face the man I hated most in the world.
Robert, my brother’s best friend and my biggest enemy, stood right behind me. He had become a big-time investment banker and moved to Charlotte years ago. Our two cities were separated by a two-hour drive, and I would love to see that distance tripled. Quadrupled. Hell, the bastard could move all the way to California, and it still wouldn’t be far enough away.
“You look beautiful as ever. How’s life been treating you?”
His face smiled, and his tone sounded curious and friendly, but his eyes fixed on my breasts, and I had to tamp down the impulse to cover them with my arms.
“I’m good, Robert. Real good. Why are you here?”
He shrugged and picked up a bar of soap and sniffed at it. “I moved back to Asheville last month. I’m taking over for my dad at First and Trust Bank as president and CEO. Magnus didn’t tell you?”
“Magnus and I don’t speak any more than we have to.”
He wrinkled his nose at the scent and put the bar back down. “Ugh, Lavender. Kiki loves this smell. I think it’s revolting.”
He poked at another one but didn’t pick it up. “Personally, I’d rather be on the links, but the bank has a booth, and Dad thought it was a good idea to meet and greet the locals since I haven’t lived here in a long time. You know. Get reacquainted with old friends?”
“Who’s Kiki?”
“My wife for now.”
“For now?”
“Yeah. She’s my third so far. We got married last summer, and since then she’s put on a ton of weight. Fat women aren’t my thing.”
“Prick,” Bevvie muttered under her breath.
He didn’t bother to acknowledge her presence. “Love to get together for drinks sometime and catch up.”
“I’m not drinking these days.”
“Coffee then.”
“I’m not doing much coffee either.”
His pretty blue eyes and all-American charm faded as his irritation showed. “I’m sure you can find the time to spend with an old friend. We have a past together, in case you don’t remember.”
My throat closed up, choking off any words I had. He took my silence as a sign of acquiescence and smiled like he’d just won the lottery. “We’ll talk soon, yeah?” He leaned into my personal space and kissed me on my cheek. Blood roared in my ears, and I became a cold marble statue as I watched his back moving away.
“Good-looking and great body, but those asshole remarks about his wife? What and who the hell does he think he is?”
Pain in my forearms made me realize my hands were clenched in tight fists. I relaxed my fingers and threw back my shoulders. The noise in my head had disappeared, and I flipped my hair back to throw off the black mood that had come over me. “The who part is Magnus’s friend, and the what part, you nailed already. He’s an asshole who doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”
I turned to the vendor sitting under the canopy. “How much for all the lavender-scented items you have here?”
The woman’s eyes rounded. “All of them?”
“Yes, all of them.”
She sputtered and counted the remaining soaps, lotions, bath bombs, oil infusers, and body sprays. The total came up to just over five hundred dollars. She inserted the register device in her phone as I handed her my credit card.
“Holy shit, Melanie. Are you buying all this stuff just because he doesn’t like lavender?”
“Yup. I knew you were smart.”
“Damn, Mellie, that’s a lot of money. You’ll be smelling like lavender for years with this much stuff.”
I smirked at her. “That’s the plan. If I run into his ass again, I want a fucking cloud of lavender around me at all times.”
She rolled her lips between her teeth. “I don’t know whether to laugh at your sense of justice or cringe at the amount of money you just spent.”
She was right. This was an expensive impulse buy and the chances of me running into him on a regular basis were pretty low. Perhaps I didn’t need this much lavender-scented stuff, but I had to have it. I just had to, and I couldn’t explain to her why. “Let me put it this way. I’d spend almost any amount for a chance to fuck up that man’s day.”
The vendor bagged everything while Beverly’s typed rapidly on her phone.
“What are you doing?”
She looked up at me. “With this many bags, we’re going to need help getting them to the truck. I’m texting Connor to see if he and Owen are close.”
“To borrow from Mattie’s