It was pretty much torture to have to sit so close to Nick Slater for the entire evening. Sure, the most humiliating night of her life had been a long time ago, but that didn’t change how she felt about him.

It should have.

Time and distance should have changed everything.

But the minute Nick walked into that restaurant and called her by that annoying nickname he had for her, it all came back. Every single feeling she’d ever had crashed back so hard she’d almost fallen over.

If it hadn’t been for the table to support her, she might have done just that.

How was it possible to still have feelings for the man? They’d been kids the last time she saw him. He’d humiliated her. Broken her heart. Crushed her.

She should hate him.

But she didn’t.

Marissa spent the evening listening to his easy conversation, the way he made everyone feel special and included in the conversation, and the casual ease he carried himself with. Marissa realized that not only did she not hate Nick, she actually really liked him. A lot.

Probably too much.

Repeatedly through the night, she forced herself to take deep breaths and stay calm. Things had changed over the years. She wasn’t a child anymore. She was a successful real estate agent with a flourishing career, her own house and an active social life. There was no reason for her to be insecure or in any way intimidated by Nick or their past.

She just needed to get through the weekend and she’d be fine. She could go back to living her life and never having to see him again.

“Marissa, did you and Nick have a chance to go over the itinerary?”

She shook her head and blinked hard at Jenny, who had moved so she sat next to Marissa. “The what?”

“The itinerary? For the weekend? Remember, I sent it to you last week so you could familiarize yourself with it.”

“Oh.” Marissa did vaguely remember reading the email and glancing through the list of activities and events Jenny had planned. But she’d assumed she could just go with the flow when the time came. “I looked at it.”

“Oh good,” Jenny said. “So you and Nick will have a chance to organize the games for tomorrow. You’re team captains, after all.”

“Right.” She had no idea what Jenny was talking about, but Marissa had the distinct feeling that if she admitted that, Jenny might burst into tears. She’d been so strong and put together up until the car ride up to the Lodge. Now, she seemed like a typical, overstressed, completely nervous bride and Marissa was not going to be the one responsible for causing her to have a breakdown. Besides, she had the capability of digging up the email to figure out what Jenny was talking about. “We’re definitely going to take care of it.” Nick looked over in her direction, and she did her best to give him a look that indicated she needed full agreement. “Aren’t we, Nick?”

To his credit, it only took Nick a second to figure out what was going on. Or at least that Marissa needed agreement. He quickly nodded and wrapped his arm around Marissa’s shoulders, giving them a squeeze. “Absolutely,” he said. “Missy and I have this totally under control.”

She tried to breathe and to not go completely stiff, but the fact that Nick Slater had his arm around her was almost paralyzing. He smelled so good; the weight of his arm felt safe in a way that didn’t even make sense and when he squeezed her close, her stomach did a little flip.

Marissa swallowed hard.

“I just love the way he calls you Missy.” Jenny grinned. “Jake said you all were like siblings growing up and I can see just how much you care about each other.” She pulled them into a quick group hug. “I’m so glad you both are standing up for us. I can’t think of two people more perfect for the job. And you’ll have time to work on your dance since you’re sharing a room. I’m so sorry about that situation.” Jenny kept talking, as if she hadn’t just dropped a bomb. “But my cousins can be so ridiculous sometimes. Best friends one minute and archenemies the next. You would think they could sort themselves out before my—”

“What did you say?” Marissa interrupted her. Nick’s arm was still wrapped around her, but the weight of it no longer felt safe. It felt...dangerous. In a way that meant her heart may be completely at risk if she wasn’t careful. “About sharing a room?”

Jenny looked quickly between them. “Nick didn’t tell you?”

“Haven’t had a chance.” Nick shrugged and Marissa would’ve smacked him if she could have freed her arm in time. “Don’t worry, Jenny. I’ll fill Missy in on all the details.”

Yes. She was definitely going to punch him.

“Thank you.” Jenny looked visibly relieved so Marissa made a mental note not to punch anyone in the bride’s presence. Even Nick.

And then just like that, she was gone.

The minute they were alone, Marissa wiggled away from him and spun to face Nick. “What do you mean we’re sharing a room?”

“It’s not really like we’re sharing a room. It’s a two-bedroom suite. You still have your own bed. Don’t worry.”

She opened her mouth but no words came out.

“And besides, it will give us time to work on this dance Jenny was talking about. Jake did say something about how they wanted the dances to look good. So maybe we should practice?”

Marissa opened and shut her mouth, but still no words came out. It was bad enough being in the same hotel as Nick—how on earth was she going to survive sharing a room with him?

“Missy, watch your face.” Nick winked at her. “You look a bit like a guppy out of water right now.”

---

Nick read the itinerary and then read it again. He really should have paid more attention to it earlier. He sank into the chair by the window and looked again at Missy’s closed bedroom door.

After the dinner was over, Missy dragged her feet about going back to the room, and she tried to be sneaky when she went to the front desk to request a new room, but Nick noticed.

It was strange, but he was a little hurt that she was so bothered about sharing a suite with him. It’s not like they were sharing a room, after all. And really, they’d been friends for most of their life; it shouldn’t be a big deal.

But it was.

He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a big deal for him too.

Nick thought he would be fine, but when he saw Marissa standing there, everything he thought he’d feel went totally out the window. Apparently not even eight years was enough to make those feelings disappear. She was even more beautiful than before, and something about the easy way she laughed tugged at something low in his gut.

He pulled his gaze away from her bedroom door and back at the itinerary. She’d already been in there over twenty minutes. But there was no way she’d gone to bed. They had too much to do. This wedding was definitely an action-packed weekend.

There was no help for it; he was going to have to knock. He put his paper down, took a breath and stood. His hand was poised over the door, ready to knock, when it opened.

Missy stood in front of him in sweatpants and tank top, her hair up in a ponytail. Her face had been washed and she looked...gorgeous.

“I was just about to see if you were in bed.”

That did not come out right.

She looked at first shocked and then she laughed. “Were you now?”

“Not like that.” Nick held up his hands and laughed along with her. “I was just looking at the plans for the weekend and I thought maybe we should organize a few things.”

Her face relaxed and she moved past him into the room. “Jenny does seem to have every moment planned and accounted for,” she said. “I do like how organized she is, but still...I think I’ll need a vacation when all this is over.” She flopped down on the couch and grabbed the piece of paper from the table.

Nick had to resist the urge to go sit next to her and put his arm around her to pull her into a cuddle. It felt natural to do so, but at the same time...there was no way.

He made a point to sit on the other side of the room, in the same chair he’d been in.

“So what’s first?” Missy read down the list. “Oh yes, it looks like we’re going to be team captains tomorrow for wedding wars. I hope you’re ready to get taken down?”

“In a tug-of-war?” He laughed. “There’s no way your team is going to beat mine.” He flexed as a joke, but he didn’t miss the way her eyes widened seconds before she looked away.

It was ludicrous to even believe that Missy was still attracted to him. And even if she was, there was no way she would even like him anymore. He’d done his best to take care of that the night she confessed her feelings to him.

He still remembered it as if it had just happened yesterday. It was her graduation night, and she’d looked amazing in her black fitted dress, with a slit up her thigh and a dangerously low-cut back. Having graduated a year before her, Nick and Jake were both home from college and, after the Duncans’ celebratory BBQ, had been lingering around as Missy and her friends got ready for the graduation dance.

When their dates arrived to pick them up, Jake and Nick gave the boys a hard time. Nick focused on Missy’s date in particular. It should have been him who took her to her dance. For almost three years, he’d secretly wished it would somehow be him. But Jake would have killed him. There was a code, and there was no way Nick could break it. No matter what. The Duncan family had been more like a family to him than his own; he couldn’t screw it up by dating Missy.

And that’s why, when later that night, Missy came home from her dance and found Nick in the kitchen getting a glass of water, he had to do the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life.

She’d looked amazing when she’d walked over to him, and no doubt she’d seen his own desire reflected in his eyes. He’d never forget what she said: “Nick, I know I shouldn’t, but I think tonight is the perfect night to tell you that I’m in love with you. I have been for years.” And then she kissed him. And he kissed her back. And it was the single most amazing kiss he’d ever had, or had since.

It had taken every bit of willpower he possessed not to pull her close and deepen that kiss, but instead to push her away and—it still made him cringe to think about it—laugh at her. He’d called her a silly little girl and he’d laughed. Nick would never forget the look on Missy’s face as she realized what he was doing. She’d been devastated.

And he’d done it to her.

Little did she know that he’d crushed his own heart as well.

But it had been for the best. Jake would never have forgiven him.

That had been eight years ago. Looking at the confident woman in front of him now, there was no way he could believe that she could have any feelings left for him, not after the way he’d hurt her.

“What do you think?” she asked him and he realized he had been lost in his memories and hadn’t heard a word she’d said.

“About what?”

“The dance.” Missy grinned at him. “Jenny and Jake have been practicing their first dance for months, and she made it very clear that we were supposed to look good on the dance floor as well.”

“So we need to practice?”

“I think that’s the idea.” Missy popped up from the couch and grabbed her phone. “I downloaded the song—just let me find it.”

While she was looking through her phone, Nick got to work clearing the furniture out of the way. He was just pushing the couch back when the song started to play.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He shook his head with a laugh because the song Jenny and Jake had picked for them to dance to had to be a joke.

---

“I’m pretty sure my brother has decided to use his wedding to play one giant practical joke on me,” Marissa said. “You should see my dress.”

“Your dress?”

“You’ll see.” She shook her head.

“But this song?”

The song was the iconic “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” from Dirty Dancing, a movie Marissa had loved and forced the boys to watch multiple times with her when they were growing up. It wasn’t her favorite song from the movie, but more than once when she was a teenager she’d fantasized about dancing with Nick to it. In fact, more times than she’d like to count.

But there was no way Jake could know that.

“I don’t think we have to enact the actual dance from the movie.” She laughed even though she’d imagined it in her head enough times that she could probably pull it off. “We’re just supposed to look...seamless.”

Nick held out his arms; Marissa hesitated, but only for a second. She could do this. She could handle Nick Slater’s arms holding her close.

She could.

She stepped closer and his arms closed around her. Marissa tried not to breathe in the scent of him. He smelled like cedar and orange, just the way he always had. She closed her eyes to keep from looking at him.

“You okay?”

She nodded, not trusting her voice, and he started to move in time to the music.

They’d never danced together before—unless you counted her dreams, and she didn’t. But despite their inexperience together, they moved around the small living room as if they’d done it a million times and Marissa lost herself in the moment.

When the song ended, she was dizzy, but not because of the dancing. The feelings that flooded through her knocked her completely off guard. It was one thing to see Nick Slater across the room for the first time in so long. It was another to sit by him at dinner and share a suite with him. But it was a completely different thing altogether to be in his arms, dancing to a song she’d fantasized about since she was sixteen.

She couldn’t help it. It didn’t make sense, and nothing about it was a good idea, but there was no denying it. Even after almost a decade, she was still in love with Nick Slater.

“Missy?”

Her eyes fluttered open to see Nick looking down at her with concern on his face. Their faces were so close. Only inches apart really. She could kiss him. She could reach up on her tippy-toes and kiss him, just the way she had before.

Remember how that ended up?

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she answered quickly. “I’m fine. I’m just...I’m tired I think. It’s been a long day.” She pulled out of his embrace and put distance between them. She hadn’t imagined the connection. There was no way that was her imagination. He’d felt it too; he had to. She could see it in his eyes, feel it in his touch. Just the way she had all those years ago when she’d been so sure he felt the same way she did.

But you were wrong.

The voice in her head was starting to become very annoying.

“Why don’t you sit down?” he said. “I can get you a glass of—”

“No.” She wrapped her arms around her, suddenly cold without his embrace. “I should probably just go to bed. After all, I need to be rested if my team is going to kick your team’s butt tomorrow.”

He laughed and the weird moment was gone.

Mostly.

“Whatever you need to tell yourself,” he said. “But Team Groom is still going to win.”

“Ha.”

She couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she lifted her hand in an awkward wave and slipped into her room without even saying goodnight.

The minute there was a door between them, she slid to the floor and dropped her head onto her knees. This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t. She couldn’t possibly still be in love with him. It was ridiculous. She was a grown woman, for goodness’ sake. She was no longer a silly teenager with unrealistic expectations about falling in love with her brother’s best friend.

She’d dated other guys. Heck, she’d been in love with other men.

Sort of.

Not like Nick.

Never like Nick.

“Get a hold of yourself, Marissa,” she whispered into her knees. “It’s only three days.” She could handle being around him for three days. Of course she could and then she could go back to avoiding him again for the next eight years. At least.

He doesn’t love you. Move on. He doesn’t love you.

It was a mantra she forced herself to say in her head over and over again, when she was eighteen in those days and weeks following her humiliation. She had to get it through her head despite what she thought. Despite all the indications and signals she’d gotten from him. The way he looked at her, the way his hand would accidentally reach out and brush her arm. The way he’d spend extra time talking to her about school and the future. The way he’d go out of his way to take her to work or pick her up from a friend’s house, even if it messed up his plans with Jake. The way, even for a moment, he’d kissed her back and slipped his hand around her so it was resting on her bare back that night in the kitchen when she’d thrown all caution to the wind and declared her love for him.

Despite all those things that made her think that maybe, just maybe, he loved her too. He didn’t. He’d made that very, very clear.

“Missy, you’re such a silly little girl,” he’d said. He pushed her away from him and laughed.

She’d never forget that laugh because it went right to her heart, cracking it in two.

Marissa remembered standing there, waiting for a moment for him to say sorry and tell her that he didn’t mean it and that he did love her. But he hadn’t.

So she’d turned and ran to her room to cry her heart out, Nick’s words replaying over in her head on a cruel, vicious loop.

No. She would not subject herself to that kind of hurt and humiliation again.

This time she would just keep her feelings to herself.