Tempting the Best Man - By J. Lynn Page 0,12

didn’t.”

And with that, he spun around and stormed out of the cabin, slamming the door behind him.

Madison blinked slowly. Oh, hell to the no, he did not just storm out of there like a drama queen. She was going to find him and then castrate him.

She winced.

Okay, maybe not that extreme, but she’d be damned if she let him kiss her like that and then run.

…

Madison was well on her way to getting drunk.

Not fall-on-your-face or strip-off-your-clothes drunk, although without all the family around that might have sounded fun, but there was definitely a wine-induced headache in her near future.

Sitting on a bench along the sprawling deck outside the main lodge, she inhaled the scent of mountain air and grapes. Members of her family and Lissa’s chattered around her. The low hum of conversation would’ve normally been soothing as she was a lover of all sorts of background noise, but right now, she wanted to slide through the narrow spaces in the wooden rail around the deck and fade into the night. Taking another long sip, she gazed out over the lawn. Paper lanterns hung from the poles spaced along the pebbled pathway, casting a faint light across the grounds.

She glanced down at her third glass of Petit and bit back a strangled giggle. Such a lightweight, but the heady thrum in her veins helped ease the mixture of shame and unquenched lust that burned in her stomach. An all-too-familiar feeling after a rather idiotic run-in with Chase.

He had kissed her.

And then, in the ultimate heart crusher, he’d wanted her to forget it. Been there, done that, and she definitely had the wounded heart to prove it.

Why had he kissed her if he was so obviously disgusted by the idea? Who knew. Maybe the answer was in the depths of her dark purplish wine?

Her father’s boisterous laughter brought a faint smile to her face, and she twisted around on the bench. He stood with her brother and two of the three Gamble men. Chase was hiding somewhere else, most likely from her.

After he’d kissed her—and she felt the need to keep reminding herself that it had been he who’d kissed her—she hadn’t seen him. Like the child he treated her as, she’d conveniently hid away in the bathroom while he deposited their luggage in the gaudiest cabin ever. Not her proudest moment.

Madison just couldn’t make sense of any of it, and it wasn’t fair. The last thing she wanted to be dealing with during her brother’s wedding was this. It was a time to celebrate and laugh, not a time to add another notch on the humiliation belt.

But of course, here she was, grateful that it was dark enough to hide the flush that hadn’t faded yet. Worse still, that kiss had sent her spiraling backward in time to the one night she never wanted to remember, but also didn’t want to forget. Except now she couldn’t stop the onslaught of little vignettes replaying from that evening.

It had been her junior year in college, and as usual, she was in between boyfriends, still madly infatuated with her childhood crush, and the happy owner of one sexy little black dress that months of her part-time research gig at the university had paid for.

The opening night of Chase’s nightclub, Komodo, had changed everything. All these years and it seemed like yesterday. The drinks. The dancing. Everyone had been there—her brother, Lissa, Chase’s brothers, her friends. It had been a great night, one for celebrating. The evening had been a raving success, and Madison had been unbelievably proud. So many people had doubted him, but she never had.

It had been past closing time. Her brother and most of her friends had already gone home when she found Chase in his penthouse office on the third floor, staring at the landscape of the city. The straight line of his spine, the perfectly tailored cut of his suit across his broad shoulders had stolen her breath. She’d stood there for what seemed like hours but was probably the barest of seconds before Chase had turned to her and smiled…smiled just for her.

Madison had ventured into his office, complimented him eagerly on the success of the club, and listened to his plans to open two more: one in Bethesda and another in Baltimore. She’d felt special that he had included her in such knowledge. It was like she belonged next to him for the first time and that thrilled her.

Both of them had been drinking, but