be at the after-party?”

I wrapped my arms around my waist and thought of every reason I shouldn’t be there. I thought of the excuses I could come up with. But every one of them would hurt Shawn. I’d missed so much, so much because of Jack. Whether Shawn won or lost, I had to be there.

“Yes.”

He took several steps closer, and when he was less than a foot away, I watched his hand lift from his side and land on my shoulder. “Then, I’ll see you later.”

The things those fingers could do.

The way they could make me moan.

I had craved them so much.

I still did.

I didn’t say a word as he moved another pace. I just continued to watch him until he got past me, and then I forced myself forward, clasping the doorknob and shoving myself inside the suite.

“Everything all right with work?” my mom asked once I closed the door and pressed my back against it.

I hadn’t seen her standing there.

I hadn’t taken a breath.

But, with him gone, now that I could breathe in a space that he wasn’t in, I sucked in enough air to fill my lungs and looked at my mom.

“Honey?”

Several seconds passed before I said, “Sorry. What did you ask?”

She put her hand on my cheek, as though she was checking my temperature. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

Jack was someone my brother spoke about on occasion, someone I knew was a huge part of his life, someone he saw often.

But, to me, he was a ghost.

And it certainly felt like I had just seen one.

“I—”

“Auntie Sam,” my three-year-old niece said, cutting me off, as she ran up to us, saving me from answering my mom’s question. She hugged her tiny arms around my thigh. There were smudges of frosting on her cheeks that would soon be on my jeans if I didn’t get a napkin and wipe it off. “Come up front with me.” She tugged like she could move me. “We want you to sit with us.”

I grabbed a napkin from a nearby table, and even though she fought me on it, I was able to rub it across her cheeks. “You’re all clean. Now, we can go sit.”

She gave me the biggest smile as I carried her to the front of the suite. “Uncle Shawn’s gonna win the football.”

I laughed. “Uncle Shawn’s definitely going to win the football tonight.”

But that meant the party would be happening soon after the game. The one Jack would be at.

And, just like what had happened outside in the hallway, my entire world would be rocked.

This time, I’d be expecting it.

This time, I’d have a few glasses of wine in me.

And maybe, this time, I’d be able to respond without my entire body wanting to scream.