Page 35 of The Holiday Heartbreaker

This was not the getting-to-know-Brody-McCloud hour. It was the getting-ready-to-see-her-first-patient hour.

“Okay,” he said.

That did it. She turned around to face him. “You don’t actually know me.”

“You’re right. I don’t. But I’ve made some assumptions.”

“Well, I’ve made some assumptions about you,” she said.

“Really?” he countered. “Why don’t you indulge me by telling me what those assumptions are?”

“Because I don’t care what your assumptions are about me, so why should I tell you what I think about you?”

“It’s enough to know that you think about me, Elizabeth. You don’t need to give me details.”

He was a shameless flirt. A shameless flirt who had, in all likelihood, had another woman in his bed last night, and he was acting like she was now the only woman in the world.

She wondered how many hearts he’d broken. Probably a lot of them.

At least Carter wasn’t a heartbreaker. Not systemically.

Sure, he had broken her heart one time, but then he had gotten married, and he showed no signs of breaking Ashley’s heart.

“You’re a bad bet,” she said. “Any woman would be an idiot to make it.”

“That’s why I encourage women to never bet on me. Other things, sure. But never bet on me.”

“Well. Good to know that I was right about that.”

“Definitely. You’re probably right about everything. I’m not that interesting.”

And the problem was, that was a lie. He was that interesting. She couldn’t take her eyes off him, even while she insulted him.

“You went out last night to hook up.”

“I did,” he said, his expression grave.

Her stomach churned, and she hated herself for that. She was far more familiar with jealousy than she would like.

He looked great, but not at all apologetic, and she chose to just not ask him any follow-up questions.

“Don’t you want to know how it went?” he pressed.

“I obviously don’t,” she bit out. “Or I would have asked.”

“I didn’t go home with anyone.”

“I don’t see why I would care about that.” She kept her eyes on the horses, and her heart was thundering hard at the base of her throat.

“Yeah,” he said, taking a step away from her. “I don’t know why you would either.”

And she wondered what he had thought about saying, because there had been something else. But he had thought better of it. And she should let him think better of it. She was going to allow him to think better of it.

And she ignored the crushing regret that she felt over that. Over that moment that had just passed. But this wasn’t what she was here to do. Her attraction to him was entirely inconvenient, and anyway, even if he returned it, there was nothing that she could do about it.

She lived in a tiny cabin with Benny, she wasn’t in the market for anything casual or serious. And she had a feeling that Brody was the kind of guy that didn’t do serious at all. She wasn’t experienced enough to really know that, but she sensed it.

The regret that she felt was that she couldn’t...

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