Page 22 of Dr. Bad Boy

“He’s pretty cute,” she says with a wink. Or maybe she's waiting for me to finish drooling.

Not as cute as his best friend, my traitorous heart whispers, because Max isn’t cute, exactly. He’s scary and intense and fiercely good-looking if we’re being specific. And the prime ministeriscute, in that boy next door kind of way. I nod. “Maybe I’ll take six of those apple walnut muffins?”

“Sounds good.” She boxes them up and I hand over a ten dollar bill. “Did you see the rock he gave his fiancée?”

I did. I shamelessly read pretty much every article about Ellie Montague. Between the two of them, I probably have a bigger crush on her, although I respect the PM and am glad I voted for him even though he didn’t have a huge amount of experience.

But his girlfriend—now his fiancée—just blows me away. She’s a graduate student at one of the universities here in Ottawa, and she seems so down-to-earth and real. And smart.

Plus she puts up with a high-profile relationship even though it’s really clear that would never be her first choice, because she’s head over heels in love. And despite my jaded post-divorce cynicism, I’m a romantic at heart.

I have to believe in true love—because I walked away from a marriage that was really just a good friendship, and then in the end, not very good at all. If true love doesn’t exist, that was one hell of a risky call.

But I’d rather be alone than settling for something just good enough. Settling for nice and safe, if lonely.

Because not once since I left Toronto and left my ex-husband have I ever felt as alone as I did inside our marriage.

I’ll never put myself through that again. True love or bust, that’s my new motto. And some serious fun in the meantime, because I’m not going to be celibate. In theory, I’m a big fan of try, try again in that search for the right guy.

That I haven’t managed to bring myself to try again since Max…well, that’s a problem. But not one that’s going to be solved today.

At least I have muffins.

“He’s lucky,” I finally say. I don’t really want to gossip about the PM’s relationship.

“I think she’s the lucky one.” The baker laughs, and just then someone else comes up, giving me an excuse to move on.

The last thing on my shopping list is chicken, so I head down to the end of the row. The butcher has a portable refrigerator in the back of his van, so he’s out in the open, past the row of pop-up tents. I stop there and give him my order.

I look back at the arena. Another guy comes out. Big guy, good-looking, but not Max. Maybe he’s already gone, if he was here.

I try not to be disappointed at that thought.

The last time I saw him, I yelled at him and kicked him out of my office. I drew some serious boundaries and stuck to them even when he pushed me.

Hoping to run into him is beyond foolish. It’s stupid.

And yet when the door swings open again and I see a familiar tall form step out, broad across the shoulders and moving with a confident stride that means so much more to me than it should…my heart leaps.

Yep. Stupid. And yet I still stand there, staring at him, hoping that he’ll feel my attention.

Then a woman comes out behind him, blonde and sporty, and she calls out to him. My heart plummets, which is equally irrational to the leap that preceded it.

He turns and stops. They talk. I go through an entire roller coaster of emotion before landing on the genius idea of hiding. So I take my groceries and dart back into the row of tents.

Of course, I’m heading away from my car, and I’ve already done this lap twice. I stop and buy some honey, just so the vendors don’t think I’m insane, then I decide to go around the back of the entire set up to get back to my car.

That’s where I run right into Max—behind the honey stall.

He stops a few feet short of me.

I keep going, because my feet aren’t listening to my brain, and when I finally skid to a halt, there are just a few inches left between our bodies. My grocery bag whacks into his hockey bag, and he steps back.

“Oh,” I say like an idiot.

“Violet.” His face tightens. He gives me an up and down look, then glances behind me.

What are you doing herewould feel like a disingenuous question when I already know he was playing hockey with the PM. And admitting that would mean I’d noticed him and sprinted in the opposite direction. So instead I say nothing, staring at him dumbly. It might lower his estimation of me as an attorney, but it still seems like the safest course of action.

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