Easy This Time - JH Croix Page 0,22

condo.

I gave myself a little lecture on the way there, telling myself she’d had a few too many drinks, and reminding myself that she was the little sister of a friend and business partner. I also knew with certainty that if I was going to let things play out further with Mari, I wanted us both stone-cold sober.

When we crossed the street and turned onto the block where my office building was located, I looked ahead to see the silhouette of a man leaning against the building. That, in itself, wasn’t anything unusual. However, awareness jolted me as we approached. I might have only met him once, but I knew it was Brett.

I felt the instant Mari recognized him. Her hand tightened incrementally inside mine before her footsteps slowed and then stopped.

“What the hell is he doing here?” she muttered under her breath before looking up at me. “That’s—“

“Brett. I know. Has he tried to reach out to you?”

She shook her head, her glossy tousled curls swinging lightly around her shoulders. “No. I haven’t gotten any unknown calls. The last time I tried his number, it wasn’t in service. Ugh! I do not want to deal with him. We had a good night.”

I loved that she said we, but now wasn’t the time to dwell on that. “I don’t see any way around it. Avoiding him will only prolong the inevitable. I’m with you. I sure as hell don’t mind giving him a piece of my mind. Come on.”

Mari held still on the sidewalk for a moment before she shrugged. “Fine. Let’s get it over with.”

She began tugging me along. Once she’d made up her mind to face him, she appeared to relish the opportunity. With her skirt swirling around her knees, the low heels of her sandals clicked on the sidewalk as she strode briskly toward Brett where he waited right outside the entrance to her building, or rather, my building.

I filed that little detail away. Unless he was tracking her, he shouldn’t have known where she was. Mari stopped several feet away from him, keeping her fingers laced with mine as she rested her other hand on her hip.

“What the hell are you doing here, Brett?” she demanded.

I didn’t miss Brett looking down at our joined hands and up to my face before he looked back at Mari. He affected a sheepish expression. “Hey, Mari. I’m glad I tracked you down. I’m sure you’ve been wondering where I was, but it’s all a big misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding?” Mari practically spat out. “Brett, you totally screwed me over. You left in the middle of the night, you broke my lease and stole my deposit, you left me with the bill at Inn Boudreaux and ran up all of my fucking credit cards. That’s not a misunderstanding.”

Brett shifted on his feet, anger flashing in his eyes. He looked toward me. “How do you know each other?”

I waited in simmering silence. Much as I wanted to grab Brett by the scruff of the shirt and slam him against the brick wall directly behind him, I sensed it was important for Mari to handle this, so I hung back.

Mari laughed, the bitter tension in her laughter twisting my heart slightly. She didn’t deserve to be bitter, and it made me sick that an asshole like Brett had ever even had a shot with her.

“I’m sure you can figure it out. You were logged into your work calendar on my phone, so when I was trying to find you, I saw that you had noted a meeting with Nash here. Unlike you, he’s a fucking gentleman.”

“Wow,” Brett said, rolling his eyes. “Already moving on. I thought you wanted last weekend to be our chance to reconnect.”

“Oh my fucking God! You’re such an asshole. Yeah, I said that I hoped we’d reconnect. Because we might as well have broken up months ago for all the time we’ve spent together. If I’d been aware of everything you were capable of, I certainly wouldn’t have said it. Don’t even try to fucking guilt trip me,” Mari said with a hard glare.

Brett’s gaze shifted between us as if he was trying to get a measure of the situation. I was pleased to discover my presence confused him enough he didn’t know how to handle it.

“Look,” he began, his tone placating. “I can see why you might be upset, but if you’ll just give me a chance to explain—”

Mari shook her head sharply. “Shut up and leave me alone.”

Anger flashed