It Must Be Your Love (The Sullivans #11)(16)

Splaying her hands on his chest, instead of gripping his shirt to pull him closer the way she had with Ford, she firmly pushed him back.

“You’re great, James,” she said in a gentle voice, “and I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but—”

“We were just getting warmed up, Mia. Let me kiss you again.”

God, this date with James should have been so hot. But nothing about being with him felt right. Not his arms around her. Not his mouth on hers. Not even the way he looked at her, like he was hoping she would let him inside her head and heart, instead of already knowing all of her deepest secrets before she said so much as a word.

It took no effort whatsoever to say, “I’m sorry, but I can’t,” and slide completely out of his arms. Not the way it had nearly killed her to walk away from Ford this morning after one kiss.

Especially when one kiss from Ford had never, ever been enough...

It figured that one of Ford’s hits would start playing right then. No matter how hard she tried, how was she ever going to get away from her memories of him?

“It’s someone else, isn’t it?”

James’s question pulled her back to the bar, making her notice the way the edge of the wooden stool was digging into her hip and the sounds of flirting and laughter all around them.

She tried to shake her head, tried to deny it, but before she could pull that off, James said, “If you ever get over him, give me a call.”

She could see the regret in James’s eyes before he put a twenty on the table, slipped his jacket on, and headed for the door. A half-dozen single girls in the bar watched him go, and when they looked back and saw Mia sitting alone in the booth, she could read the clear question in their eyes. How could you have screwed that up?

Mia pulled out her phone and texted her two best friends: EMERGENCY DRINKS NEEDED @ K WINE BAR.

Chapter Seven

Colbie Michaels and Brooke Jansen walked into the cocktail bar just seconds apart, and when they found Mia sitting in the back booth, they both immediately said, “What’s wrong?”

Mia barely stopped herself from dropping her head into her hands as they slid in on either side of her. “I got a call yesterday from a lawyer about an anonymous client who wanted to buy a ten-million-dollar house on the waterfront.” She could see from her friends’ expressions that they thought that was as strange as she had, but they didn’t interrupt. “Right away I knew something had to be up. I mean, what reasons could a super-rich guy have for needing to remain anonymous with his Realtor? But against my better judgment, I decided to set up a few showings for today.”

She picked up the new drink she’d ordered after James left and downed it in one gulp, though she already knew it wouldn’t do a darn thing to help her forget Ford...or the fact that she could still feel his lips on hers.

“When I got to the first house this morning, Ford Vincent was waiting for me.”

“Oh. My. God.” Brooke’s eyes were huge. “You’re working with Ford Vincent?”

“He is so sexy,” Colbie said, fanning herself. “Back before I met Noah, I actually used to fantasize that—”

“We slept together five years ago.”

The way both Brooke’s and Colbie’s mouths fell open would have been comical if Mia had been anywhere close to laughing.

“You slept with Ford Vincent?” Colbie asked in a shocked whisper.

“Oh. My. God,” was all Brooke could manage again. Until she had to find out, “How was it?”

Mia put her drink to her lips before realizing with dismay that she’d already emptied it. Slamming the glass down on the table so hard the stem likely got a hairline crack, she admitted, “Amazing.”

Oh hell, now that she’d started, she might as well tell them everything.

“Sleeping with Ford was the best sex you can possibly imagine. Being with him was so good it should have taken me hours to recover from each round, but before I could he’d start in on me all over again, and the next thing I knew a week had passed and I’d barely done anything but Ford the whole time.”

“I knew it would be like that with him,” Colbie said, but her elation at so accurately predicting Ford’s sexual prowess from a distance was short-lived as she realized something. “Why the heck didn’t you tell me?”

Mia felt terrible about it. Clearly, sleeping with one of the biggest rock stars in the world was a whopper of an omission between best friends. Colbie and Mia had been inseparable since they were in kindergarten. Colbie had told Mia about every guy she’d ever been with before her friend had fallen in love with Noah Bryant earlier that year, and Mia had told Colbie about every guy she’d been with, too...except for the one who had mattered most.

But before Mia could begin to explain why she’d kept it to herself, Brooke asked, “And why did you stop sleeping with him?”

Thank God, the cocktail waitress automatically brought over their regular drink orders just then. Needing to get another fortifying sip under her belt before answering, she put her new glass down more carefully. “At first, I didn’t tell you because it all happened so fast. We met at one of his shows, and it seemed like he was the guy I’d been waiting for my whole life. You should have heard the poetry he spouted between our sex sessions, the way he swore I was everything he wanted, too. He had a week off between gigs, and I called in to the office to claim some last-second vacation time I’d accrued so that I could spend every single second of it with him. I should have called you, Colbie, because then you would have had a chance to call me on my crazy.” Mia shook her head. “Which is exactly why I think I didn’t say anything to you or anyone in my family—because I didn’t want anyone to pop the fantasy bubble I was living in. God, I was so stupid!”