Bad Boy (An Indecent Proposal) - J.C. Reed Page 0,5

this tiny restaurant around the corner. See you at seven?”

I took a sharp breath, exhaling slowly. Chase’s face popped into my mind.

Liar.

Mr. Fucking. Liar.

If he could lie, why should I stick to his terms? Why should it matter if I had a date or not? Chase might be married to me, but I was still free to do whatever I wanted, to go wherever I longed to, and date whomever I desired.

It was a vacation. My recovery trip.

And to be honest, this guy—he didn’t look bad.

And then I realized I didn’t even know his name. “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Do you need me to know yours?” he asked.

Did he need to know mine?

What kind of question was that? And then it hit me.

The date wouldn’t work out. We would have nothing to talk about because he was as little into this as was I.

Maybe he also needed a rebound.

Maybe he didn’t want to get too close to me, just like I wouldn’t get too close to him.

“No.” I shook my head. “I’m all fine with calling you Bag Man.”

“Good, Miss Hungry.” He smiled, flipping his shades back, and then he turned, calling over his shoulder, “It’s a date, then.”

A date.

Crap.

My plane had landed two hours ago, and I already had a date.

I rolled my eyes inwardly, irritated with myself.

Oh, God.

What had I just done? Hanging out with some random guy in some foreign country wasn’t exactly the thing ranking high on my to-do list. Not when I had yet to find my way around and I barely spoke more than two words of Spanish.

Why did I have to run away from home?

From myself.

From whatever purpose Chase Wright’s lies had served.

But for whatever reason, I also felt excited. Renewed. When Chase deceived me, he took not only my faith. He broke it, and broke it hard. He destroyed every reason, every hope, every desire to be with him. He crushed my soul with one single piece of information.

His lips had consumed me. His touch burned me. His eyes shattered me. Burn and tear and destroy—that was how he broke me in a thousand pieces. Shattered me the only way he knew how—only to rebuild me. To make me someone I didn’t recognize. A worse me. A stronger me. A match for his dark side. Only I had no intention to ever be his again.

I would take what he taught me and carve my own path in life. A path that wouldn’t cross his.

A path that was all mine.

Chapter 4

The moment the door closed I grabbed the phone from the nightstand and dialed the one number I knew I could call day and night.

“You’ve no idea what I’m going to do today.” I sighed into the phone as I let myself fall backward onto the bed, my head sinking into the soft pillow.

“What?” Jude’s voice echoed down the line.

“Come on. Have a guess. It’s not like there are a million possibilities.”

“You got the letters and now you’re reading them?”

“No.” My laughter died in my throat as my mood plummeted to a new low. “I don’t have them yet.”

Did she have to mention the letters?

Suddenly I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell her.

Jude might be my best friend, but did I want her to meddle with my affairs when my life was already turned upside down?

Hell, no.

Knowing her, she’d probably try to sort out my life for me the moment she found out that Chase and I had broken up, in which case all chaos would break loose. But if I kept my personal problems from her, she’d hold it against me forever, and it might cost me our friendship. Did I really want to lose her?

“Laurie, you’d better tell me,” Jude said, her tone leaving no room for discussion. “Do you have any idea how worried I am? Chase has been calling me all day with some bullshit about you disappearing on him. He wants to know where you are, and I’ve no idea what to tell him.”

“He wants to know, doesn’t he?”

The fucking bastard!

I felt like punching the wall. I had to tread carefully before Chase turned Jude against me like an old, gossipy lady eager to cause trouble and destroy our long friendship. Suddenly, I had the vision of being alone, with nobody to talk to at two a.m. Who was going to be my next two a.m. best friend?

“Yeah,” Jude continued. “He had to convince me not to call the cops. Imagine how that made me worry, but he