Page 63 of Mateo & Nicole

He sighed again and raked his hand down his face. “Fine.”

Daniel’s brows lifted.

“You heard about my ex, right?”

“The witch who cheated on you and left you at the altar?”

Mateo flinched. The way Daniel could say it so easily still cut. “Yeah, that one.”

“What about her?”

“You know she was Nikki’s best friend back then, right?”

“Sure, okay.” Daniel shifted in his seat as if he knew this story wasn’t going to be short and sweet.

Mateo cringed inwardly at what would come next. He rubbed the back of his neck, then forced himself to continue. “Caroline reached out to me a few weeks ago. She insisted she was going to be in town visiting a friend and wanted to reconnect.”

Daniel’s only reaction was to lift a brow.

“I ignored her, of course. I didn’t need that kind of toxicity in my life. But when I was in town one day getting flowers for Nikki…” He blew out a breath. “We bumped into each other, and she insisted she wanted to get me a coffee so she could apologize the right way.”

A groan came from his friend, and he shook his head. “Big mistake.”

Mateo shrugged. “Yeah, well, maybe I’m a glutton for punishment. She didn’t even really apologize. I told her that I didn’t want to see her, and I was happy with someone else. But she continued to try to see me. Even stopped by. I don’t even know how she figured it out, but she realized I was seeing Nikki. She sent me a picture of Nikki having lunch with some guy.”

The way Daniel was looking at him made him uneasy. It was like Daniel could already see where everything had gone wrong.

“What?” Mateo demanded.

“I can’t believe you actually sat down with her.”

“That’swhat you got from my story? Did you not hear that Nikki was having lunch with some dude? She said she was going to run some errands, and like an idiot, I agreed to babysit her kid while she went on a date.”

Daniel didn’t even flinch at his outburst. “Did she tell you why she was having lunch with that guy? What if it was a business meeting?”

Mateo’s stomach dropped.

“Or what if he was an old friend or family member who wanted to catch up?” Daniel shrugged. “You seriously expect me to believe you trust Caroline?”

“Well, no, but?—”

“And you showed Nikki the picture from Caroline?”

“Yeah, of course. I didn’t want her to think I was being paranoid. I could tell she was pulling away?—”

Daniel shifted and rested his forearm against the saddle horn. “And what did Nikki say when she saw that you’d been messaging Caroline?”

“I haven’t been messaging her!”

His friend rolled his eyes. “Okay, how did she react when she saw Caroline was messaging you?”

Mateo froze. She hadn’t said anything. In fact, there hadn’t been a lick of surprise on her face. It was almost as if she knew that Caroline had reached out to him. He groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. Then he let out a curse. “I screwed up,” he muttered.

“You sure did.”

He shot Daniel a dark look.

“But just so we’re on the same page, what exactly are you referring to?” Daniel smirked.

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