No Turning Back (Breaking the Rules #4) - A.M. Madden Page 0,19

about a year ago. You can understand why I would think Maggie was that person.”

I had considered asking Diane to marry me for like five minutes… but my transfer to Florida was a deal breaker for her. Thank God I hadn’t. “No… I never proposed to her. Things didn’t work out between us.”

Instantly, the veil she’d hid behind since we’d arrived at the restaurant slipped away. “I’m so sorry, Ryder.” My shrug spurred her to continue. “I’m also sorry I assumed.”

“Things happen for a reason. But I’m glad we got that out in the open and am kind of guilty of the same.” I decided to come clean. If it helped get us past the past and into the future, then so be it. “When I saw you with that guy last weekend, I assumed he was important. What you don’t know is that I had come back to Jersey the summer after I left.”

“You did?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes. After striking out at your condo, I walked to the beach, hoping maybe you were on a run. If not, I’d wait a while and try again.” Riana stared at me so intently, her mouth agape in shock, I almost chickened out… almost. “I saw you with that same guy on the beach.” The visual of seeing the two of them making out on a blanket, before he’d lifted her bikini’d body in his arms and run into the ocean, all while she’d giggled the same way she used to for me, hurt as much now retelling it as it had that day.

“Cooper is just a good friend now,” she offered.

When her cheeks flushed as she looked away, I said, “Obviously, he’s still in your life.”

“He is.”

“Do you love him?”

“I do,” she responded instantly. “But there is absolutely nothing romantic happening between us. He’s with someone else.”

I allowed the grin to spread across my face, even while saying, “I’m sorry, Ree.”

“It doesn’t look like you are,” she teased.

“I am. If it hurt you, then I am truly sorry.” When I took her hand in mine for the second time, she didn’t pull away. “Having said that, I’m relieved you’re single, because now we can get on with our evening.” And with our relationship.

Chapter Seven

Riana

He was killing me. With that charm of his, and all that sexiness, he was literally killing me. Hating to do so, I slipped my hand from his. I had to. Every cell in my body pulsed because of the way it entwined with mine… because of the way his eyes held a seductive dance with mine.

Sure, the moment I had seen him last Saturday, a flood of familiar pulses had shot through me. But Maggie’s hanging on him had doused those flames from smoldering any hotter. She’d served as a security net of sorts… a protective shield. He was taken, and that was that. Except he wasn’t.

As it was, I’d thought of him often since, remembering all the ways he could have me forgetting my own name. Knowing now he was single was bad… really bad.

Combined with seeing him wearing the kind of sexy casual I always loved on him managed to stoke those flames hotter than they’d ever been. Was it because I knew what he looked like beneath those clothes? I knew what he could do with that mouth of his, those long fingers. Or because I especially knew how it felt when he slid inside me?

I’d say it again. This was really bad.

I had a million questions, but Ryder’s abrupt change of subject left no doubt he didn’t want to talk about Diane anymore, or Maggie. On the contrary, I most definitely wanted to talk about the fact that he had gone back to Jersey and seen me and Cooper together. That information stunned me. I wished I didn’t know that because now all I could do was wonder what would’ve happened had he not seen me with Cooper.

I had no regrets from being with Cooper, but for obvious reasons he wasn’t my person. Even before Cooper had his sexual awakening, he’d known Ryder had been my first love… and after we’d broken up, I had admitted to him that Ryder and I probably wouldn’t have ended had he not moved to California. Did I really want to pull on that thread now?

And while all the emotions toward Ryder that I had buried were bubbling back up to the surface… at the same time my conscience reminded me that my surrogate situation still posed