“See? This was a great idea,” Harper said once we sat down in the noisy club. No, it wasn’t. It was possibly the worst idea ever. I couldn’t believe I let these two drag me out. They were worried about me. One of them got the great idea to go out for some fun.

I said yes to the fun, but had they specified we were going out dancing, I’d have told them to take a hike. The last actual thing in the world I wanted to do right now was dance. In fact, being here in this crowded place was its own unique brand of torture.

All I wanted to do was go home and finish devising my plan to find Jason. The big idiot was still not answering my calls or texts. I was certain that if I could just talk to him, I’d be able to straighten this all out. Finding him was going to be tricky without a home address and no actual work address either.

If I’d had a cop for a friend, I’d be all over them to do a search and find out his home address. I still couldn’t believe I never asked for it, but we were fairly busy…

Audrey spoke up. “This place is crazy tonight,” she yelled, taking another sip of her margarita. I doubted she had any frame of reference as to how crazy it was here. With twin boys at home, she rarely saw the light of day, let alone the nightlife.

In fact, the first time we were together was the night we all went to the Venue Club and Harper met her Mr. Wonderful. That had started a quick romance. Now they lived in her tiny apartment. Don’t even ask me why, because Jack had a huge, gorgeous, expensive penthouse suite downtown that he gave up when moved in with her.

Love made people do strange things.

The music in here was deafening. The varying scents of a hundred perfumes and colognes mixed together were less than appealing. What I wanted most in the world was to leave this joint and slip into a nice hot bath.

That was a lie. What I’d like most in the world was to have Jason in that bath with me.

Soon. First, I needed to track him down, apologize, then have him forgive my sorry, lying ass. Yeah, that was all that needed to happen. The impossible.

“It’s really loud in here,” Harper shouted, cupping her hands in front of her mouth. Her beautiful blonde hair was scooped up into a messy updo.

Trying not to be a bad sport, I smiled, roaming my eyes around the heated club. The tables were tall, dark wood, and if you were a chick in a short skirt—or any skirt for that matter—getting up on the matching chairs could be a feat in itself.

But, maybe that was the whole point.

“It’s really loud,” I agreed, with not much else to add to the conversation. There wasn’t a whole lot of choice in the matter anyway because she probably wouldn’t hear. You either had to scream at the top of your lungs to be heard or get up nice and close to someone and talk right into their ear.

Again, maybe that was the whole point.

I did my best not to check my phone every minute like some kind of crazy, obsessive maniac. Obviously, I failed. Even after three weeks, I still held hope that maybe tonight Jason would respond.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t as stealthy as I thought. “Stop looking at your phone, girl. If he hasn’t called by now, he ain’t gonna. Leave him be and let’s find you another cutie to sink your teeth into,” Audrey bellowed out to me. Interestingly, her voice was the only one of ours loud enough to hear in this place.

I stashed my phone back into my designer bag, smiling sheepishly, even though the thought of being with someone else right now made me sick to my stomach. There was only one person I wanted to “sink my teeth into”.

Harper’s neighbor, Riley, came along for the ride. That girl was sex on a stick if there ever was one: tall, slim, long blonde hair, legs that went on for miles. Her clothes were always top-of-the-line. She wore each outfit like it was made strictly for her. When she looked at you, it was either with an I-have-no time-for-you-move-on look or an I-have-all-the-time-in-the-world-for-you-but-make-it-quick kind of look.

There was something about that girl that piqued my curiosity. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Some kind of mystery that only she was privy to. You could be in the same room with her for hours, talking and chatting, but at the end of it, you had learned not one thing about her. However, you’d told her every last detail about your life, including the disastrous birthday party you had in fifth grade—where Johnny V. kissed you in front of everyone and you were so embarrassed you ran up to your room and cried for hours while your mother had to deal with thirty rowdy kids for three more hours without the guest of honor. The weird thing was, you didn’t really care. You were just so grateful to be spilling the beans about your life, and she kept you so busy asking questions, that you ended up having a great time.

So here we found ourselves again, out at some nightclub. Except this time, it was for my benefit. The first time we went out, it was Riley’s idea that Harper get back into the dating world after way too much time spent mourning her divorce and her lying, cheating, scumbag ex-husband.

It worked, needless to say. She ended up meeting Jack that very night. I was not in the same situation. I was actually trying to get back with my—what was he exactly? A boyfriend? A lover? Whatever he was, I’d get him back, so this night out was all for naught.

These girls, however nice, loving, and supportive, were little demons when they wanted their way. It was near impossible to refuse.

“Oh my God,” Harper screeched to me again, but this time her eyes were wide, non-blinking, her mouth gaping open. “Over there. It’s him.” Our entire table very uncouthly gawked in the direction she was currently staring in. Low and behold it was him. Jason. Standing at the bar, looking just as hot as I remembered.

Without delay, I jumped off my chair, readying myself to see him for the first time in weeks. As I strutted toward him, I heard my girls catcalling, “Go get him, tiger,” followed by various growling sounds. How many margaritas did they have? Idiots, all of them, but I loved them just the same.

Jason hadn’t spotted me yet. If he had looked over, he would have seen a big, stupid, goofy grin on my face. My poor stomach was doing flips. My nerves were shot. Normally, I thrived in tough situations and negotiations, but this meant the world to me. I didn’t want to mess things up more than I already had. My heart beat so hard I was surprised it was still contained inside my chest.

Then I saw her. A scantily clad, dark-haired woman. She was smiling like she wanted him for supper. Damn it all to hell, he was smirking right back.

Socked right to the gut.

Clearly a glutton for punishment, I continued walking toward them, no idea why. Anyone with an ounce of common sense would read that situation and hightail it out of there, then proceed to go home and cry into a tub of ice cream.

But not me.

I carried on, arriving closer to my waking nightmare with each step. My heart thumped so fast, skipping beats as I walked. Vaguely, I wondered if it was possible to give yourself a heart attack from shock alone. Only a few yards away, I saw her raise up, wrap her scrawny arms around his neck, and kiss my man.

Yep. Heart attack. The air whooshed out of my lungs. A sudden urge to sprint the hell out of there overcame me. Go figure. For some reason, I was stuck to the spot, unmoving. My entire body went numb.

Watching them continue to kiss was like driving metal shards through my stomach and heart at equal intervals. Nothing had ever been that painful. Finally, he peered down at me. The look of outright shock and confusion on his handsome face gutted me. I’d never been hurt this bad before.

Any normal woman would have headed for the hills, but I wasn’t any woman. I’d been trying for three weeks to get a hold of him. Nothing in my brain could make sense of all this. He was supposed to be kissing me, not some teeny tiny bitch who was presently giving me the stink eye. Rightly so. I couldn’t blame her. I’d interrupted her seducing my man and she was pissed.

I knew quite well how those firm yet soft lips felt when they took your mouth. You had no choice but to surrender and let him do what he wanted. And boy were you glad you did, because what that man could do with his mouth was without exception, amazing.

“Vivienne,” he said, wiping his mouth, looking me up and down. Immediately, he placed the brunette to the side. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Apparently, getting my heart broken even more than it already was. I didn’t think it was possible, but plainly it is,” I replied, stepping closer to him. I couldn’t cease staring at the train wreck. I was drawn into the fire and wouldn’t stop until it completely consumed me—and him.

The scantily clad brunette said, “Umm, excuse me, but you’re interrupting something here.” She really was quite beautiful. I couldn’t blame him for jumping her. Be that as it may, I still felt like punching her gorgeous face until she shut the hell up.

“Janine, look, it was nice to meet you, but I’m sorry. I’m really not interested.” He turned to the kissing bandit, letting her down easy.

She wasn’t in the mood to be dismissed. “Ha, you seemed pretty interested a second ago,” she said, crossing her arms, jutting out a hip.

“I’m sorry. I should never have allowed you to do that. It took me by surprise, and I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” Burn, ouch. I felt sorry for her. Was that possible? A moment ago, I wanted to scratch her eyes out. Now I pitied her.

“Whatever,” she said, giving him the dreaded word that men hated most. She frowned and strode away, not giving me another glance.

“We need to talk,” I told him, pulling him out of that godforsaken place.