Slow Burn (Dynasties Seven Sins #7) - Janice Maynard Page 0,31

to believe that at least some of them would be glad to reconnect. I think that’s true even now. But we haven’t wanted any contact. Maybe we were wrong, Mom.”

“I suppose.”

It was a lot to digest. Nikki was glad her mother didn’t turn the tables and ask what Nikki wanted to do. Life was comfortable now. Hard and demanding, but comfortable in its predictability.

Did Nikki want to uproot all she had worked for and return to the town of her childhood? Emma could attend the same Falling Brook prep school where her mother got a good education. Nikki could be a stay-at-home mom for a few years. Volunteer at school. Pay attention to her physical and mental health. Not be so exhausted all the time.

Maybe see Jake when he came home to visit his mother and brothers.

Nikki yawned. “We’ve got a lot to think about. Thankfully, nothing has to be decided tonight.”

The more important questions surrounded Jake. Despite the changes happening all around her, Nikki was most conflicted about Jake. Fascinating, sexy, unpredictable Jake Lowell. What would tomorrow night bring?

Jake sipped his scotch and loosened his tie. Joshua’s bachelor party was proving to be a good distraction from thinking about Nikki. A friend of Joshua’s had reserved a large room on the top floor of one of Atlantic City’s glitziest casinos. Jake didn’t know the man. It was someone Josh had become friends with after college—a relationship that began after Jake had left Falling Brook.

The dress code tonight was upscale, but Jake noticed that several guys had already shed their jackets. Enormous flat-screen TVs covered the walls, tuned to various sports channels. The open bar was stocked with top-shelf booze. Three beautiful pool tables were busy. Half a dozen female servers wandered among the partygoers handing out delicious hors d’oeuvres and smiles.

At the far end of the room, elegant tables were set for the steak dinner to come. Jake sat in a bubble of quiet at the moment, observing. He knew most of the men in the room, or he had at one time. Many of them had greeted him cordially tonight. They were understandably curious about Joshua’s absent twin. When Jake left Falling Brook, he had cut all ties with surgical precision, preferring to look forward rather than dwell on the past.

That recollection brought him right back to Nikki. She, like Jake, had abdicated her place in Falling Brook society and had gone into hiding. Maybe that was a dramatic way of phrasing it, but the result was the same.

A waitress stopped at his elbow. “Would you like anything, sir?”

He looked up, noticing the woman’s surgically enhanced breasts and the flirtatious look in her eyes. At one time, he wouldn’t have thought twice about getting her number and hooking up after the party was over.

“Thanks, I’m good,” he said, giving the woman his best noncommittal smile. Despite the fact that he was in the midst of a dry spell, sexually speaking, he wasn’t interested. Nobody but Nikki pushed his buttons. Knowing that she was so close and yet so far away made him grumpy. Their brief text exchange had revved his motor to an embarrassing degree.

He found himself obsessing about tomorrow night’s date. Clearly, he and Nikki had to come to a decision about Emma. Maybe Jake was a total jerk to think so, but dealing with his small daughter wasn’t nearly as worrisome as understanding his feelings for Nikki.

Seeing her in Atlantic City five years ago had been both exhilarating and unsettling. He hadn’t stuck around long enough to find out what was going on in her world. Despite the incredible sex, he’d been afraid to hear that she had a life that didn’t include him, which was stupid, because of course she did.

His stomach tightened unpleasantly as he finally admitted the truth to himself. One reason he had stayed away from Falling Brook for so long—among many—was that he’d been afraid to come back and see that Nikki had moved on with another man.

And she had. By her own admission. She had married and divorced.

That was more of a relationship than Jake could claim. His hopscotching travels had, by design, left him little opportunity to get attached to any one place or person. He had anesthetized his pain over his father’s betrayal with new experiences, fresh vistas.

For a very long time, he had been satisfied with the status quo. Or, at least, he had convinced himself he was. When Joshua’s phone call came out of the blue