Slipping out of Hettie’s bed in the early morning, Gavin stretched before pulling on his boxer briefs. Holy fuck, what a night. His little Hettie was a kinky wildcat in the sack. Who’d have thought?

He slipped on his pants and shirt, then with one final glance at the naked woman tangled up in the sheets, ducked out the door.

* * *

“What the hell?” Hettie said a short while later, as she fought a big yawn and padded barefoot out into the kitchen, wrapped up in fluffy white robe. “Why are you still here?”

Glancing up from the counter, with a big grin and a wink, Gavin poured her a cup of coffee before sliding it across the island. “You still take a splash of milk and honey in your coffee?”

Wariness still in her eyes, she accepted the coffee with both hands, then brought it up beneath her nose. “What are you still doing here?” she asked again.

Her eyes made their way around the kitchen, taking in the scene. He had two big plates dished out, full of decadent breakfast favorites: lox with poached eggs on brioche with olives, tomatoes, capers and peppers. Fresh fruit. A bowl of quinoa done up like sweet breakfast oatmeal, with dried fruit, nuts and coconut milk. Mimosas in flutes. And, of course, as they always used to have when they had breakfast together, one bowl of Frosted Flakes with milk that they would share. Why? Because They’re Grrrreat!

“Did you make this?”

He’d been quick to dispose of the bag from The Aroma Sisters, a hip and popular little breakfast joint not too far away. The place had great reviews online, a unique and enticing menu and, lo and behold, was run by his mother’s friend’s daughter and her friend. She was the executive chef and part owner. He’d called her up, placed an order and had it delivered in under an hour. The promise of a big tip to a starving-student busboy always made people “hop to it.”

But as much as he would have loved to lay claim to such a masterpiece, he didn’t want to start their second chance off with a lie, even a small one. With another smile, he pulled the big brown paper bag out of the recycling bin under the sink. “No, I ordered it from The Aroma Sisters.”

Her eyes went wide as she took a sip of her coffee. “That place isn’t cheap. I went there once for work. Pricey but good.”

“So? I’m loaded, remember?” He wandered over to her small bistro table and began to set it. Linen napkins were rolled around what appeared to be expensive silverware. The restaurant had supplied everything: plates, cutlery, napkins, even the champagne flutes and champagne.

“Oh yeah,” she muttered, averting her eyes. “I’d thought maybe I’d imagined that in my drunken state last night.”

“Nope. Sorry, baby. Hate to break it to you, but we’re rich.”

“We?”

Choosing to ignore her question and address it later, he made sure that everything was in its rightful place on the table before making his way toward Heather. Damn, she looked cute. All bundled up in that big robe, her tiny frame buried beneath the soft terry cloth. Her eyes still held signs of fatigue from a long, hard night of fucking, and pillow creases marred her otherwise flawless complexion. Reaching for her hand, he led her over to the table.

“Sit, please.”

She did as she was instructed, placing her coffee cup next to her mimosa. Gavin unfurled the cloth napkin and draped it over her lap before tucking in her chair. Once she was set, he took his own seat.

Her eyes still held an edge of wariness to them. One he’d noticed yesterday at the restaurant but that he watched slowly dissolve as the night went on, as he worshiped her body and showed her just how sorry he was, how much he’d missed her and wanted her back.

“Dig in,” he offered, smiling wide even though butterflies the size of eagles were flying around in his belly.

She fixed him with a steely stare, not bothering to lift a fork. “Why. Are. You. Still. Here?”

Gavin took a sip of his coffee, leaning back in his chair. “I want you back.”

“Too bad. Not gonna happen.”

“Then what was last night?”

She rolled her eyes. “Belated breakup sex. But it was obviously a terrible idea if you read more into it than what it was.”

“Which was?” he prodded.

“Two people who haven’t seen each other in a while, fucking.”

He shook his head. Damn, she was feisty and so cute when riled. “It was more than that, and you know it.” He popped a piece of melon into his mouth and chewed methodically. Swallowing, he went on, “I’ve been in town for a few days. I just bought five acres on Sammamish Lake. I intend to build a house.”

Fire danced in those gorgeous brown eyes. “You’re moving here?”

“I’d like to. I want you back. Remember that last summer before I moved back east? When we spent time at Sammamish Lake in Bellevue, saw an open house and wandered in, pretending to be interesting in buying. Only instead we ate the free snacks and had sex in an upstairs closet? Then we went and had dinner and made plans about one day buying a plot of land, building a house and raising a family on the lake. I want that, Hettie. I want it all.”

She shook her head, closed her eyes and massaged her temples with her thumb and middle finger. Did she have a headache? If she wasn’t a big drinker, he would probably guess yes. She’d put away a lot of scotch last night. His little Hettie had been a tiger in bed, and Gavin figured the scotch might have helped her get there. Or at the very least put up the blinders when it came to him. He wasn’t so sure sober Hettie liked him as much as drunk Hettie did.

“Hettie, look at me.”

“I told you not to call me that,” she gritted out, not bothering to open her eyes or stop the massage.

“You’ll always be Hettie to me.”

Finally, those big eyes flashed open, but now they were filled with fury and conviction. She pushed herself up to standing, letting the cloth napkin tumble to the floor. “I am not Hettie to you anymore. You lost the right to call me that when you dumped me over the phone a week before Valentine’s Day ten years ago. Last night was obviously a huge mistake, and one I will never make again. You think one night of sex means I want you back? Means I still love you? Means I want to build a house on the lake and have a family with you?” Scoffing, she rolled her eyes again and shook her head in disgust. “You’ve got a real high opinion of yourself there, Mr. Almost-a-Billionaire.” She pointed to the door. “Get out.”

Slowly standing up and pushing out from the table, Gavin studied her. Gold flames danced in her eyes, and red dashed across her high cheekbones. But as hard as she was trying to remain strong, remain fearless, her lip trembled, and water built up in her eyes. She was a single thread, one lone brick away from snapping or crumbling. Either one would break his heart.

“Hettie,” he cooed, approaching her with extreme caution. The way one might approach a timid deer. “Let’s talk about this.”

Her lip trembled more, and a lone tear darted down her cheek. Her raised hand shook as she continued to point at the door. “Out!”

“Hettie.”

“Out!” she screamed. “You come here. Shake up my world and ask for a second chance. How dare you? I won’t give you the chance to break my heart again, Gavin McAllister. Never again.” More tears. All Gavin wanted to do was draw her into him and comfort her. Stroke her hair, whisper into her neck that he’d never break her heart again and everything was going to be okay.

All the strength she appeared to have left propelled her toward the front door.

With a hopeful heart, Gavin had gone and grabbed his overnight bag from his rental car that morning. It had a few changes of clothes, his tooth brush, shave kit, et cetera. She spied it next to the hall closet door, grabbed it, opened the door and heaved the bag out into the hallway.

“Hettie … ”

He stopped next to her, and his heart shattered from the look on her face. So fragile, yet trying to be so strong. He wanted to be her strength. Her rock. After what he’d put her through, and now just losing her father, the woman didn’t need to be strong, she needed to grieve and feel the loss. But instead she stood there, fighting the tears, fighting the chokehold her throat had on her, her whole body shaking as it warded off the sobs, glaring at him and demanding he leave her alone.

He couldn’t. He couldn’t leave her in such a vulnerable state. He wouldn’t.

He reached for her. “Hettie, I don’t want to leave you like this.”

With strength he had no idea she possessed, she grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him into the hallway, slamming the door behind him and flipping the deadbolt.

Seconds later, he heard the crying. Wracking sobs tumbled through the thick oak door and out into the hallway. He knocked on the door. “Hettie, come on, baby. Open up.”

“Go away!”

“I’m not leaving you, not like this. Not ever again.”

Her heard a slump sound and pictured her crumpling to the floor against the door. He placed his back to the door and slid down too.

“I’m right here, Hettie. I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

Silence.

“I loved you from the moment I saw you, did you know that? You had your hair in a French braid down your back, a pen behind your ear, black restaurant apron on and those adorable little red Converse shoes with the white stars. You ignored me, and I loved you harder.”

More silence.

“And the fact that you made me chase you. Made me earn your love, made me grow up and do something with my life just made me love you even more. I would never have earned that scholarship to Columbia if it wasn’t for you and your family. I owe you, your mother, your dad, I owe you guys my life.”

He paused, waiting for a sound of any kind.

He’d have heard her if she’d walked away. At least he knew she was listening.

He pressed on. “I want it all with you, Hettie: marriage, babies, the white picket fence around our house on the lake. We’ll buy a boat, teach the kids to water ski. You can continue to work if you want to, or not. The nonprofit I’m opening is going to need a lead accountant and office manager. If you want the job, it’s yours. I want what you want. I want you. I want the life we dreamed about when we were eighteen and hopelessly in love. Because I’m still hopelessly in love with you. I always have been. I was just too fucked up, too lost to realize that everything I need, everything I want, I already had.”

“Do you own G-Mac, Incorporated?” Her voice was soft and quiet, filled with strain. But at least she was talking to him.

“Yes.”

Shit. He’d hoped to keep what she was going to ask him next a secret. But she was smart, damn smart. That’s one of the things he loved most about her, that big sexy brain of hers.

“You bought the building the restaurant is in.” It wasn’t a question. She knew it to be true. She was just seeking confirmation or trying to catch him in a lie.

“Yes.” No sense lying. He’d kept tabs on her family over the years, and eventually he’d reached out to Eddie. Eddie hadn’t said anything to him about it, but Gavin found out the company that owned the building and land the restaurant was on had upped the rent, and Eddie wasn’t sure he could afford it. Upon further inquiry, the company had done that as a way to force Eddie to close so they could apply for a rezoning application and turn the plot of land into a condo-slash-multi-commercial building site, rather than just one single commercial site. So, instead, Gavin had purchased the building and plot of land with his holding company and kept Eddie’s rent as it was. Eddie had called Gavin a few months later asking if he was G-Mac, Inc. Gavin had confided in him that he was, saying he didn’t want to see the restaurant or the people who had changed his life go under or be forced to move. And now that he had the means, he was going to give back. Eddie had been upset at first, his pride bruised. But eventually he gave in and had thanked Gavin. His voice choked over the phone as he told Gavin how much he missed the boy he’d considered a son. It was that phone conversation that prompted Gavin to head to Tahiti to see Tate and really start to turn his life around.

“You broke three hearts when you ended things,” she whispered through the door. “Not just mine. My parents loved you like a son.”

A thick lump formed in the back of Gavin’s throat, and the coffee in his stomach churned and roiled until he felt ill. “I know, and I’ll never forgive myself.”

“What makes you think this time will be any different?”

“Because I’m older, wiser, and it took losing the best thing that ever happened to me for me to realize that it was the best thing, the best person, that ever happened to me. Hettie, I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you if you’ll let me. I will apologize every day if I have to.”

Noise on the other side of the door had him lurching to his feet. The box in his pocket was burning a hole through the denim, and on impulse he fell to one knee, pulled out the box and waited for the door to open.

Hoped for the door to open.

The deadbolt flipped, the knob turned. Her face appeared through the crack, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy. But when she spied him there on the floor, the ring sparkling in the light from the hallway, those eyes went saucer-size.

“Heather Luisa Maria Caterina Alvarez.” His mouth twitched. “Hettie. My Hettie. I was a moron, a jackass, a … a terrible boyfriend, a terrible person to break up with you, let alone do it the way I did. I still don’t deserve you, but I would like to be given the chance to one day deserve you. One day. If you’ll let me. I want to share my life with you. Share in your hopes and dreams, your ups and your downs. I want to be your strength, your rock, the man you turn to when you need someone to just hold you, or when you need someone to help you fight your battles. I will be your sidekick, your enforcer, your companion. I will be whatever you need me to be. If you’ll let me.” His jaw ached from how hard he’d been fighting off the tremble and his own tears. But he needed to get it all out. He needed to win her back. If he didn’t, he wasn’t sure what he’d do. “Please, Hettie. Marry me and let me spend the rest of our lives trying to be the man you deserve, the man you thought I was all those years ago. The man you loved.”

Her bottom lip quivered as she pushed the door open wider, still staring down at him with a mixed expression of shock, sadness, anger and—was that hope?

Gavin swallowed. “Will you marry me, Heather?”

A muscle ticked along her strong jaw. She wasn’t blinking. Finally, she shook her head. “No.”

Gavin’s pulse picked up and spots clouded his vision as his whole world began to quake, the earth threatening to give out from under him.

“No. I won’t marry you … right now. But,” she stepped back and brought the door with her, her other hand welcoming him inside. “But I will have breakfast with you. And will date you.”

Gavin’s eyes went wide, and he quickly scrambled to his feet and inside the apartment again.

Heather closed the door, turning to face him. “I don’t know you anymore, Gavin. And I’m not agreeing to marry someone I don’t know. But what I know so far, I like. I’d like to get to know the new Gavin McAllister, see if we have as much chemistry now as we did ten years ago.”

His chest expanded and his grin spread achingly wide across his face. He nodded. “I’d like that, too. Can I take you out tonight?”

Wiping the back of her wrist beneath her eyes, Heather walked past him to the bistro table in her small dining room. She took a seat. He followed her and did the same, hesitation in his steps. At any minute she could have second thoughts and kick his ass to the curb.

“I’d like to go out with you tonight,” she said, as she took a sip of her mimosa.

He heaved a sigh of sweet relief. “Dinner and a movie?”

“Sure.”

Holy shit! He was going on a date with Heather Alvarez. This was almost better than her agreeing to marry him. Because now, he got to woo and court and seduce her all over again. He was friends with a couple of high-profile chefs in Seattle; maybe they could go and get dinner with tableside service. The cogs were spinning at warp speed in his head with new ways he could impress and wow her.

Heather started to cut into her breakfast. “You should know, though,” she started. “I don’t put out on the first date. I made my first boyfriend wait nearly six months before we had sex. And I’ve never slept with anyone before the third date.”

Gavin smiled, feeling comfortable enough to dig into his own meal. “Poor bugger, six months, huh? You must have rocked his world, though?”

Her head was down as she ate, but a shoulder lifted and her lips tilted demurely. “He didn’t last long, just a minute or two.”

Gavin nearly choked on his oatmeal. “Shit. I bet it was because you’re just that beautiful, he couldn’t control himself.”

“Perhaps.” She lifted her head just slightly, but her eyes shifted upward and she stared at him, her gaze unwavering. “Two minutes or not, the guy was the love of my life. He hurt me, but I think I can forgive him. I think he’s changed. And last night he proved he’s not Mr. Two Minutes anymore. So, that’s a plus.”

Gavin’s chest tightened. “A huge plus. But more importantly, you think you can forgive him?”

Meeting his gaze dead-on, she lifted her champagne flute. “I think I can. To starting over? I can’t say I’ll fall in love with you quickly, or that this road will be easy, but I’d like to try.”

Love swelled inside of him as he lifted his own mimosa in the air to clink it with hers. “Take as long as you need, Hettie. I’m not going anywhere this time.”