Just One Night: Sex, Love & Stiletto Series (29 page)

Although that, Riley had to admit, might have been because her mother’s potato chocolate cake could double as a doorstop. She didn’t want to think about her mom’s reaction if Sam didn’t show his face at Christmas, which was right around the corner. Potato-stuffed
fruitcake for sure.

She hadn’t expected him to stay away. Not after his whole reason for dumping her was his relationship with her family. So every Wednesday night, she’d braced for the possibility that he’d be there.

But since they’d broken up, Wednesday night had come and gone without Sam Compton. And every time, she’d tried to tell herself she was glad, even when she had to wear sunglasses on the subway ride home to hide the unwanted tears.

The only missing piece of the puzzle was Liam, who’d been more or less absent from her life.

Sure, he’d done the whole I’m-here-if-you-need-me big-brother thing. But then he’d calmly and plainly asked her not to make him choose sides. So she hadn’t.

Halfheartedly, Riley ripped open one of the letters. It was short, sweet, and a little scary.

“Yikes,” Riley muttered, tossing the letter to the side to start a rejection pile. “Do you guys think I’m a man hater?”

“In the literal sense of hating one man? Sure,” Emma said, tossing aside a letter of her own.

“I don’t
hate
Sam,” Riley said quietly. “Although sometimes I wish I could.”

Julie squeezed her knee gently. “What do you mean?”

Riley let her eyes meet her friend’s. “I just … miss him. The damn article was supposed to be therapeutic. But saying in writing that you can’t make someone love you only makes the realization more final.”

Julie nodded sympathetically, and Riley’s head dipped down to her chin as she let out the painful admission that had been on her chest for weeks. “It
hurts
.”

“I know, honey,” Julie said, her eyes watering.

Oh no
. Not so long ago, Julie Greene never cried. Not watching
Titanic
or commercials with dogs, not when the bakery was out of chocolate croissants (so okay, maybe only Riley cried about that).

And then Julie met Mitchell, and she became all but useless. She cried if she saw a bird by itself because she thought it had no friends. She cried watching bank commercials, and at jewelry advertisements, and if she saw a cloud she liked. And most especially, she cried when her friends were hurting.

Riley heard Grace sniff from behind her. “Don’t,” Riley said on a watery laugh as she pushed Julie’s damp face away. “You guys are the
worst
.”

“Indeed,” Emma said, pretending to get an eyelash out of her eye.

“I did the right thing, right?” she said as she picked up another envelope. “Writing it? Even if it did get all these crazies riled up?”

“You owed it to yourself,” Grace said firmly. “And nobody but us and your family knows it was about Sam. It’s not like you publicly humiliated the guy. And I think it’s good that
Stiletto
tackled a
bad
relationship in the same no-nonsense way that we approach good ones. Not every relationship is forever, but it’s easy to forget that until your own happily-ever-after goes sideways.”

“Plus, Sam knew what he was getting into when he hopped into bed with your sexy ass,” Julie added. “It’s the price one pays for dating a
Stiletto
babe.”

“Can we not call ourselves that?” Emma muttered. “Hey, what about this letter? It’s from a teen girl who wants to know at what point in the relationship you can tell if it’s going to be bad.”

“I actually do have an answer for that,” Riley muttered. “It’s called
hindsight
. Because Fate has a fantastic poker face. You never know what’s in the cards until someone dumps the deck all over the ground.”

“What inspiring advice for a ninth-grader,” Emma said, quickly putting the letter into the rejection pile.

“Oooh, this lady claims that she’s dated your Bruce Dinkle and that he tried to push her off a mechanical bull for drinking his Bud Light. Has Sam ever spent some time in Denver?”

Riley pointed to the
no
pile.

“Here’s one that’s actually legit,” Julie said. “Alyssa from San Diego wants to know what you do after the guy who couldn’t commit to you commits to someone
else
.”

Riley felt like someone had kicked her in the stomach. It was hard enough to accept that Sam couldn’t love her. What would happen the day she had to watch him love someone else? Because even if he stayed true to his never-getting-married plan, he wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life celibate. He’d eventually sleep with another woman.

Maybe even care about one.

“Not ready for that one,” she said quietly. “Isn’t there some harmless, fluffy letter asking for recommendations on breakup movies or something?”

Something that won’t rip my heart out?

“The
real
question is, who are these people who write letters? I don’t even know where to buy a stamp if I wanted to,” Julie said. “Has email gone out of style?”

“Uh-uh,” Grace said. “We haven’t even gotten to those yet.”

“Greaaaat.”

An hour and a half later, the four women had amassed at least a handful of viable options, and Riley was on the verge of telling her friends to just pick two at random so that she could write a generic response and be done with this whole business.

But just as Julie and Grace were arguing over whether they should go with the letter from Nina in Seattle, who wanted to know if she should invite her Bruce to her sister’s wedding, or Kerry from St. Paul, who needed advice on whether she had to return
her
Bruce’s cat, Camille appeared in the doorway.

“What are you wearing?” Julie asked their boss in horror.

Camille glanced down. “It’s new. Purple is the new black, Greene.”

“Not when it’s shaped like a tent, it’s not.”

Their boss ignored her important reporter. “What are you girls doing in here? I haven’t seen this much paper since college.”

Riley frowned. “They had paper back then? You didn’t etch shit in stone?”

Camille used the envelope in her hand to give a warning point at Riley. “Funny. And I forgot to mention it earlier, but I’ve selected one of the letters to the editor I want you to respond to.”

Four pairs of annoyed eyes gave her a death glare.

Camille shrugged and dropped the envelope into Riley’s lap. “Here you go, dear.”

“Thanks for not giving this to us an hour ago,” Julie hollered after her.

“I hope it’s another one of the Bruce-pushed-me-off-the-mechanical-bull letters,” Grace said, leaning forward and plucking up the letter.

Riley snatched it back. “This is
Stiletto
, not
Rodeo Times
.”

“Rodeo Times,”
Emma mused. “Is that a real magazine? Because I’ve always thought I could go for a cowboy … there’s something about those boots and tight jeans.”

“I bet Alex Cassidy looks
uh-mazing
in tight jeans,” Julie said in a singsong voice. Emma threw a paper clip at Julie, which got caught in Julie’s mess of curls, so that Grace had to fish it out.

But Riley wasn’t paying attention to any of this.

The letter Camille handed her wasn’t like the rest.

For starters, the writing was distinctly masculine. She flipped the envelope over. No postage, and no return address. It had been hand-delivered, which was creepy.

What the hell was Camille up to?

She began to read.

“Wow,” Riley said, blowing out a long breath.
“Wow.”

Julie must be rubbing off on her, because she felt tears welling at a stranger’s letter. And not a few dainty drops. Like one of those honking, slobbery type of cries. “Does anyone have any chips?”

Emma traded the chips for the letter, and Riley tore open the bag. They were the baked, unsalted kind, but she barely noticed as she munched them three at a time.

“Oh my,” Emma said in a croaky little voice.

“Oh jeez, even
Emma
is getting weepy. What is it, like, a poem or something?” Grace asked.

“So much better than a poem,” Julie said as she snatched the paper from Emma and skimmed it. “It’s a love letter.”

“Let me see this.” Grace ripped it out of Julie’s hands. Not that Julie noticed, because she was crying. Again.

“I think I’d leave Jake for this guy,” Grace said, becoming sobering as she read it.

“I wonder how Camille got it,” Julie said, pulling herself together and dabbing her eyes.
“Why wasn’t it with the rest of the letters?”

“No postage,” Emma said, peering at the envelope. Then her eyes narrowed. “Grace, give me that.”

Grace handed over the letter, and Emma stared at it for several seconds before she lifted her eyes to Riley. “Ri, how many people know about your original fake name for Sam?”

Who cares?

“I don’t know. You guys. Camille. Maybe one of the copy editors, if they made a pass at it before I changed it to Bruce?”

Wordlessly, Emma handed the letter back to Riley.

Riley felt the blood drain from her face as she saw what Emma wanted her to see.

Condon
.

It couldn’t be a coincidence. Could it?

But how …

“How are you going to answer it?” Grace asked softly.

“I’m dying to hear the answer to that myself.”

All four women turned to stare at the man in the doorway.

But he was staring only at Riley. And his eyes were full of …

Everything.

Wordlessly the other three stood. Well, Grace and Emma stood. Julie had to be coaxed out of her chair, and luckily Grace had the forethought to grab the box of tissues on the way out.

“Nice one,
Samuel
,” Emma muttered as the three women slipped past.

“I want to watch,” Riley heard Julie say.

“And I want Ryan Reynolds for my birthday,” Emma snapped. “Get it together.”

Riley barely heard any of this.

She couldn’t believe he was here. Couldn’t believe …

She shakily rose to her feet, holding up the letter. “You?”

He blushed and looked at the floor. “It’s awful, isn’t it? I wrote a different one that was a little less Byron, and it was even Liam-approved, but last night I couldn’t get these words out of my head.”

She pressed her lips together. “Did you mean it?”

His head snapped up, and his blue eyes were desperate. He took a half step toward her
before catching himself. “Every damn word.”

“How did Camille end up with it?”

“I meant to mail it, but my, um, drafting took too long. So Liam looked through your contact list at dinner and got Camille’s number.”

“The sneak,” she muttered.

“Liam, or Camille?”

“Both.”

Several moments of tense silence passed between them until Sam finally closed his eyes and broke the eye contact. “I have to know, Riley. I have to know the answer.”

He sounded tortured, and a tiny part of her wanted to feel smug about that, but the atypical huskiness of his voice killed her.

Riley swallowed. She knew what her heart wanted. Her heart had
always
wanted it. But her head was begging her to be smart.

This was a man she’d practically begged to love her, and he’d let her walk away.

Now their situations were reversed, and she just didn’t know …

She glanced down at the beautiful words on the paper, and wanted
so badly
to trust them.

“I sold my whisky,” he blurted out.

Huh?

“To four restaurants, and more are interested. I’ve sold everything I’ve already made, and I’ll have to expand and hire more people if I want to keep up with demand. And I talked to my mom. Told her I’d always be there for her, but I was done being her whipping boy. I told her to either learn how to be proud of me or get the hell out of my life.”

“Sam—”

“Skippy’s potty-trained,” he interrupted. “And I finally bought him a collar with me listed as the owner. I’m committing.”

“To the dog,” she said, just to be sure she was following.

“And to you,” he said, his control breaking as he moved awkwardly forward and grabbed for her hands.