Playing Mr. Right by Kat Cantrell

Author:Kat Cantrell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2018-06-04T19:24:33+00:00

Nine

Xavier had thought being around Sabrina again might be weird, since he’d dated her before Val had, but Laurel had taken up so much real estate beneath his skin, he forgot Val’s wife was in the room the second she stopped talking.

Honestly, he’d never been all that into Sabrina in the first place and had moved on pretty easily after she’d dumped him. Sabrina was beautiful in the same way a frozen tundra dotted with snowy trees had appeal—the farther away you viewed it from, the better. That philosophy pretty well summed up how he’d always approached relationships. Maintaining distance came naturally as he worked ninety hours a week at LeBlanc Jewelers, and it also served to ensure women didn’t get ideas about the longevity of their association with him.

He’d never thought twice about it, never missed a woman after she’d left, scarcely noticed if one never returned his calls.

Until Laurel.

She was so not his type. He’d have passed right by her as a potential lover if not for the fact that he’d been convinced she wasn’t on the square. That suspicion had fueled their interaction from day one and he’d had a devil of a time letting it go, something he attributed to lingering bitterness over the way his father had forced him to jump through hoops.

But now he wasn’t so sure. Seeing Sabrina again reminded him that he’d always kept women at arm’s length, and not just because trust had become a scarce commodity in Xavier’s world. He’d just never been that interested in diving deeper.

Until Laurel.

He had a feeling he’d be repeating that a lot over the course of the evening. Mostly because he wanted to do things differently, see how it felt to be fully engaged. To trust that things could only get better the more invested he became.

So...how did he do that?

After dinner was over, the couples moved to the casual living area off the kitchen. Laurel and Sabrina sat near each other on the long sofa near the fireplace, chatting up a storm. Val had set up camp near where Xavier stood by the double French doors leading to the covered patio that overlooked the pool. They’d been talking shop, mainly about the failing New England division under the LeBlanc Jewelers umbrella that Val had been struggling to correct. But that conversation had wound down and Xavier wasn’t putting a whole lot of effort into starting a new one because watching Laurel was far more fun.

Somehow, he had to figure out how to stop automatically creating distance between himself and a woman. After the scene in the car, when it seemed he’d melted the last of her objections, he’d kind of thought everything would fall into place. Now he wasn’t so sure.

“So,” Val said, followed by such a long pause that Xavier glanced at him expectantly. “This is a thing, then. Between you and Laurel.”

“Depends on your definition of a thing.”

Xavier took a long, pointed pull from his beer. With his mouth busy, he couldn’t say more and he didn’t intend to.

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