“Who is Amy?” Lindsay asked the question from the passenger seat of Malik’s truck once they were out of the parking lot and on the way to her house.

“Here we go,” he muttered.

“No, really, who is she? Because Michelle may not have seen your face when your girlfriend called, but I sure did, and I know you know who Amy is.”

“She’s not my girlfriend. She’s someone I used to know.” She saw the hard set of his jaw beneath the beard.

“Someone whose heart you broke?”

“I don’t break hearts.” He slid a glance at her that she couldn’t read before returning his gaze to the road.

“So the hearts break themselves?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“The truth about Amy, and any other woman who might be lurking in the shadows and making an appearance at an inopportune time while we’re in the middle of promoting my damn book.”

He shot a steely, sideways glance at her. “I thought I responded very well to the call.”

He actually did do a great job of handling the irate woman, which could have derailed the interview, but Lindsay remained irritated.

She folded her arms and fell quiet for the next few miles. Her mind raced with all kinds of thoughts, and finally she couldn’t remain silent any longer. “What did you do to her?”

Malik sighed loudly. “If you recall, she said I wooed her. That’s not exactly a bad thing.”

“It is, if you’re the kind of man who loves ’em and leaves ’em. The kind who makes a woman feel good and pretends she’s everything you ever wanted, then you cheat and get another woman pregnant and move on.”

Dammit. She’d said too much.

Malik swung his head in her direction. “What? I never…”

Lindsay turned to stare out the window, kicking herself for going off on a tangent.

“I’m not that kind of man, okay? I never cheated on a girlfriend in my life.”

They drove in silence, the city lights whizzing by in a blur as they rolled down the highway.

“I guess that comment was about your ex-boyfriend?” Malik asked quietly.

At first, she didn’t want to answer and crossed her legs toward the door. But maybe because he sounded genuinely concerned or maybe because she needed to talk, Lindsay found herself replying to the question, though she kept her eyes averted to the passing nightscape.

“When Shawn told me about Melanie, I confronted her, and she claimed she didn’t know about me. Yet the few times we’ve run into each other, she always makes a point of coming over to speak, so she can rub my nose in her relationship. I hate her and her perfect little family.”

One hand tightened with the regret of mistakes she’d made in the past. When she and Shawn worked together at the agency his family owned, he’d been charming and she’d fallen in love with him. Hard. Because he’d treated her well, different from other men.

She knew what it was like to be the fun girl. The one men wanted to party with and hook up with but would never take seriously. Never put a ring on her finger. That was saved for the nice girls. In exchange for the care Shawn took with her, she’d been the best girlfriend she could be. But while she’d been with him in a monogamous relationship, he’d cheated on her with Melanie.

She glanced at Malik. In the dark vehicle, she saw pity in his eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that!” Lindsay snapped. “I’m not a charity case. I don’t need marriage, and I bought my own ring.” She wiggled her fingers, showing off the diamond before turning to stare out the window again.

Neither of them spoke the rest of the way. When Malik parked in front of her townhouse, Lindsay pushed open the door and hopped onto the street.

“Lindsay—”

She cut him off with a slam of the door and stalked around the front of the truck where she encountered his solid frame. “Make sure you have a good answer for when your other women come around, Mr. I-Don’t-Date-Much.”

“There won’t be any other women. Amy was a long time ago and is holding a grudge for some reason.”

“Maybe if you weren’t so charming.” She flashed a tight smile. “Goodnight.” She marched around him.

“What is your problem?”

She faced him again, hands on her hips. “I don’t have a problem.”

“You definitely have a problem. You can’t even reason correctly because you’re upset about the wrong issue.”

“Excuse me?” She glared at him.

“Don’t take out your anger about your ex on me, and don’t take out your anger at him on his wife.”

“You don’t even know her and you’re defending her?”

“I don’t have to know her to know you’re wrong about your perception of the chance meetings you’ve had with her. What exactly about Melanie makes you think she’s trying to rub your nose in her relationship with your ex?”

“Because it’s obvious. Every time she sees me she talks to me.”

“That’s it?”

“Isn’t that enough to prove she’s an evil witch? Why would she insist on talking to me? She won. I lost. She loves the fact that she got Shawn. “

“Or maybe that’s your imagination.”

“Oh, please. How can you possibly be an expert on someone you met once?” Lindsay tapped her foot in aggravation against the sidewalk.

“I’m not an expert on Melanie, but I’m reading the situation differently than you. What if she really didn’t know?”

“Didn’t know what?”

“Didn’t know about you,” Malik replied, as if the answer were obvious.

Lindsay snorted. “Right.”

“I’m serious. Wouldn’t that explain why she’s always been friendly?”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Shawn said he told her we were in a relationship, but she came onto him anyway. She seduced him. He told me what happened after we broke up.”

“So he claims he told her about you, but he for sure told you about her after she got pregnant?”

Lindsay pulled up short. “You’re reading the situation wrong.” She saw where the conversation was headed and didn’t want to go there. She’d known, on an instinctual level, that Shawn hadn’t been completely honest with her, but she’d ignored the signs, and she’d been furious with herself for doing so. Furious for ignoring the instincts she advised her listeners to trust.

“Am I? You didn’t know he was sleeping with her, so isn’t it possible she didn’t know he was sleeping with you, until you confronted her?”

“That’s not what happened.”

Malik ran a hand down the back of his head. “Look, I’m not trying to be mean, okay? But that’s classic cheater behavior. You probably messed up his whole game when you confronted her, and he had a lot of smoothing over to do. Cheaters never tell the truth to the woman they don’t want to risk losing.”

She stiffened as pain lanced through her. “God, you’re a dick.”

“Your ex is a dick. He used you for his own purposes, strung you along, and then dumped you when he was finished and had the woman that he really wanted to be with.”

Lindsay shoved his chest, but he didn’t move. She simply encountered solid muscle as firm as a brick wall. “Shut up. I don’t want to hear this.”

“You don’t want to hear the truth? Because that’s what I’m giving you. You do all this talking about dating and sex, but what do you really understand about any of it? You had blinders on when it came to your own relationship. How are you qualified to give anybody advice when you don’t know the basics?”

“I. Know. Plenty. I’m a woman. I know how women think, and I know what they feel.”

“And that makes you an expert?”

“It makes me someone with first-hand experience who can share my thoughts in a cohesive and coherent way. I make women feel better about themselves. You wouldn’t believe the number of letters I get from women thanking me for helping them. How dare you question me and what I do. How dare you!”

“How dare you pedal your shit, your bullshit, when you know good and well your own life is a mess. Isn’t that the reason I’m here, Lindsay? You talk a good game about giving advice, but you don’t have a man of your own.”

That stung. Those words were brutal, and the expression on his face hinted that he knew he’d gone too far.

“Don’t you ever talk to me like that again,” Lindsay said in a quiet voice. “I know what my truth is. I don’t have to justify my behavior to anybody. Certainly not to some wannabe artist who hides out in the country because he probably can’t fuck.”

Malik lowered his voice, narrowing his eyes on her. “Oh come on, Lindsay, you know that’s not true. You’ve been wanting me to get between those pretty thighs since we first met three years ago.”

Her nipples quivered at the heated anger in his face. She’d fantasized way too often about that same face between her legs, his beard rubbing the bare skin of her pubes. Her very bones ached with anticipation.

“And you’ve been wanting to get between these thighs ever since then,” she shot back.

Malik’s nostrils flared, and his gaze flicked from her face to her thighs and back again. “Yeah, I have.”

The admission temporarily threw her off balance. Electricity hovered between them, like a current on steroids.

“Maybe we should do what we both want to do,” he added, his voice going distinctly lower.