The following afternoon, Blayne stood in the center of the front room of the Cape house watching Jamie and Ryker critique her priming job, growing more pissed than when a derby opponent tried to sabotage her on the rink.

Just looking at the way Jamie filled out his damn Armani suit made her blood boil. The arrogant, self-righteous…

How was it that men thickened in the most delicious way with age, but women had to fight the same fate like it was their full-time job?

“Quit staring.” Maxine Van Buren, Ryker’s grandmother, nudged her none too gently. “I know you think you’re scowling, but it’s more of an I’m-in-the-mood-for-meat and only-that-particular-meat-will-do kind of look.” She jabbed her thumb toward Jamie.

“You’re mad.”

“No, you’re mad, and you’re also still in love with him.”

Heat rushed across her skin with the ridiculous accusation. Thank God she didn’t suffer the same fate as Larkin. When her best friend got embarrassed, it was like a gallon of red paint had been dumped on her head. At least Blayne’s was felt and not seen beyond a thin bead of perspiration along her upper lip.

She scoffed. “No offense, but you’ve been drinking too much of your shine, Maxine. Either that or worse, you’ve turned into one of those women who wants everyone else happily wed since Judge Carter asked you to marry him.”

Maxine raised a brow in warning.

“Jamie destroyed any love I once had ten years ago.” A small hiccup escaped.

Son of a bitch.

Her damn telltale sign of lies—even those she told herself—used to get her in the worst trouble with her ma and da as a little girl. Every hiccup told on her faster than her siblings ever could.

Maxine snorted. “If you say so.” Giving her silver locks a quick smoothing, she looked around, effectively ending the topic. “Where’s Ryker? I need to store a few things downstairs to keep Teddy’s nose from getting bent all out of shape. I swear, if that man wasn’t so good in bed…”

Blayne almost choked on her own breath as Ryker walked up just in time to hear his grandmother. She’d never seen such a big turn green so quickly.

“Grandmother, come on.” He pressed the space between his brows with a grimace.

Maxine gave a wave of dismissal. “Oh, please. Larkin is proof you already know what I’m talking about. Though the South Cove Madams are a cold lot, we North Cove Mavens have a reputation, you know.”

The North Cove Mavens were a group of creative and feisty women who lived north of the cape and sparred good-naturedly with the logical and deliberate women of the South Cove Madams. Something about two sisters who’d lived on opposite sides of town and the one boy who’d captured both their hearts. The feud’s history was as old as the town itself.

“Yeah, not the one you think, Grandma,” he said.

Blayne didn’t even try to hold her laughter in this time.

“By the way, I’m glad you’re here. I want to use a little space in the basement.” Maxine raised on her tiptoes and placed a kiss on his cheek.

“Like you’d listen if I said otherwise,” he grumbled.

She smiled. “You always were a smart boy.” She followed up the kiss with a soft pat.

Jay joined them with heated look solely for Blayne. “Looks like I missed an invitation to the party.”

“Nope, if there had been one, the slight would have been on purpose.” She made her smile as sickly sweet as possible. It was so damn hard to keep her head straight when he was around. She constantly volleyed back and forth from wanting to throw herself into his arms and bash him over the head.

“Play nice.” The look on Ryker’s face was a brewing storm.

Jamie shrugged. “Have you thought about what I said?”

“Are you serious?” The man was mad—she cared fuck all about anything he had to say. “I think I made myself quite clear.”

Appealing to Ryker, she said, “This launch is life-changing for the town.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Jamie’s small nod of indulgence and it snapped something inside her. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Now more than ever we need

someone with a rational mind and common sense to lead this project.”

“Like I said.” Jamie added.

“And since that is clearly not you, I propose the launch remain in my capable hands, starting immediately.”

Ryker lifted his head. “What’s this?”

“Now wait a minute,” Jamie said.

Blayne gestured to Ryker. “Your friend here told me he could easily do my job, and why didn’t I take my pretty little face home.”

Ryker shot Jamie a look that questioned whether or not he’d gone insane.

“That is not what I said.” Jamie ground out, glaring at her.

“Close enough.”

Larkin joined Ryker. “What’s going on?”

Blayne appealed to her sister-in-arms. “Ryker’s friend here said I’m not capable of doing the work.”

Larkin’s lips thinned, and she slowly turned her head toward Jamie. “I’ll have you know…”

Jamie jerked is head up. “That’s not what I said. I—”

Blayne’s chest tightened to a burn. “That’s exactly what you said. Are you really going to stand there and lie to my face?”

“Enough!” Ryker shouted. “You two are worse than Teddy and Maxine when he catches her selling her moonshine.” He swung his hand in a wide arc. “This is not a joke! It’s simple. Blayne, Jay will make you better.”

Her stomach turned in betrayal. The hell he would. He did not make her anything. Of all the things Ryker could have said, that was by far the most ridiculous.

“And Jay wipe that damn smirk off your face because Blayne will make you better. We only want the best, and for the needs of this specific project, it isn’t either of you on your own. Pull your shit together or get out of my goddamn house.” The level of his voice increased with each word until she swore her spine vibrated.

Larkin slid her hand into Ryker’s, and he looked down at her almost in surprise. Drawing her into his side, he gestured toward Maxine and Claire who’d just slipped in through the front door. “Everybody out.”

Claire blinked in surprise, hiding behind Maxine. “But what about the room? We’re supposed to be painting.”

“Don’t hide behind me.” Maxine tried to move away, but Claire grabbed her like a shield.

“The hell I won’t. He’d never hurt his own grandmother.”

“Shows what you know, he’d hurt me first.”

Ryker ignored their banter and walked toward the foyer with Larkin by his side. “Our two idiot friends can do it. And if they don’t do it without incident, I’ll find someone who can.”

The threat was crystal clear.

Blayne waited until the room emptied, then glared at Jamie, pressure building in her chest. Getting home to Ireland with her head held high, being there for Larkin, doing good for the community, were all dependent on the successful launch of this project. And Jamie was tossing it about like confetti. “Nice going, asshole.”

A you-can-kiss-my-ass chuckle rumbled from his chest, and the sound of it rolled along her nerves in a wake-up call. “There’s the girl I know and love.”

She stared at him a moment, suddenly feeling as though she were the butt of an unknown joke, then turned away. Hearing the word love from his mouth hurt more than she wanted to admit. She’d always imagined how classy and reserved she’d act if she ever saw him again.

Clearly, she was failing at that daydream.

Grabbing gallons of paint from the wall, she hauled them to the work table. The quicker they finished, the better. Since Ryker had made it clear they were working together, or not at all, it was time to swallow her pride and do her job.

At least that was something she excelled at.

She tossed Jamie a brush. “Here. Make yourself useful.”

He caught the brush, squeezing the handle so tight the whites of his knuckles glowed in contrast to his tanned skin.

Aww, was she annoying him? Well, too damn bad.

Ignoring any urge to poke the sexy bear further, she opened her radio app on her phone and found Metallica. Since it had been their favorite rock band, he’d get the message. “War” would be an appropriate song.

She handed Jamie a gallon of paint then grabbed one for herself.

“You edge, I’ll fill in the wall?” he suggested. And there was no way to confuse the heated look in his eyes.

She forced herself to keep her movements casual as an image of the two of them in their apartment took her back. She’d been younger and much more naive, but she’d also been so happy. Her lungs seemed to forget how to function, making her next breath an effort. She nodded, walking to the far corner of the room.

“Do you remember that night?” he asked softly.

She’d never forget it. They’d painted well past midnight and finished with the hottest sex she’d ever had, rolling around on the tarp used to protect the floor. They’d made their own art—and had a hell of a time getting all the paint out of her hair the next morning. But it had been worth it.

Inhaling deeply, she dipped her edging brush into the light gray paint then dragged it along the top edge of the old six-inch baseboards. “You don’t get to do that, Jamie.”

“Do what? Remember?” Using large strokes, he made a ‘W’ on the wall with the paint roller.

“Talk to me like we’re friends. Make me remember things that made a mockery of what I thought we had between us.” She continued down the wall.

“I’m not mocking anything. What we had was different. Special.”

Finishing the baseboard edge along the length of the wall, she worked up the corner to the ceiling. She moved the ladder over and climbed until she could reach the top.

“Different. Yeah, that’s one way to describe it. There was fuck all about our relationship that was like anything I usually see, that’s for sure.”

His lips quirked, and she wished she could drag her brush over his face, but Ryker’s threat kept her in her spot. Jamie always found her Irish sayings amusing. Well, fuck all, fuck all, fuck all. Glad the demise of their relationship could make him laugh.

“Different is what made it special. Don’t act like it wasn’t.” His tone was hard, his amusement gone, and she glanced at him from the corners of her eyes. He was barely an arm’s length away, working the paint roller over the wall in time with the clenching of his jaw.

Her shoulders blades pulled tight as her skate laces. “Are you mad? You don’t get to be angry.” Her voice thickened with emotion, and she swallowed hard past the lump in her throat. “You ran off after your family and your career and didn’t give me another thought. I was the one who was left all alone.”

He dropped the roller in the pan and swung back nose-to-nose. “You don’t think I know that? It killed me to leave, but it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. We were too young. I realized it was better that way. I was selfish, and you deserved…”

His crisp, masculine scent wrapped around her, inflaming her senses, and as she breathed him in, liquid heat pooled in her core.

“Better? Better for who?” Her voice trembled. “I left my family, I left…” The memories of her ma, the safety of her da. Her brother and sisters. Shame made it hard to breathe.

The whole town of Glengarriff had been family, and she’d left. Just like that.

Just as Jamie had done to her once they got to the States.

“I’m sorry.” His words were a whisper with the force of a hurricane.

Anguish shone in his intense gaze, and his full lips, framed by a day’s scruff, were pressed into a thin line. It was sincere, but it didn’t change anything.

Once upon a time she would have kissed his worries away, caressed his brow.

Without warning, he grabbed her hips with thick hands and dropped his head to her chest. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. His large frame filled her vision.

The old pain sliced her open from the inside out this time. She held her hands out at her sides, not sure what to do. Touching him was not an option. Giving into his guilt was not the answer. She could never go back. There was nothing left in her for love. Even if every part of her not based in logic cried out for him.

“It’s fine.” She tried to swallow down her hiccup. The lie burned her tongue, but she needed him to step away before she tugged him in tighter.

Slowly, he lifted his head. “It’s fine?”

No. But if he didn’t give her space, if she didn’t change the subject, she’d break. And since he’d returned it was all she could do to stay in one piece.

It wasn’t fine, but what the hell else could she do? It was time for her to go home, and she couldn’t do that until she accomplished something truly of value to make her family proud. “Look,” she said, and gestured to the wall behind him.

The wall was fresh and clean with crisp edges and a smooth surface. She forced a lightness in her voice. “If nothing else, we work well together. I wouldn’t say you make me better. Ryker’s a crazy bloke, but you and I are clearly in sync when it comes to getting things done. We always have been.”

His eyes shuttered. “We’ll launch the center. Then you can get back to your life, and I can get back to mine, is that it?” There was an edge to his tone, but she couldn’t tell if he was dejected or determined.

She stepped down the ladder, needing to put some distance between them. Needing some air. Having him that close after so much time apart was torture when every bit of her yearned to give in and fall into his arms.

“But no more shared memories, no inside jokes. Don’t finish my sentences or act like we go way back. We have a job to do. So, let’s do it.”

Jamie jerked away with a small shake of his head. “I can’t do that.”

“Then walk away. Those are your choices. We already know which one you’re good at.”

* * *

Jay kicked his feet up on the railing that ran the perimeter of Ryker’s back deck, staring at the Cape Van Buren house across the North Cove and slowly swirling the Scotch in his glass.

His plan had worked—Blayne was staying. The victory of his win wasn’t fulfilling him in its usual manner, overshadowed by how much pain he’d caused her. It tore him up to see her work so hard to be strong in front of him just as it deepened his admiration.

“Are you going to show me the initial outline of the donor program or sit there scowling at my home all goddamn day?” Ryker shoved Jay’s legs off the railing as he walked past to get to another chair.

“Women are the most confusing creatures on the planet.”

Larkin placed a platter overflowing with meats and cheeses and bruschetta on the table between them. “Oh, really? And here I thought it was the lot of you.”

He had the grace to shrink a bit in his chair as he took the offered pour of another drink. “I wasn’t talking about you, Larkin.”

“No?” She raised a brow. “Just my best friend, then? Oh yeah, the one you insulted at the Van Buren house? Or perhaps the one you abandoned? Oh, wait…same woman. You’re two for two.”

He sighed. “I was making sure she’d keep working with me. You know Blayne, the surest way to get her to do something is by telling her she can’t. Regardless, what I said was true. I have the corporate experience.”

“Yeah…you didn’t keep up with her once you left, did you?”

It was more of a statement than a question. One that gave him the feeling he’d made a grave error in judgment.

Again.

Fuck.

Carefully, he set his drink down and chose his next words. “It would have been too hard. I thought about her every day as it was.”

“Well, poor you.” She popped a piece of cheese in her mouth.

“Larkin,” Ryker said her name softly.

“No, he doesn’t get to judge. I was the one who was here to witness the destruction he left in his wake. She’d been lost. Devastated. And I had no idea how to help. She couldn’t go home. She had no degree.”

Jay shoved his fingers through his hair. The Scotch soured in his gut, leaving him unable to take another sip. “But she went to school.”

Larkin nodded. “She did. On her blood, sweat, and tears. Thank God she’d been born here before her family moved back to Ireland. Her dual citizenship saved her. Two jobs, financial aid, an internship at Deloitte, which turned into her first job… She was—is a powerhouse. Which is why I want her running this launch.”

Jay had no idea.

He was no stranger to hard work, but he’d had his parents to fall back on anytime he needed them. He couldn’t imagine doing it all by himself, let alone in a country he hadn’t grown up in.

His need to prove himself had turned out to be one of his greatest weaknesses. He’d always worried about people thinking he’d been handed everything because he was an Astor. Which was why he’d left her for Europe.

It had been sickeningly ironic.

The guilt of leaving had eaten at him with such intensity he’d dived into every new opportunity determined to win and prove his decision had been worth it, to prove he was worthy so he could return to her with his head held high.

Afraid to ask, but too intrigued not to, he leaned toward Larkin. “And Eclectic Finds?”

“As Blayne is wont to do, she got bored once her job became too familiar. She took her savings and her unique view of the world and opened her store. It’s been a success ever since.”

Jay blew out a breath on a wave of regret. “Hot damn.”

“Exactly.” Larkin pushed his drink into his hand. “So, you can see why she’d been a little more than pissed when you implied she had no relevant business experience.”

“Fuck me.”

Ryker clinked his tumbler to Jay’s “Here’s to the launch. Like I said, the two of you’ll make each other better.”

Jay grimaced. “The only thing I seem to do is piss her off.”

“Well, you’ve always been an overachiever,” Larkin suggested with a wink.

At least she didn’t seem quite so pissed. It wouldn’t be good to be on Larkin’s bad side, not where Ryker was concerned.

“You know I’m here to get her back, right?”

She studied him. “Until your next big opportunity?”

“She is my only big opportunity.”

“Well, then don’t screw it up.”

With a nod, Jay withdrew a sheaf of papers from his bag. “Here’s my proposal for the donor program. It’s solid and will set the center up to sustain every year we go forward.”

Larkin scooted closer. “I can’t believe this is really happening.” Her voice swelled with emotion. “Archer loved this place so much. We want to share it with the children of Cape Van Buren.”

Ryker placed a hand on her leg.

“I really want the children to have a voice.” She rubbed her belly.

“A voice?” Jay questioned.

She nodded. “They’re so easily dismissed by adults. You know what I mean. I want to make sure that while we make the center a success at enriching the lives of the town and making enough money to stay in operation that we don’t forget to listen to what the children need and want.”

Jay dipped his chin. He glanced from Ryker to Larkin, his gut twisting with a bit of jealousy. His buddy had found the one for him. There was something very special about Larkin Van Buren. “I love it. We’ll be sure to keep the kids in mind.”

Larkin smiled. “Thank you.” She rubbed his arm. “You’re not so bad, Jay Astor.”

His laugh echoed off the trees and joined in the melody of the chimes placed around the deck.

“Does that mean you guys’ll help me win her back?” His voice carried a note of hope.

Ryker grabbed Larkin’s hand with a grin. “Not on your life. We won’t do anything to hurt your chances, but that’s all on you, my friend.”