After a night of tossing and turning, Blayne yawned and dragged the white primer-dipped paintbrush over the dark stripes of the Van Buren front parlor like an eraser. If only there was a primer she could use on the decisions of her eighteen-year-old self who’d been blinded by love and deafened by youth.

Youth should be added to the DSM for psychological disorders. Delusional didn’t even begin to describe the ego-fueled declarations of certainty she’d shouted at her da back then. He’d warned her that there was no honor in her and Jamie’s actions, but she hadn’t listened.

She hadn’t cared.

She’d loved Jamie. And it was a feeling unlike anything she’d ever experienced in her life. All-encompassing, all-knowing, with a happy ever after that would last an eternity.

She dragged the brush in the opposite direction, forever blotting out another section of the navy-and-eggplant stripe.

He’d loved her, too. She never doubted it.

But not enough. Not like she’d loved him. And even if he had, it didn’t make it any easier to remember the pain of watching him walk out the door of their tiny little apartment. She’d begged him to stay, resulting in a humiliation so great she’d promised herself never again. Then she’d screamed at him, even giving him an ultimatum that if he left to never come back.

Just as her da had given her.

She closed her eyes against the pain of it all.

Her anger toward Jamie had been fueled by despair, fear, and heartbreak. Another awful combination for decision-making.

Neither of them had shown honor that day either. It had been a bad pattern from the start.

And now her first love, her only love, was back in town.

The painful irony was that it was moments like this that she needed her Da. How many times had he held her close after some bloke had broken her tender heart as a teen? Too many times to count.

He’d rub his big hand over her hair, his deep voice a rumbling whisper. “Ya know, Blayney, yer very special. It’s hard for a young lad to know how ta handle a lass like you. I think ya scare ‘em, I do. Ya need a strong lad, an exceptional one that sees how brilliant a feisty spirit like ya have is. So be patient. He’ll come.”

He’d always seemed to be so sure that her naïve little heart believed every word. And just like that, she’d hop back on her feet.

He’d been right. The right boy had come and then left.

Now she had to work with him.

Unless she could change Larkin’s mind.

“When did Claire say she’d be by?” Larkin asked as she poured primer into her plastic paint pan.

Claire Adams completed their little trio. Having been targeted by Larkin’s need to heal after losing her son, Archer, the woman had never stood a chance against being brought into their fold. It had been Clair’s fiancé and Larkin’s husband in the accident that made them both lose too much. And Larkin had been determined to make sure something good came out of such loss.

Blayne stepped away from the wall and her musings and set her brush down. Tightening the yellow bandana to keep her hair out of her face, she glanced at the grandfather clock in the foyer. “After lunch. That’s last I heard anyway. By the way, we need to put tarps or sheets or something on these floors to protect against paint spills.” She buried her hands in the front pockets of her overalls and strategized on how to best broach the subject. “Listen…”

Larkin dropped her brush into her bucket then, abandoning her painting post, turned to face her. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I was afraid if I told you Ryker’s idea of a partner, you’d back out completely. But I swear I had no clue Jay was your Jamie!”

Blayne pressed her lips together in an effort to smile. “I know. No one called him Jamie but me. I never imagined he still had ties here. I mean, his family has a home on the edge of town, but they rarely used it even back then. They spent most of their time abroad and at their home in New York City.”

Larkin released a nervous breath and gave her an imploring look. “I know it’s selfish of me, but I need you on this project. Archer needs you on this project.”

She stilled. “That was a low blow.”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures and all that?” Larkin wrung her hands together, then stepped close. “Besides, I think this is a good thing.”

“A good thing?” She could barely get her words out; her jaw was clamped so tight.

“You need to work through this so you can finally move on. It’s been ten years.”

“I moved on a long time ago,” she huffed.

“The hell you have. Tell me one guy you’ve dated more than a week? You make a one-night stand look like a commitment.”

The judgment burned in her chest. “Wow. Are you bleedin’ mad? Since when do you care who I sleep with?”

Larkin grabbed her arm with a shake. “That is not what I meant, and you know it. I don’t care how many people you sleep with, or who. I’m talking about a connection deeper than the length of a man’s dick.”

Blayne blinked. Did Larkin really just say that?

Her friend crossed her arms over her chest a blush raced to her hairline. “Yeah, I said it, and I’ll say more. You told me once that you worried I’d stopped living. Well, I worry about you, too. You have a wicked huge, fierce, and loving heart, but you won’t let anyone in.”

“I haven’t met anyone worth letting in. Besides, what’s the point when I need to go home?”

Larkin’s sigh was heavy.

Blayne would miss her, too. But she’d been away from her family for far too long. And with the conservation project, she’d finally feel worthy of going home.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to change your mind and history has taught me that if I push too hard, it only makes you push back harder.”

Blayne smirked. “Takes one to know one.”

Larkin stuck her tongue out. “I was grieving.”

An image of Archer with his blond hair and dimpled grin immediately filled Blayne with a heavy ache. She didn’t know how her friend had found the strength to move ahead after he’d died, but with a lot of love and cherished memories, Larkin was turning the death of her five-year-old little boy into a bright light for their community.

She was in awe of her.

“Besides, I didn’t stand a chance with you and Maxine at me all the time.” Larkin laughed, but gratitude glowed from the depths of her green eyes. “And now I have Ryker and this little bundle.” She slowly rubbed the round expanse of her growing belly.

“At first, I was grieving, too. In a different way of course. One based in rejection and strengthened by broken dreams and loneliness.”

Larkin shook her head. “It makes me so angry to think of what he did to you. Bringing you here and then leaving you all alone was cruel.”

With a nod, Blayne walked to her paint and brush. “I was devastated. Which is why I don’t want to work with him. You have to change Ryker’s mind.”

“I explained everything to him, but this launch is too important, and the donor program is what will keep it running.”

Blayne’s heart squeezed painfully. “Larkin, you have to.” She stepped toward her. “I can’t do this. I—”

“But you just said you weren’t willing to lose this opportunity.”

“It was just something to say!” Panic raised her voice. She grabbed her brush, then spun back to her friend. “I will make this launch a success. I have as much riding on this as you, maybe more.”

“I know, but the donor—”

“Guarantees the center’s future. I got it.” She shook the brush in the air as emphasis. “And when I say I got it, I do. I can handle the donor program and the launch.”

Larkin waved at her. “Be careful.”

“I’m always careful. I’d never put the center in jeopardy.”

“Not the launch, the floor!” Larkin lunged. “You’re dripping all over the place.”

Slow to catch on, Blayne stared at her friend. What the hell? The paint drips slowly came into focus. “Shit.” She stepped away, bumping the small ladder that held her paint pan.

“No!” Larkin’s eyes shot wide, as she grabbed the brush.

The pan teetered and Blayne twisted to get a hold of the plastic tray.

“Catch it!”

The pan slid. Blayne grabbed the edge, but paint sloshed forward, and she jerked the pan up to stop the flow. The opposite edge dropped from the ladder top. Shoving her other hand under the falling side, she slowed its descent but lost her balance, taking the paint tray with her.

Landing hard on her butt, she steadied the pan, victorious with only a small dollop of white primer next to her on the floor. “Phew!”

Larkin grinned. “That was close.”

“You’ve got that right!”

Just then the front door slammed. “What the hell happened in here?”

The familiar voice was still jarring to her nerves. With her emotions high, she flinched, losing her grip on the pan.

“Shit!” She swore as the primer poured all over her abdomen and onto the floor.

Jamie stood over her, his broad shoulders covered by a gray Henley and an annoying as fuck grin on his face. “Is this going to be a habit with you?” He squatted next to her.

The heat of him immediately enveloped her in a warm, familiar haze that was both heaven and hell. And despite everything, her chest constricted as the object of her frustration stared down at her, crowding her space.

The image of him leaving her all alone filled her vision, and her paint covered fingers twitched against the pain of betrayal that flooded her heart. In a reflex of self-preservation, she pressed her hands to his face and dragged the paint from his thick hair to his chiseled chin.

* * *

Jay sputtered through the shock and awe of Blayne’s paint assault and reared back. Losing his balance, he landed on his ass—hard—his body splayed out like a fool with two women laughing louder than his frat brothers did the night of the full moon streak when they’d locked him out of the house.

Shoving up from the floor, he grabbed a towel from their work table. “You two are hilarious.” He swiped at the paint, failing to keep from staring at Blayne as she bent to clean up the mess from the tiled floor. He remembered those overalls, or at least ones she used to have just like them. She’d tease him by wearing them around the apartment with nothing underneath.

There was something damn sexy about the swell of her naked breasts peeking out from the sides of the front chest pocket, the expanse of smooth skin where he could just see the shadows of her ribs, and—

“Jay, are you listening?”

He took a second to take another swipe at his face, wishing his dick didn’t twitch with every damn memory, then blinked and found Larkin handing him a wet cloth.

“You can use the washroom by the back door. A little soap and water should get that right off.” She giggled behind her fingers.

He grabbed the towels and shot a glare at Blayne, but she’d returned to work with an innocent expression on her face, painting the wall as if he wasn’t standing there covered in primer.

But he knew better.

He had the strongest urge to spin her around and press her up against the damn wall.

And what?

He gritted his teeth.

Every idea that followed tightened his body in a wild knot of need, but he didn’t have the right to help her up from the floor much less kiss the look of sweet triumph off her face. Not when he’d abandoned her at the first opportunity to move up in his family’s company. He’d been a selfish bastard and had chased ambition with singular focus at the expense of anyone around him. It’s when he’d also realized that she’d be a helluva lot better off without him.

“I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t feel like you have to stay.” Blayne’s husky voice with the slightest hint of an Irish brogue followed him down the hall. Yeah, he imagined she wanted him to leave, alright.

Sorry to disappoint you, sweetheart, but that’s not happening again.

Not in this lifetime anyway.

He made quick work of his face then, glancing down at his chest, he sighed. There wasn’t much to be done about his favorite shirt. Maybe Maxine could work a bit of her magic on it; that moonshine of hers could get the purple out of a Malbec grape.

He turned the vintage, black crow-wing faucets to their off position then stepped into the hallway. He couldn’t resist a quick detour into the Van Buren honey room and a whole different kind of guilt settled in.

Back in the day, he and Ryker had been goofing around and found a stash of his dad’s whiskey in a cupboard under the sink. Ryker had kept telling him to put it back, but being an arrogant teen who knew more than anyone else, Jay hadn’t listened and accidentally dropped it.

He’d never forget the look of fear on Ryker’s face followed by a look of resolve.

The next day at school Ryker had shown up with a black eye and a split lip. Jay later found out his buddy had taken the blame in an attempt to protect him.

With a deep indrawn breath, he lingered in the sweet scent of honey and let it ease the difficult memory.

There was something amazing about seeing the room up and running with cleaned frames in a stand on the counter and the spotless sterling pot of the honey extractor.

Jay couldn’t count the broken hearts littering his footprints. It never mattered that he was clear from the beginning he wanted nothing beyond a casual fling. Every woman had thought she was the one to change him. But his attention had always been on the next win. In business and relationships.

However, if Ryker had been able to face his demons and right the wrongs of his past, even those he wasn’t responsible for, well then, so could Jay.

As he made his way to the ladies, the front door slammed closed. He found Blayne all alone, having finished one full wall and well on her way with another. Grabbing a brush, he said, “Larkin left?”

“Claire came to help, but they ran out to grab another gallon of paint so we could start early tomorrow.” She paused, not bothering to hide the smirk on her perfectly painted lips. “You don’t need to stick around either. We both know that’s not your strong point.”

The needle burned, but he let it slide on through. “I deserve that.”

“Yes, you do.”

He dipped his chin and his paintbrush, then turned to the wall.

“I don’t remember you being so…”

She turned, her brush held in front of her like a weapon. “So…what?” With slow steps, she rounded the ladder. “Determined? Strong? That’s what happens when you’re an eighteen-year-old woman in a foreign country with few friends and no family.”

His gut turned at the thought. What the fuck had he been thinking to leave her? He’d needed to be richer? More successful? More of an Astor?

He’d struggled with the need to prove he deserved the name since he could remember. So much so, he’d turned into a selfish prick to make it true. Every decision he’d made had been so thoroughly justified, not even his mother had been able to get through to him.

He certainly had been successful at the ass part of Astor.

“At least you were already a citizen,” he offered, though the sight of her sharp brows drawing together gave him fair warning it was the wrong thing to say. He immediately threw his hands out. “I’m sorry.”

Fire sparked in her eyes. “Yeah, my dual citizenship was a warm blanket in our big bed when I was left all alone.”

The muscles between his shoulder blades pinched tight. “I thought you would have gone home. I’ll be honest, the idea killed me, but I expected it.”

She shook her head, a few black tendrils fluttering about behind her yellow bandana. “There are so many things wrong with what you just said.” Dropping her brush in the paint can, she turned to him, brushing off her hands. “Go home? After the stunt I pulled? I dropped out of university and left the country with a boy I’d known for a half a second.” Her eyes wavered, the pain there a knife to his gut.

“I would have been no more welcomed home than I was to go with you.” Even if it had been only half the truth.

“Blayne,” he said softly. “I told you why you couldn’t go.”

“You…” she began. Then suddenly she straightened. The pain in her eyes hardened into something else as her spine stiffened and her lips drew tight.

He wanted to hold her, to beg her forgiveness, to make her laugh. Anything to get the flat, cold look out of eyes that used to sparkle like gems anytime he made a joke. But the feeling of a door closing on him sparked his adrenaline, and all he could do was push.

“I what? Came back uninvited? Fuck yeah, I did.” He advanced on her. “I made the biggest mistake of my life leaving you, and I’m not going anywhere until you see how sorry I am. I’m here to stay.”

Her eyes flared, and she stepped away. “It doesn’t matter. You left and should have stayed gone.”

He tried to control the rising tide of panic clawing up his back at the finality of her tone. “The hell it doesn’t. It’s the only thing that matters.”

“Too bad Ryker and Larkin couldn’t hear you say that. Then they’d know I should be working this project alone. And if not, maybe I need to reconsider my part in all this.” She sighed in an overly drawn out, dramatic show of boredom. “Listen, I need to finish up here, then get some work in. I have a proposal for Ryker.”

He recognized that tone, and the threat it posed, he couldn’t let her leave the project. The best way to make her stay was to tell her to leave. Their dance was one he knew only too well.

“He’s not going to change his mind. I’m here. But you know, with my background, I can easily take on your side of this project.” As the words left his lips, he questioned his sanity. His drive to win would ruin any chance he had with her—even if it was a chance in hell.

He couldn’t handle the barrage of emotions bombarding him in her presence. Hell, if this kept up, he’d be joining his dad under the cardiologist’s knife.

“Easily?”

He’d hit a nerve, just as he’d hoped. “Look, I have the education and the experience necessary for a deal like this and—”

“And what? You don’t think I’m qualified? Who the hell do you think you are?”

“I’m just saying—” He stepped toward her, faking a casual dismissal when what he really wanted to do was pump his fist in victory.

She stomped toward the front door, and just before it closed, added. “You can kiss my ass, you egotistical, uninformed, asshole. I’m not going anywhere.”

As the door slammed in his face, he grinned.