any other day. Today was the day she walked back into his life.
Rylan opened her mouth, though no sound came out. She was obviously as flabbergasted as he felt. A weird tapping drew their attention to a window overlooking the parking lot. Jayme, the woman he’d just passed in the doorway, stood there tapping one long, glossy red fingernail against the window and smiling at him. When she saw she caught his attention, she brightened up and used her thumb and pinkie to mime holding a phone to her ear. Call me, she mouthed before spinning dramatically and sashaying away.
Thrett vaguely recalled hooking up with Jayme at some point in the recent past, but the specifics eluded him. Seeing Rylan again had thoroughly quashed memories of anyone else.
Returning his gaze to her, he caught her glaring out the window at Jayme’s retreating butt. Ha! She was jealous! The way she blushed when she realized he’d caught her only confirmed it, and he couldn’t stop a grin from splitting his face.
The morning had taken a turn for the interesting, and it just seemed to be getting better. He’d long harbored a demented and petty fantasy that when they met again, she would feel nothing but regret over what she’d been missing for so long. It was the dream of everyone who’s ever had their heart broken, but no one really ever expected it to come true.
What were the odds?
“So…” Thrett flashed an amused smile, but to his surprise, Rylan straightened and folded her hands in front of her, almost visibly smoothing out her composure and giving him an annoyingly professional and primly chaste smile.
“Good morning,” she snapped crisply. “Rylan Wilson, I’m the principal of Benningford. How may I be of service?”
Thrett couldn’t hold back a chuckle. He could think of any number of ways for her to service him, not that he could say that. She’d rattled off the line in a tone that would placate the most rancorous of PTA veterans. Damned if she didn’t fill out a professional figure in a way that set his heart thumping, but if she wanted to play professional, he could do that. At least now he knew her last name.
“Thrett Lacerta,” he said politely, still grinning like a maniac. “I’m the security systems specialist from Wildridge Security, here to hash out some plans for beefing up security around here. I believe you were expecting me?”
The secretary continued watching their every move, looking for the world like she wished she had a bowl of popcorn for the show. He ignored her and focused all of his attention on Rylan, who shifted uncomfortably under his scrutiny before looking away from him.
Alarm washed over her face at whatever she was looking at beyond him. He started to turn, expecting to find Jayme ogling him again. However, before he could, her slim hand landed on his bare forearm and everything else in the world disappeared. The only thing he knew was her touch. So familiar, so painful. Then her fingers wrapped around his wrist and yanked him into her private office.
“We shouldn’t discuss such sensitive issues within earshot of the kids,” she said, shoving him toward a chair in front of her desk. “One of them gets the wrong idea, and next thing I know, I’ve got parents breathing down my neck.”
The moment her fingers released him, his senses came back. Not fully—her subtle perfume made him want to close his eyes and breathe in her scent—but enough to notice other things in the world. Like the outer door to the office opening just as Rylan closed her office door.
“Hey, Miss Ginny, have you seen my mom?” asked a voice he recognized. It was the kid he’d talked to earlier, Blaise Bradford’s friend. What was his name again?
“Sorry, Trystin,” said the secretary from behind the door. “You just missed her.”
He remembered Jayme saying something about having a son, but then Rylan closed the space between them and gazed up at him with those big, brown eyes of hers and the world wrapped around them again. It would only take the tiniest effort to lean in and kiss those full, moist lips…
Sweet baby Jesus, this couldn’t be happening.
This could not.
Be.
Happening.
So why was it?
Rylan stood motionless, her heart trying to leap out of her throat. Thrett eased in so closely that she could feel the heat radiating off his body. His musky, slightly smoky scent acted like an intoxicant, an old drug she used to be addicted to for