Page 70 of Holding On To Good

Or in this case, and knowing how Willow felt about Miranda, Satan herself.

With a sigh, he headed back toward the patio.

“I hadn’t realized you and Willow were still friends after all this time,” Miranda said brightly, as if she hadn’t always hated his friendship with Willow. “Unless you two are a couple now?”

He bit back his usual—and usually quick—denial. That they were just friends and business partners. The one he always gave when asked some version of that question.

The denial he’d tried so hard to convince himself would always be true.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

Hope. It was a dangerous fucker.

“Something I can do for you, Miranda?” he asked.

Her smile remained sparkly and wide but it looked a little tense at the corners. “I wanted to thank you for stopping Josh from running out into the street.”

“You thanked me last night.”

She moved closer. Stood so close he could see the flecks of blue in her eyes. Could smell her perfume, the same light, floral scent she’d worn when they’d been a couple. “Yes, well, I wanted to do so again. Properly.”

She sounded sincere. Her expression as innocent as a baby’s, her eyes wide and guileless.

But she was touching her fingertips to her throat.

And she only did that when she was lying.

Like when they’d been sixteen and she told her parents the ski trip she was going on was girls only. And the last day of school senior year when she claimed not to know who’d parked the principal’s car in the gymnasium.

Or on his twenty-first birthday when she’d looked him in the eye and sworn there was nothing going on between her and Matt Schuster, his ex-college roommate/teammate. That she still loved Urban.

He’d known even then it was her tell, but he’d ignored it because it’d been easier to believe her. Because he’d had so many changes in his life already—his parents’ deaths, dropping out of school, taking care of his siblings—that he’d wanted at least one thing to remain the same.

He ignored it now because he just wanted her gone.

“I’m glad I was there to help,” he said, meaning it. “If there’s nothing else…”

She took a quick step toward him, her ankle wobbling before she righted herself. “I was hoping maybe we could talk. It’s been so long and so much has hap—”

“Where’s Matt?”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Matt,” he repeated. “Your husband. Does he know you’re here?”

“I left him.” Her lower lip trembled and she firmed it. “Marrying Matt… it was a mistake. It’s why I’m here. We’re starting over. Me and Josh and Alayna.”

“And you picked Mount Laurel?”

“I could hardly believe it myself,” she said, with a smile that was more rueful than sparkly. More real. “But it’s been good. Better than I thought it would be. It feels right. Like all the pieces are finally clicking into place after being scattered for so long. But it’s also made me realize how much I let go of the past ten years. We moved around so much for Matt’s career and I’ve been so busy with the kids… I didn’t even realize how many people I lost touch with, how many people I’ve missed, until I came home.” Dropping her gaze, she licked her lips then looked up at him through her eyelashes, her voice a whisper. “I’ve missed you, Urban. And I thought,” she continued, resolute and determined in only the way someone used to getting whatever she wanted could be, “we could go out. Have dinner.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said, though not unkindly.

She was going through a rough time, and no matter what had happened between them, at one point she’d meant a lot to him. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he wasn’t interested in any type of reconciliation.

“Because you’re with Willow now?”

“No,” he said and left it at that.

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