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  “That kind of dirty talk has no place in our friendship,” Stuart said. “I’m gay. You’re straight. Stop hitting on me.”

  Crosby let out a scream of a laugh. Stuart flagged down the cocktail waitress circling the tables.

  While the thump of the techno music reverberated the floor, Maxine slipped into the background letting the din of the club wash over her, content to watch the other three tease each other. She felt a weight of sympathy for Rose, probably bent over a desk in her small cubicle, staring blurry eyed at the computer. The truth was, out of all her siblings, Rose was the one who seemed to understand she needed time after she and Johnny broke everything off.

  Johnny.

  Maxine opened her clutch and looked at her phone. She’d actually gone fifty-five minutes without thinking about him. That was a record. But now, of course he was all she could think about. Did he think about her? Did he miss having coffee in bed on Sunday mornings while she read the comics and he did the crossword—he always used a pen, never a pencil. She loved that confidence about him. In fact, she still had the last puzzle he’d done.

  The familiar stone lodged itself in her heart. She loved Johnny. She still loved Johnny. They had been together for four years.

  Four years!

  Four years of sharing and dreaming. Four years of walking through Umbra making imaginary purchases for their future home. Four years of waiting in the arrivals at the airport every time he came home—she was always there to meet him.

  And four years of walks in the park when they would make spontaneous plans, like the time they decided to adopt a rescue dog…except neither one of them filled out the forms.

  Four years.

  The burden of all that time was too much for Maxine to ignore. She simply refused to accept all that time, all that work with Johnny was for nothing.

  She believed love was something that just didn’t happen, it was something you worked for—like luck or even fate. And Johnny was her fate.

  A cool glass was placed in her hands.

  “A mojito with extra mint leaves for the cougar,” Stuart teased. Then he nodded toward a group of guys even younger than he and Westley. “Crosby tells me you’re in the market for meaningless sex. I think delta-gamma-go-all-night over there is a good start. Might as well go for the sure thing.” He squinted across the room, then added, “Or sure things if you’re feeling adventurous.”

  Over Stuart’s shoulder, Maxine saw a slim man with a crewcut walking through the crowd, a pint of beer in one hand. “Oh God!” She panicked. It was the divorced high school teacher with a phobia for dentists.

  She spied the neon sign for the washrooms, then grabbed her clutch, and quickly left the table. Stuart called out something, but the music was so loud it drowned out his words.

  With her head down and still holding her mojito, she careened around bodies staring at their shoes. It was depressing enough to still be miserable over your ex-fiancé, but then to see the guy who dumped you with one glance while you’re trying to distract yourself from being miserable over your ex-fiancé, was a whole new level of hell.

  How much could one woman take?

  Stupid Crosby and her stupid project rebound sex! Maxine wished she’d stayed home, cozy under the covers snacking on Twinkies and watching Alexis Colby strut around town to her heart’s desire, asking for whatever she wanted, especially men.

  She made it around the final corner then hit a wall. “Ow!” Maxine cried out and nearly fell backward. Her drink spilled down the front of her dress. The glass landed on her foot, sending a shooting pain up her leg. A pair of strong hands grabbed her elbows and kept her from stumbling. She found herself staring at the Nike logo on a t-shirt. Even through the cotton, she could see the outline of a muscular chest.

  “Whoa! Mademoiselle, slow down.” The voice had a French accent.

  Maxine looked up—way up—something she was not used to doing. The guy must have been six-foot-five. She stepped back and took in the whole package. Lumberjack came to mind, but instead of a plaid shirt and bushy beard, this guy was clean faced with a hint of stubble. The ball cap was pushed low on his head; ACE Towing was printed across the front in bright yellow. It wasn’t a wall she’d run into, it was this towering man.

  “Est-ce que ça va?” he asked, bending down closer to her ear.

  “Excuse me?”

  His look of concern melted into a wide-eyed stare. “Belle rousse?” he said.

  “Bathrooms?” Maxine shouted up at him. “They’re down the hall.”

  He gave her a mischievous grin. “Are you okay?” His gaze wandered her face, then lowered and fixated on her chest.

  She looked down and saw her green dress was stained, and the extra mint leaves from her drink had settled in between her ample breasts like some kind of cleavage dam. A wave of mortified embarrassment collapsed over her. And in addition to everything else, the outfit was ruined. Carmine would be so upset. “It’s vintage Dior,” she said, her voice crumbling a bit.

  A complicated series of frowns played across his features. “I can pay for dry cleaning,” he offered. There was a pause, then he added, “Ms. Dior.”

  “No,” she said, trying to discretely pick mint leaves from her cleavage. “I meant the dress, it’s—” her sentence ended abruptly. To her horror, the divorced high school teacher was making his way closer. Maxine looked up at the handsome stranger, the only thing between her and certain humiliation.

  “Pardonnez moi, Ms. Dior,” he started. “The park, do you—”

  “Hide me!” Maxine blurted out.

  He frowned back at her, not understanding.

  The crew cut was about to pass them, he was only seconds away from seeing Maxine in her stained dress, her breasts covered in food.

  She panicked. What would Alexis Colby do?

  “Est-ce que—”

  Maxine never heard the rest of his question. His words disappeared against her lips as she grabbed him by the t-shirt and pulled him to her, pressing them both against the wall.

  She breathed in a spicy scent, and his stubble grazed her chin. Shocked by her own actions, Maxine stayed locked in the embrace. The kiss was chaste, but as the seconds passed with neither one moving from the other, the moment changed, becoming heavier, more charged.

  She was all too aware of the warmth of his lips, the pressure of his mouth against hers. Then he leaned back. His surprised expression matched her sputtering pulse. “Merci, Ms. Dior,” he said.

  Maxine blinked a few times, her footing felt wrong, like the floor was tipping. “I…uh,” she started. “Sorry about that. I must have slipped.”

  His gaze darted over Maxine’s shoulder to the dance floor. His eyes focused on something in the distance, then he turned back to her. “S’il vous plait, je vais revenir.”

  Standing against the wall in a daze, Maxine watched his broad form cut a path through the crowded bar. What the hell had she just done? Maybe he was going to tell a bouncer about her. She could imagine the conversation. “There’s a large woman in an old tight dress grabbing guys by the bathroom.”

  “No problem, sir, we’ll have her contained immediately. Grab the tranquilizer gun!”

  Snickering to her left snapped her back to attention. Two girls who looked barely old enough to drink were standing in skintight dresses with their heads together laughing behind manicured nails, cutting glances across the way. Maxine stood wearing her stained vintage Dior that now seemed musty and antique.

  Expecting to be tossed for violating hot lumberjacks, Maxine rushed to the closest exit, not even bothering to get her coat. The sharp winter air almost took her breath away.

  The cabbie didn’t even bat an eye when she barreled into the backseat, stammering her address. She began to rummage through her small clutch. Her phone had two unanswered messages from Crosby. Maxine shut off her phone; there was no emoticon to describe this situation. You know those creepy groping guys Rose always warns us about? Hey, I’m one of them!

  M
axine decided to wait and call Crosby with a story about getting cramps or something just as lame.

  The cabbie beeped his horn and swore at the traffic, unable to pull into the lane.

  “I have no place I need to be,” Maxine said, picturing her bed and laptop. She thought back to the kiss with the stranger and how foolish she must have seemed to him. “Alexis Colby never looks like a fool,” she whispered to herself. “She would have kissed him again—no that’s not right. She would have slapped him first, then kissed him back hard, and then left him wanting more.”

  The cab driver narrowed his gaze at her in the rearview mirror.

  “Wouldn’t it be great if life was like 80’s TV?” Maxine asked him. “Everyone was in shoulder pads and size double zero didn’t exist.”

  He shrugged then turned up the radio.

  Maxine hugged her elbows. The traffic lights reflected off her fingernails.

  One Knight Stand.

  She said to the driver, “If I can’t trust my makeup, what the hell am I going to do?”

  He shrugged again, not bothering to look in the rearview mirror.

  A sharp blast of frigid air ripped through the backseat. A massive upper body wrapped in a thin cortex jacket jumped in the backseat. Before the cabbie could protest, Maxine turned and was face to face with an ACE Towing ball cap.

  Chapter Four

  “Ms. Dior,” he said, out of breath. A flood of compliments tumbled through his brain in three different languages, but instead of finding the right words, the translations wouldn’t click and he ended up staring at her.

  The driver turned around in his seat. “Hey, buddy. Are you blind? This cab is taken. Get out!” He picked up his cell phone from the seat beside him.

  “It’s okay,” the woman interrupted, leaning forward. “He’s with me.”

  The cell phone was half way to the driver’s ear, he glanced between Antony and the woman. Then his gaze lowered. Antony could tell he was memorizing the woman’s cleavage, there was still a few mint leaves tucked there.

  Antony moved forward, blocking the view, his jaw set in place. His shoulders dwarfed the cabbie’s slight frame. “Like the lady said, I’m with her.” Then he pointed straight ahead. “A fast trip would be appreciated, s’il vous plait.”

  Cowering and suddenly pale, the driver pulled into traffic. A horn blared from behind.

  The rush of Antony’s anger dissipated as they traveled several blocks in silence. He snuck a look at the redhead and caught her staring at him. He smiled as she looked away, his pulse kicking up a pace.

  “You still have bit of…” he whispered, nodding to her cleavage.

  She sat taller, trying to straighten her dress. “I prefer my mint body temperature,” she said, plucking a green leaf from between her breasts and placing it on her tongue. “A girl never knows when she’s going to need fresh breath.” Despite the coquettish style, he noticed a quiver in her voice.

  The memory of the kiss she’d hastily stole in the club—or rather the moment when the kiss changed, replayed in his mind. There had been a definite pause, a small lapse in which she’d softened against him. And when Antony tasted her lips, a ripple of heat flowed across his skin, and he was certain she’d felt it too.

  Then he’d spied the managers and tried to catch them, but by the time he made it to the sidewalk, they had a town car waiting for them and slipped away effortlessly. And when he turned to go back into the club, she ran out, practically stumbling into the nearest cab. Before he knew what he was doing, Antony disregarded his own rules and pursued her—his mysterious belle rousse.

  “Look,” she began, careful to keep her voice low. “If this is about earlier, I’m sorry about, um…grabbing you at the club.”

  “But not sorry for running away?” Antony gave her his best smoldering grin.

  She looked surprised, her mouth dropped open to a perfectly shaped ‘O’ and he found it unbelievably sexy. “Run away? From you?”

  The cab driver swore loudly as he blasted the horn. Antony’s side mashed up against the door as the car moved violently to the left.

  “Oh!” The redhead tumbled into his arms. She clutched his jacket, practically curling herself into his chest.

  The cabbie hit the gas and cursed under his breath. He muttered a few more insults then the drive began to smooth out again.

  Once the panic was over, Antony felt her grip loosen on his jacket. “Ça fait plaisir de te revoir, Ms. Dior?” he asked.

  “I bet that’s what you tell all the girls,” she said. “I get it, you’re French.” Antony noticed there was a sassy edge to her tone.

  “And Greek,” he grinned.

  “Sounds like a lethal combination.”

  Antony watched the blush creep up her neck, highlighting her cheeks. He felt the smile take over his face. She had a certain awkward charm that completely surprised him. Of all the clubs in Toronto, he pondered, mesmerized at the odds of bumping into her again so soon.

  “And still, you ran,” he said, leaning closer. “Why?”

  He felt her heavy stare as she took in his face. But it wasn’t like most people when they’re trying to figure out why he looked familiar, and not like the women who lined up outside the dressing room. This stare was different, like she was sad, almost.

  She said, “I wanted to be the one to leave first, I suppose.” Then she turned to the window, rubbing her arms against the cold.

  A deadening sensation of failure overtook Antony. He’d missed the managers and somehow succeeded in depressing his mystery crush. Tonight had been an epic failure on all fronts. He could only imagine what kind of deal had been struck—what turn his future had taken. A turn he’d been unable to interrupt tonight. He slumped in the seat.

  The excitement of the last half hour had been all spent and now they were stuck in no man’s land. The woman started shivering. He slouched off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. She stayed perfectly still, letting him untuck a thick wave of red hair from the collar.

  “What did you say to me?” she asked, her voice no longer flirtatious, but instead careful, hesitant. “In the club, just before you left, je ran ear or something?”

  His hands were still on the collar of his jacket. His fingers trailed down the sleeves, stopping shy of her hands. “Je vais revenir,” he repeated. “It means, I’ll come back.”

  “I never suspected that,” she said. “I didn’t stay.”

  “I know.”

  They locked gazes and everything seemed to hinge on a held breath. He replayed the scene in the bar. Why had she pulled him into that kiss?

  He thought the ball cap had been enough of a disguise—no one else knew who he was. It’s like she had to kiss him.

  Except now, he wanted to kiss her. And now that he was thinking of kissing her, he couldn’t un-think it. An invisible pull kept his eyes trained on hers.

  The blare of the cab’s horn made him jump. The woman blinked a few times as if coming out of her own trance. She was so close he could smell the mint; a few leaves were still stuck on her chest.

  “This your stop, right?” the cabbie said, some of the docility of earlier had worn off.

  She turned to the window. “Yes, this is me.” Then she looked back at Antony.

  He suppressed the urge to take her by the shoulders and kiss her again—kiss her for real this time.

  Her eyes drifted to the meter.

  Antony wanted to smack himself in the forehead. “I’m klutz,” he said, raising a hip and pulling out his wallet from his back pocket.

  “That’s okay,” she opened her purse, but Antony had already handed the driver a fifty-dollar bill. “Thank you,” she said as she started to shrug out of the jacket.

  “Non.” He put a hand on the shoulder, keeping it in place. “Keep it. You’ll freeze outside.”

  The lingering staring contest ensued.

  The cabbie cleared his throat. “One stop, right? You guys still together or what?”

  She dr
opped her chin. “I guess this is goodnight,” she whispered. Then her gaze traveled up his chest, lingered on his mouth, and then finally met his eyes. “Unless…”

  Antony felt time slow down again. “Oui?”

  “Unless you want to come up.”

  Chapter Five

  Only when Maxine closed the door behind her and the two of them stood apart, wavering slightly like bottles bobbing in the ocean, did the full scenario hit her. She’d just invited a stranger into her apartment—a man.

  Her brain flipped through the Dynasty episodes where Alexis had been in this situation, but her mind drew a blank. With his jacket still over her shoulders, the warmth of being inside coupled with the immediate awkwardness made the skin on her lower back sticky with nervous sweat.

  He took a tentative step forward and looked around. Maxine’s gaze roamed with his, seeing her place with new eyes. She was acutely aware of the dishes she’d left on the counter that separated the tiny kitchen from the living room. The vintage trunk she used as a makeshift coffee table was covered in nail polish bottles. A small pile of used cotton balls, the color from her earlier manicure bled through the white billowy puffs.

  One Knight Stand indeed, Maxine thought with a shiver. Except this time there was no bottle of wine chilling in the fridge with a platter of appetizers.

  Fashion magazines rose up in various heights of towering piles around the room like stalagmites. New eye shadow samples she’d brought home with plans of trying out on herself and Crosby this weekend had been categorized according to warm and cool colors, but the organization now looked like she’d let them spill across the dining table.

  The only nice thing, the only thing of any monetary value, was the leather sofa Johnny had encouraged her to buy last year.

  “It’s the best value, Maxine,” he’d insisted. “It’s going to last the longest, plus it will be easy for you to clean. You know how sloppy you can get, especially in front of the TV.”

  She hated how sticky it felt in the heat of summer, and how it seemed to hold the cold this time of year. When they’d broken up, she put a patch work quilt over top, hoping to soften it.