Chapter 2

One week earlier

Max ran a hand over his mouth, staring up at the pressed copper plates of Belfast’s ceiling as he struggled for patience. There were certain things no man should be forced to endure.

“Fives, Max. Are we clear on that?” Molly Brandt asked, her head bowed over the stack of bills she was counting out on the bar in front of him. Blue eyes sparkling with mirth, she peered up at him from under a curtain of white blond streaked with teal. “Tens are better, but absolutely no singles. Trust me, you don’t want to be that guy.”

His baby sister lecturing him on the etiquette of tipping strippers topped the list. Man, he needed to get out of there. “Got it.”

He reached for the money, but Molly splayed her hands over the piles, delivering another pointed look.

“And no touching. Not only is it frowned upon by the roided-out muscle protecting the girls, but guys who try to cop a feel are just gross.”

This was what he got for asking her to break some bills before meeting up with the boys for CJ’s bachelor party.

“Not my first rodeo, Mol,” he assured her, earning a neatly raised brow that left him squirming where he stood. Because again, baby sisters and strippers were topics Max liked to keep as far away from each other as possible. Not an easy feat with Molly, who’d been up in his business for as far back as he could remember and showed no signs of ever wanting to leave.

Sean Wyse sidled up to the bar, still dressed in an immaculate suit, the single open button at his neck and a barely loosened tie being the only evidence he’d clocked out from the Wyse Hotel for the day. Nodding to Molly, Sean hooked the seat beside Max with a shoe that probably cost more than the monthly payment on Max’s bike. “Yeah, dude, definitely no touching in the club. When the girls want to do more than dance, they give you their number or let you know where to meet them.”

Molly stopped counting to meet Max’s eyes for a beat before shaking her head with a laugh and handing over his cash. For as clean cut as Sean appeared, the guy had a wild side he hadn’t quite given up yet.

“Who wants some rubbers?” Brody bellowed over Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” as he emerged from the back hall behind the bar. Brody owned Belfast and was a friend who went back as far with Max as Sean, to those early days when they’d shared a quad freshman year. Their fourth, Jase, was probably still at work, or possibly sexting his new wife, Emily. Or begging her to let him get her pregnant.

“A little personal, Brod,” Sean chimed in, fighting for the straight face he wouldn’t be able to keep. “But I’m covered, thanks.”

Grinning wide, Brody twirled a shoe box on the tip of one finger like a basketball and fell in beside Molly. His big-ass arms looked like slabs of beef beneath his black silk shirt as he dumped what had to be a hundred novelty condoms over the bar between them.

“Ordered too many of these last month for Lincoln’s bachelor party. Happy you’re taking them.”

Molly cocked a hip against the counter, fingering through the assortment. “It’s like guy confetti. Ooh, can I keep this one?” She laughed, holding up the foil rectangle with a little cartoon of Darth Vader captioned with I will not be your father.

It was clever, but seeing Molly that close to all those condoms was giving Max heartburn. Swatting it out of her hand, he growled, “They’re for the party.”

Another pointed look. “Worried there won’t be enough, with all the women throwing themselves at you?”

Max inwardly groaned.

He had a reputation for being something of a player, but the truth was, the game was getting old. He dug women. Got off on finding out how many different ways he could make them moan. But this dance he’d been doing—keeping the conversation going for the sake of a connection deep enough to enhance the sex, while making sure he stayed well shy of anything that smacked of more than one night? Lately, he’d started to feel like he was going through the motions. Like maybe he’d rather just skip the dance all together.

Still, not exactly the kind of revelation a guy shared with his sister or buddies over a pile of rubbers. So he swept the spread back into the box and offered up a grin. “You know it.”

* * *

“Is this an intervention?” Sarah Cole asked her oldest friend and roommate of less than two hours, peering down at her lemon-drop martini before surveying the popular bar surrounding them. “I thought we were celebrating the start of my vacation and move back to Chicago, not forcing me to take a hard look at the blatant shortcomings of my life.”

A mop of sandy-blond curls brushed against Piper Jordan’s soft jaw as she took a swallow of her pink raspberry cosmo and shook her head. “See, right there. That’s what I’m talking about. Only you would dare refer to a two-month stretch of forty-hour workweeks as a vacation. Do you have any idea how much it hurts me? There’s something deeply wrong with that kind of thinking. It’s like a disease.”

If Piper had any idea what Sarah’s workload had been like in San Francisco, or what would be expected of her once she got to New York, her friend would realize this two-month stint at the Chicago Wyse Hotel was going to be like a vacation.

“A disease with symptoms that include success? Meaty paychecks? And a little stamp that says Next stop, New York? Is that the kind of disease you’re talking about?” Sarah teased, helping herself to another sip of what truly was an exceptional cocktail. Smacking her lips in approval, she set the drink back on her napkin. “Honestly, I know I work too much. My personal life has…fallen behind.”

“It’s been stagnant, rotting on the vine ever since Cory and his epic showing of scumbucketry,” Piper corrected with a raised brow before taking another slurpy sip.

“You’re just being dramatic now.”

“So you do realize it’s been four years, right?” Piper rolled the stem of her glass between her fingers, her eyes squinting as they met Sarah’s. “Four years of letting life pass you by. Look, I know Cory did a number on you. And after, you felt like you had something to prove. But you’ve done it.”

Piper reached for Sarah’s hand and squeezed. “You know how proud I am of you, but it’s time to put a little love into the life beyond your career. You need to have some fun.”

Letting her words sink in, Piper angled toward the bartender and asked for another round.

Sarah shook her head, because as well intentioned as her friend was, she was totally off base. Sarah had a life, and she loved it. She thrived on the challenges of her career. Heck, she’d chosen this path, worked her ass off, and was joyfully reaping the benefits of all that hard work, focus, and determination. They were moving her to the Manhattan office, for crying out loud.

Sarah opened her mouth, but Piper cut her off by handing her the freshly delivered drink. “You deserve a life.”

Accepting the cocktail, Sarah clinked her glass with Piper’s. “I’m not unhappy.”

“When was the last time you went on a date?” Piper pressed, her eyes sharpening like she was going in for the kill.

“It’s been a while,” Sarah hedged, not sure if she could really count that brief, painfully awkward and ultimately fruitless encounter she’d had eleven months ago as an actual date. Before that, she couldn’t even say.

“I’m sure it has. And how about that other issue?” Piper asked, with a pointed glance toward Sarah’s lap. “Any progress on that front?”

“Hey, eyes up here, madam,” Sarah whispered, shifting uneasily.

“How is that even possible, Sarah?” Piper demanded, her expression falling somewhere between disbelief, pity, and disgust.

“I’m getting around to it. I’ve just been busy. It’s not as easy as you’d think, okay?”

“Mmm-hmm. Right, well, maybe you can make it a priority during your vacation then.” Piper’s focus drifted past Sarah to the far end of the bar where another round of hoots and laughter sounded from the rowdy group celebrating there. “Since you’ll have all this free time and everything.”

The thought had crossed Sarah’s mind. Things were going to be nuts once she got to New York. And even if they weren’t, she wouldn’t mind checking this box while she was still half a country away. Then by the time she arrived, she’d be just another girl ready to get on with her normal, albeit wildly successful life.

Downing a long swallow, she met Piper’s expectant smile. “I don’t disagree.”

Before Piper could respond, a couple of guys from the bachelor party descended on them amid a flurry of thrown elbows, yanked shirt necks, and panted beer breath, coming to a stop with one last exchange of boyish shoving. Which was funny, because they had to be at least as old as she was, and she was pretty sure someone had mentioned them being cops.

“Hey, girls, our buddy’s getting married,” the shorter one with the blond brush cut and dimples explained. “And we’re out showing him a good time tonight.”

Piper had picked up her phone and was texting when the taller one with the good hair cut in.

“Yeah, but it’s a total sausage-fest over there. Any chance you two lovely ladies would join our party for a round of shots to even things out?”

Dimples snorted into his hand and then shouldered past his friend. “And before you say no because Jimmy here sounds like a perv, I assure you, we’re all good guys. Except Jimmy. Who kind of is a perv—”

“Dude.” Jimmy threw his hands over his chest like he’d been shot, earning a laugh from both Sarah and Piper. The guys were goofs. Just buzzed enough to be silly and flirty and entertaining—without coming across as obnoxious or pushy.

Not that she’d join their party either way.

Dimples shrugged. “Just telling it like it is.”

Jimmy was shaking his head, laughing as he rounded on his buddy, demanding examples, which the other man lobbed back without so much as a breath of hesitation.

Sarah’s phone vibrated on the bar next to her hand, and she glanced down at the incoming message from Piper.

I’m betting someone at this party could have your little problem resolved in a jiff.

Alarmed, Sarah glanced up at her friend, whose thumbs were moving in a blur.

Another vibration of her phone.

Unless you’re still waiting for love.

The guys seemed to remember their goal and turned back, Jimmy running a hand over his styled hair, while Dimples nodded in that C’mon, you know you want to way.

Even as cute as these two were, Sarah really didn’t want to. She didn’t know them. Sure they might be cops, but the idea of throwing back drinks with a group of guys she didn’t know from Adam? It didn’t seem safe or smart.

A quick end to her virginity wasn’t that high a priority.

She turned to Piper, but her friend’s focus had shifted to some point over Sarah’s shoulder. Her eyes were wide, her lips parted in what could only be described as awed appreciation.

“Jesus, you two, enough with the recruiting.” A deep rumbling voice, edged with amusement and authority, sounded from just behind Sarah, freezing her in place.

She knew that voice.

Even eight years later, her heart skipped a beat and her skin started to tingle at the sound. No. There was no way it was him. It couldn’t be. Sure, these were cops and this was Chicago—but still, what were the odds?

Slowly turning in her seat, she felt the air leak from her lungs as her gaze tripped over a set of powerfully broad shoulders and the tall, muscular frame supporting them; stumbled up to the solid, squared-off jaw and not-quite-straight nose she’d once run the tip of her finger down; and then finally landed on that mouth, currently set in the same off-kilter grin that had played peekaboo in her dreams for years after they’d said good-bye.

Max Brandt.

He was wearing dark-wash jeans with a thick, black belt and a tucked-in, light-blue, button-down shirt that was open at the collar. He hadn’t noticed her yet. Not that he’d recognize her even if he had, but those slate-gray eyes of his were fixed on Jimmy and Dimples, who he’d grabbed by one shoulder each, as they swore up and down that the girls had asked if they could join the party.

The laugh bubbling up within Sarah’s chest had little to do with the guys clowning around and everything to do with her utter delight at seeing the unrepentant bad boy who had become her most unexpected friend all those years ago. And almost more than that.

How many times had she thought about him, wished she’d made a different choice, and wondered what her life would have looked like if she had?

Her phone vibrated against the bar again, snapping her attention back from the intersection of Memory Lane and What Might Have Been Way.

Close your mouth :-) PS, I love you.

Sarah snapped her jaw shut, but not before Max’s eyes came up.

“Holy shit, Sarah?” he asked, his brows furrowing like he couldn’t quite believe it was her. Like he hoped it might be.

Nervously tucking a bit of hair behind her ear, she grinned up at him. “Wasn’t sure you’d remember me.”

Max bowed his head, giving it a slow shake before bringing his eyes back up to hers. “Think I’d know you anywhere.”

Distantly, she registered her phone sounding again, but where she’d normally start to itch if she didn’t have the message checked within a half a second, right then she couldn’t imagine looking away from the man in front of her. Not yet.

Not with that smile stretching wider every second. Oh, that smile.

She’d broken every rule for that smile. Or at least she’d been willing to.

Her phone suddenly appeared in front of her, and Sarah had to blink to recognize that Piper was holding it with the text she’d just sent displayed.

Anything this guy asks, the answer is YES! We might have that little problem handled tonight after all.

* * *

Max hadn’t been laying down some line about knowing Sarah anywhere—though that was what it sounded like, even to his own ears. With any other woman, it would have been one.

Damn, she was still so pretty it hurt just a little to look at her.

Her hair was longer now, those loose, dark waves falling well past her shoulders, and her features weren’t quite as soft as they’d been at twenty, but the gentle hollows and defined edges the years had added looked good on her. Almost as good as that smile—the one that had hit him like a freight train the first time he saw it, and had him working like a fool to earn it as often as he could for those two months after.

Her friend smiled widely at him and whipped Sarah’s phone off the bar beside her, shoving it in Sarah’s face so she would see the text that had been lighting it up, he guessed.

Shit, he hoped she wasn’t going to have to take off already.

“Sorry.” Sarah laughed, a flush creeping onto her cheeks as she gently wrestled the phone free. “Max, this is my friend Piper Morgan. Piper, this is Max Brandt.”

Piper did a double take, her hand snapping out to grip Sarah’s upper arm, like maybe she’d heard his name before. A guy could hope.

“Shut the front door!” she gasped, that head of blond curls working back and forth like it was on a spindle as she looked at one of them and then the other. “This is Safewalk stud?”

A breath punched out his chest on a laugh. Based on the way Sarah closed her eyes in what he hoped wasn’t too much embarrassment, he was guessing she hadn’t coined the moniker.

“Damn, Sarah.” He grinned. “And here I thought you’d liked me for my mind.”

The corner of that pretty mouth twitched, and she turned her head in an abbreviated shake before meeting his eyes again.

She glowered at Piper in that adoring way girls had that threatened murder and a hug at the same time. Man, she was cute. “I swear I didn’t call you Safewalk stud.”

Figured. But that blush was priceless, and from day one he hadn’t been able to resist teasing her just a little to get a piece of it. “No, no, I see how it was. All those nights after the library closed, and I was fool enough to think you were just taking advantage of our security program. But it was the muscle, huh?”

Sarah’s head fell back in a pretty laugh. “The muscle? Max!”

Eight years ago, she’d have swatted his arm and looked away, like she was above his silly nonsense even though he knew she loved it. And in that moment, he could almost feel the back of her hand making contact with his bicep. But this Sarah hadn’t touched him once. Not a hug, handshake, or physical contact of any kind.

Which was weird, because women were always touching him. More than he liked even, though mostly he let it go. But now, he was kicking himself for not just grabbing her into a hug when he realized who she was.

When she met his eyes again, Sarah let out a long sigh, waving her hand in mock defeat. “It’s true. It was about the muscle. The late nights at the library were all a ruse. In fact, I’d plotted to wash all the Safewalk volunteers’ T-shirts in hot water—so they’d shrink up and give me more of what I was really after.”

Piper snorted from her seat. “Were you going to leave out the fabric softener too?” Looking from her friend back to Max, she rolled her eyes. “Her devious plots need a little work.”

Maybe, but Max hadn’t noticed anything beyond the playful glint in Sarah’s eyes and the invisible tug he was feeling in the middle of his chest, begging him to get closer. It was nuts. She was just a girl. But as quickly as the thought crossed his mind, he recognized it for the lie it was.

Sarah wasn’t—had never been—just another girl in the crowd. Not that first night he’d volunteered to escort her home from the library after it closed, and not that last night when everything changed. When she’d become more than a good deed, more than résumé material, more than a friend even. When he’d finally gotten a taste of the temptation that had been slowly driving him out of his mind since the day he met her. When he’d done the hardest thing he’d ever had to do and said good-bye.

It had been the right thing. There had been things she wanted for herself, things she deserved, that she wouldn’t have been able to have with him. But now after all these years, here she was again, and he wasn’t ready to let her go so quickly.

Clearing his throat, he nodded back to the party behind him. “I know Jimmy and Al already asked, but it would be great if you girls wanted to join us a while.” A roar of laughter sounded behind him, signaling his reprieve was nearly over. He had to get back. “Maybe give us a chance to catch up some?”

Sarah looked undecided, which didn’t really surprise him. But man, he wanted her to say yes. He wanted to find out how all those life plans she’d been making had panned out. Hear about what she was up to and how she’d been.

Figure out what to make of Sarah Cole being back.

He knew what the guy he’d been would have wanted, but Max wasn’t the same man.

Piper took another sip of her drink and then cocked her head. “The man asked you a question, Sarah. What’s your answer?”

Uh-huh, maybe that question was asking more than the words alone would suggest, but Max didn’t care, because after a stiff breath when he’d been sure Sarah was about to decline, she hopped off her stool and said, “Yes.”