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Authors: Alexandrea Weis

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“Divorced.”

“Have you got any kids?”

She took a
wary step back from him. “No. Never found the time.”

“Are you still living in New Orleans?”

Her lips twisted into a devastating grin. “You know I’ll never leave my hometown. I love it there.”

Tyler
cleared a nervous lump from his throat. “Last time we spoke, you were returning home to care for your mother. You said she was quite ill. Did she recover?”

“No,
ah….” Her grin retreated. “She died a year later.”

“I’m so sorry, Moe.
” He wanted to kick himself for upsetting her. “What about your dad?”

“He’s in Florida, enjoying his retirement with my stepmother, Meredith.” Monique se
arched his eyes. “Did you ever go and work for your stepfather?”

He proudly held his head up.
“I run Propel Oil and Gas. Gary retired a few years ago and left me as CEO of the company.”

“That’s really great, Ty. I know how hard you tried to prove to your stepfather that you were responsible.”
She touched the hint of gray hair along the edge of his left temple. “I like the gray. It makes you look…sophisticated.”

He chuckled as a flare of desire sparked in his belly. “It makes me look old, is what you mean to say.”

“You’ll never be old, Ty. Not to me.” She glanced over her shoulder to a booth in the corner where the sharp eyes of Chris Donovan were avidly taking in their every word. “I should get back,” she whispered.

Tyler nodded to the booth. “So you’re his client?”

“You know Chris?”

“We just met at the bar, but he never told me he was your manager.”

“I have to go.” She brushed the wisp of bangs from her eyes. “It was great to see you, Ty.” She abruptly headed to her booth.

His heart
plummeted to his knees as memories of a similar encounter twenty-one years prior flooded his mind. It was the last time he had seen her.

It had been raining in Dallas that spring day. Monique had met him outside of her dorm on S
outhern Methodist University campus. She had told him she was heading back to New Orleans to care for her sick mother. He had wanted her to stay, but he never found the courage to say the words. Instead, Tyler let her walk away in the rain, and for years he had regretted that decision. He never saw her again…until today.

Picking
up his glass of orange juice, he quickly downed the contents. God, he needed a drink. The forgotten impulse took him over, becoming almost overpowering. It had been so long since he had entertained the concept of alcohol that the sensation jarred his usually unflappable confidence.

“You want another orange juice, Mr. Moore?” Mike’s mellow voice
broke in from across the bar.

Shaken, Tyler
turned to him. “No thanks, Mike. I think I’ll get a bite to eat in the restaurant.”

“You’re not meeting your client?”

Tyler eyed Monique’s booth. “No. It looks like my plans have changed.”

Chapter 2

 

Hadley was waiting at a walnut table in a dark corner of The Gallery Restaurant. The sight of the empty gold-toned, plush chair across from her almost made Tyler turn from the restaurant and run. Grudgingly, he
trudged across the dining room to her table.

After
he had settled in his chair, Hadley’s obnoxious brown eyes were all over him. “Are you going to tell me about her?”

Tyler
arranged his long legs beneath the square table. “There is nothing to tell, Hadley.”

“Bullshit!” Her voice carried to a few of the crowded tables close by. “I saw the way you
looked at her. No one ever wipes that cocky grin off your face, but she did.”

He re
moved the napkin shaped like a cone on the plate before him. Shaking it out, he then casually laid it across his lap. “You’re exaggerating, as usual.”

“Am I?”
An amused titter escaped her lips. “She wasn’t one of your usual bimbos. Tell me, did she come before your sobriety or after?”  

“I met Moe before I gave up alcohol,” he
clarified, not hiding the aggravation in his voice.

“And you still remember who she was?” Hadley feigned a sarcastic look of shock by letting her jaw drop. “Wow, I find that hard to believe. From what I know about your life before sobriety, you couldn’t remember your own name, let alone anyone else’s.”

A busboy in a white tunic came to the table and filled their water goblets. Tyler’s eyes drifted to the tables nearby and the assorted groups of women daintily picking at their large plates of food. The air was heavy with the sickening smell of overly sweet perfume blended with the hearty aroma of broiled steak.

When
the busboy left their table, Hadley leaned in closer. “She said you met at SMU.” Hadley’s brown eyes narrowed with doubt. “You never went to SMU.”

He sat back in his chair and adjusted his jacket. “Moe went to SMU. I met her at a party one night and we became friends.”

“Friends? Lovers, you mean,” Hadley snorted. “You don’t have friendships with women, Tyler.”

He
snapped up his water goblet as that awful yearning for a drink returned. “It was never like that with Moe. She was a real friend, in every sense of the word.”

Hadley’s perfectly tweezed eyebrows went up. “You never slept with her? Do you honestly expect me to buy that?” She waved her hand over his figure. “You sleep with every woman you meet.”

He took a sip of water. “Not Moe. She was different.”

Hadley sat back in her chair and folded her arms over her chest as her eyes registered with understanding. “I never thought I’d live to see the day when you were bothered by any woman. But this woman bothers you, doesn’t she?”

He avoided her intrusive stare. Tyler could not let Hadley know just how disturbed he was by seeing Monique again. “She doesn’t bother me. I’m just a bit put off by her success. I never thought she would become a romance writer. She always set loftier goals for herself.”

Hadley shook her head. “That you even remember that she had loftier goals astounds me. You never listened to me when I talked about my goals.”  

“You never had any goals, Hadley, except to marry a man who could afford to keep you.” He set his water goblet on the table. “Unfortunately, I was the third husband who tried and invariably failed to keep you from screwing around.”

“Oh, do I detect a hint of remorse in your voice, Tyler?” She leered at him. “Who’s to say you couldn’t keep me happy in the future? We’ll never know unless we try again.”

He shifted his focus to the dining room. “I don’t want to try again, Hadley. We’ve beaten this dead horse about as far as it will go.”

As
he explored the entrance to the restaurant, Monique walked in on the arm of Chris Donovan. He thought Donovan’s hold on her tiny waist was too familiar and the way she gazed into the arrogant man’s face made Tyler want to set out across the restaurant and beat the living shit out of him.

“Tyler?” Hadley called across the table. “Are you listening to me?”

But Tyler never turned away from Monique. He reveled in the slight curl of her hair, the way the dim light in the restaurant glistened in her gray eyes. How the fit of her black slacks hugged her narrow hips, and how her cream-colored shirt clung to her small breasts. Monique’s appeal for Tyler had never been about her looks. He was mesmerized as she tilted her head back and laughed at something Donovan had said. Tyler could not hear her, but he remembered the tinkling sound of her mirth in his head. He had dreamed of her adorable giggle for years and how every time she laughed, her eyes would disappear behind her smile.

When Monique and her overbearing manager
began walking toward their table, Tyler was overcome by a compulsion to leave the crowded restaurant. He immediately stood from his chair.

“What are you doing?” Hadley
pestered.


Getting out of here.” He threw his napkin on his plate. “I’m suddenly not very hungry.”

As
Hadley curiously looked him over, Tyler knew he had to give her some excuse; otherwise she would hound him about his behavior. Despite her aversion to grasp anything intellectual, his soon-to-be ex-wife was capable of remembering every detail about people, places, and events. Though she invariably chose to use that ability selectively when it proved to be beneficial to her, she was also capable of inflicting a great deal of harm with it; harm that could still be detrimental to his business affairs.

H
e took in Hadley’s voluptuous figure and something stirred within him. He wanted—no, needed—to forget about Monique. As far as Tyler was concerned, there was only one way to forget about anything.

“Let’s go back to my suite
.”

Hadley’s face brightened. “What did you have in mind?”

He did not give her an answer, but marched toward the restaurant entrance. When he reached the teak and gold elevators in the hotel lobby, he punched the call button and kept his eyes on the doors. He never acknowledged Hadley when she rubbed up against him and placed her arm through his. 

As they stood waiting for the elevator, Tyler kept thinking about Monique. How her hair had
shimmered, the light in her eyes, and all the things that had haunted him about her through the years. His hands curled into fists as his longing for her consumed him. Hadley tugged on his arm and for an instant he wished it was Monique he was taking back to his room. But that would never happen, and at that moment anyone would suffice. He just needed to forget, and the woman he wrapped his arms about did not matter; all that mattered was that for a few blissful minutes his mind would stop hurtling back to the past, and Monique’s charming face would be as blurry as all the rest.

After the elevator came to a stop on the twelfth floor, Tyler
darted from the car, leaving Hadley to hurry behind on her pointy high heels. He stopped before his suite door and pulled the white key-card from his jacket pocket. Without looking over at his wife, he swiped the card through the lock, and when the small light on the door handle blinked green, he turned the doorknob.

The stale smell of re-circulated air hit hi
m as Tyler moved through the compact entranceway. His eyes swept over the gold carpet, textured gold wallpaper, and plush gold sofa and chairs in the living room. In the bedroom, he spied his black suitcase and overnight bag waiting by the king-sized bed. Seeking a distraction, he went to the wide windows of his Ritz-Carlton suite to view the Dallas skyline.


This is very nice.” Hadley dumped her Louis Vuitton handbag onto a mahogany coffee table. “I can see why you prefer to stay here all the time.”

Tyler
tuned out Hadley’s words as he marveled at the evening sky with its hues of gold, red, and orange. He closed his eyes and an image of Monique standing next to him in the downstairs bar flickered across his mind.

“Maybe I should get a suite here,” Hadley proposed
, easing away from the window.

As if just remembering she was there, Tyler followed her figure as she
progressed deeper into the suite. “Take off that dress.”

Surprised by his command, Hadley raised her eyebrows questioningly. “What, no famous Tyler Moore seduction? No champagne, strawberries, luxurious
massage? When we were dating you used to pull out all the stops.”

“Now that we’re getting divorced, I figured I could do away with the pretense.” He removed his jacket and headed toward the wide master bedroom off to the side of the living area. “You want romance, Hadley, go screw one of your boyfriends,” he
added over his shoulder.

She slowly made her way into the bedroom and as she kicked off her high heels,
Hadley turned to the open private bath and in-mirror bathroom television. “I should have one of those installed in my bathroom.”

Taylor came up to her as he pulled the gray tie from about his neck. He hastily lowered the zipper
on the back of her green dress. “Don’t talk, Hadley,” he instructed as he slid the dress from her body.

When the flimsy fabric hit the warm gold carpet, her hands went to the
fly of his pants. “Do you want me to be meek and mild? You always liked me that way in bed.”

He unclasped her bra and let it drop from his hands. His mouth covered hers more out of a need to keep her quiet than a desire to taste her lips. When his
tongue tempted her, Hadley hungrily opened her mouth wider.

A ripple of disappointment curdled
in his gut. There was no excitement, no temptation, and no desire here. It was just mindless sex. The same kind he felt like he had been having for years with a bunch of different woman. Why had he never noticed before how empty their kisses had been?

Hadley’s hands went to work undoing the buttons on his shirt as he backed her onto the king-sized bed. When he moved his lips down her neck to her right breast,
she squirmed with excitement.

“Let me get on top,” she mumbled, running her hands through his thick, black hair.

BOOK: Cover to Covers
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