The Billionaire's Matchmaker(9)

He mouth quirked. “Do I detect a little surprise? At not being in control?”

“I can turn the tables on you so fast, your head will spin.”

He leaned back on the bench, crossed his arms over his chest, and smiled. “Oh yeah? I’d like to see you try.”

The challenge roared inside her, awakening the old Gabby. It spurred her to stand up slowly while T.J. watched the movement. Even in jeans, boots, and a thick winter coat, she knew how to shift her hips to draw his attention. His smile grew wider as she closed the distance between them, propped a hand on either side of him, and then leaned in close, a breath away. She waited until his brows arched in surprise, and his smile faltered, like in the old days when he stuttered, unnerved by her in a miniskirt or a racy suggestion. Oh, she’d show him who was in control, and maybe he’d stop trying to prove otherwise.

She brought her lips to his and whispered against his mouth. “The tables are turned, Mr. Shepherd. What are you going to do about it?”

“Turn them back in my favor.” He cupped her head and drew her closer.

“Wait? What?” Her eyes widened and she readied a protest, but it died on her lips the moment he kissed her. It was no ordinary kiss, nothing like what she might have expected out of the T.J. she used to know. No, this was a prelude to sex, a long, hot sensual kiss that slid across her lips with delicious precision, igniting a fire within her. The heat shimmied through her veins, burned deep inside her, and made her think of tangled sheets and hot nights.

His tongue teased hers and his fingers awakened the nerves in the back of her neck. Her thoughts swirled, her heart raced. The world closed in to just them, this moment, this kiss.

Too soon, T.J. drew back. Gabby took a second to catch her breath, to gather her thoughts and clear her head. She hadn’t been prepared for a kiss, especially not one from T.J. And especially not one so…hot and sweet. “What…what was that?”

“If you don’t know, maybe we should go back to sex ed class.” T.J. grinned, then swung his leg over the bench and got to his feet.

She put a hand on his chest. “Not so fast. What the hell was that?”

“A kiss, Gabby. Nothing more.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why kiss me? I mean, it’s not like we have a romantic history. We were just friends in high school, and then you…”

“Left.” He’d been waiting for this question, for the elephant to make an appearance in the room.

“Yeah. No contact, nothing for all these years. Now you pop back into my life, go on this cross-country road trip with me. Then you kiss me. What is going on, T.J.?”

He sighed, and his gaze went to some place in the distance, some place far from her. She got the feeling he was hiding something, but she wasn’t sure what. “I never meant to let our friendship die when I left, Gabby. I just needed some time away from here, away from everything that came with Chandler’s Cove.”


“Meaning your father.”

He nodded. “I needed an opportunity to see if I could make it on my own. Without his influence or his name or his demands.” T.J. released a long breath and focused his gaze on hers. “Out of all the people in the world, you are the only one who knows what he was like, what living with him was like. And I hope that means you can also understand why I just needed to…shut myself off, I guess, from all of that when I left for college.”

“And from all reminders of what used to be.”

“Yes,” he said. “And I’m sorry now that you and our friendship were caught in that.”

His cutting her out of his life had been a side effect of his determination to shed Edward Shepherd’s influence. T.J.’s father had been a beloved mayor, a successful businessman, a charity darling—in public. Behind closed doors, Edward had been a tyrant, a man who expected perfection from his family. Second place didn’t exist in Edward’s mind, and he pushed T.J. to excel in everything, to maintain a straight A average, to be the smartest, brightest, most organized student. T.J. came home at the end of every school day to a silent, pristine house where dust didn’t dare to settle. Gabby had always tried to ease that weight hanging around his shoulder, to help him forget his father’s rules and expectations. “When I was with you, it was my only chance to cut loose, to be someone else. But then I had to go back home, right into that suffocating house again. When I got to college, I wanted to see what would happen if I relied only on me. So I told my father I didn’t want his money. I’d do it on my own.”

Her brows furrowed. “How did you pay for school?”

“I got a few scholarships and paid for the rest by waiting tables. Delivering pizzas. And I started a small business on the side that did pretty good.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I got so consumed by my determination to make my own way that I let everything in my past go. Including you. I’m sorry.”

She’d heard rumblings around town that T.J. had done well after college. But she hadn’t listened. He’d cut her off; in her hurt, she’d done her best to excise him from her thought and her heart.

“That’s okay.” She shrugged as if it didn’t bother her, but it did. A lot. T.J., the one person she’d thought she could always count on, had let her down. Even though a part of her—okay, the majority of her—was attracted to this new T.J., the sensible side threw up caution flags, warning her if he had let her down once, he could do it again. He tipped her chin until she was looking at him. “It was a mistake. I didn’t realize how big of one until I saw you again. And then I knew what I had lost.”