Red Hot Reunion - Bella Andre Page 0,3

fifteen pounds too much but somehow make it look good anyway?”

She grabbed another drink from a passing waiter, thinking that the only man she’d ever wanted to drive wild—Jason—would likely cut her in two with nothing but a jagged glance when he finally arrived.

Kate grabbed Emma’s hand. “You’re wonderful and sexy and Steven never deserved you.”

“So then why did I marry him? I’m the one who made the decision. Who chosehim .”

Kate cut right to it in her typically straightforward way. “You were so young. Way too young. Your parents were in love with him and you thought getting married was the right thing to do. You were so certain that you would grow to love him.”

Emma blinked away the tears that were about to fall. It was true, her parents had adored Steven from the minute they laid eyes on him at a Stanford faculty function ten years ago. As the reigning football star on the West Coast, he was perfect son-in-law material. So she’d paid the bills and gotten his suits dry-cleaned, but there had never been passion between them. Glimmers of friendship, but never desire.

“You pulled me aside before the wedding, Kate, and told me I didn’t have to go through with it. Why didn’t I listen to you? Even when you pointed out that I still loved—”

No, she couldn’t say his name out loud. Not now, when all of her perfect choices had turned out to be anything but. Not when the memory of her latest middle-of-the-night fantasy was still burning between her legs.

Kate, of course, had no such qualms. “You have wanted to be with Jason Roberts since the day you met him. You still do.”

Emma looked at Kate with surprise.

“What? You think just because you don’t ever talk about him that I don’t know how you feel?”

Emma hated how transparent she was. How even though she’d tried to deny her feelings for Jason for years they were still written all over her face.

“I need more to drink,” Emma said, craning her neck, looking over Kate’s shoulder for the cute waiter.

Emma knew that she was going to feel bloated and sick tomorrow, that she was going to have spend the entire day at the gym with nothing but lettuce and rice cakes for dinner, but she didn’t care. Booze was taking the edge off. And Lord knew she needed the edges of her life hacked off with a machete tonight.

Pathetic loser that she was, she had TiVo’d every single one of Jason’s Food Network shows, all of his book signings, anything where his name was listed as a guest.

And even though she’d fantasized about seeing him again a million times, a part of her still hoped that he wouldn’t come tonight. That he’d be too busy with his top-rated cooking show. Or his world-famous restaurant. Or one of his supermodel girlfriends.

Because then she wouldn’t have to face him. Wouldn’t have to figure out what she could possibly say, if he would even talk to her.

I always loved you.No, too pathetic.

I’m sorry.Definitely not good enough to make up for what she’d done. For how she’d done it.

Make love to me.He’d laugh in her face. Jason could have any woman in the world. Why would he

possibly want her? Even her own husband, make that ex-husband, hadn’t wanted her.

Emma was reaching for another truth-blotting drink when Kate’s red-tipped hand gripped her forearm.

“He’s here.”

Emma’s blood grew cold. She craned her neck in desperation, praying for a back door to appear out of thin air. “He can’t see me looking like this,” she hissed, desperate for a hiding place.

She had always dreamed of looking like a goddess the next time they met. Of blowing him away with her allure and sophistication and irresistibility. Instead, she was drunk and nervous and only now realized how boring and dried up she was in her silk-lined cream Ann Taylor linen dress.

Kate turned to face her. “You know what you have to do tonight, don’t you?”

Emma blinked hard and tried to swallow, tried to speak, but her mouth was the Sahara. Finally finding her voice, she whispered, “I can’t.”

Kate’s eyes hardened. “Yes, you can. You’re single. You’re gorgeous, no matter what you seem to think.

Just once, if only for tonight, take this chance for you. Stop trying to please everyone else, honey. It’s time to please yourself.”

Two

Eighteen-year-old Jason Roberts looked around at his new home for the next four years and wondered if his acceptance to Stanford University had been a big mistake. Everyone