His Wedding Date (The Second Chance Love Series, Book 2) Read Free Page A

toward the door, then turned back to her when he reached the doorway, looking decidedly uncomfortable.
    She closed her eyes and listened to the eerie quiet of the early morning hours in the empty office. The coffee was still gurgling and spitting and hissing. Other than that, the office outside the kitchenette was dark and silent, probably would be for another two hours. It had been Shelly's favorite time to work without interruptions, before Brian had started working here.
    "What is it, Brian?" she asked when she couldn't stand it anymore.
    He just blurted it out then. "Rebecca and I aren't getting married."
    "What?" Shelly forgot all about the burn on her arm.
    He loved Rebecca. He'd always loved her, and Shelly believed Rebecca loved him, as well. It was simply the way of the world, like some cosmic force. There were laws about these things, and they couldn't be broken.
    Brian loved Rebecca. She loved him back. In the end, they would be together, and Shelly would have to find a way to live without him.
    He and Rebecca had been engaged when he'd moved here. Because he'd asked and she hadn't been able to come up with a plausible reason to refuse, Shelly had helped him start house hunting while he waited for Rebecca to close her business in Tallahassee, pack up her things and her little boy's and join him in Naples.
    What in the world had happened?
    She didn't ask him, because she knew she didn't have to. He'd tell her on his own, the way he'd always talked with her about him and Rebecca.
    Now that Shelly thought about it, he'd probably been trying to tell her about it for weeks. But she'd pretended to be too busy, pretended to have other plans, anything to avoid being alone with him for a conversation she'd expected to be too painful to hear.
    Brian shifted his weight from one foot to the other and leaned back against the doorway.
    "Actually," he added, "what I said wasn't entirely correct. I'm not getting married. Rebecca is."
    Shelly wondered if her mouth was hanging open again and decided that it probably was. Twice in the space of five minutes, he'd left her speechless.
    She couldn't stop that small bit of hope that flared up inside her, crazy as that was.
    This man was going to be the death of her yet.
    "Brian—" She forgot about the ice she'd been holding on her forearm, and it clattered to the floor amid the pieces of her shattered coffee cup.
    Shelly closed her eyes and felt her cheeks burning again. Damn the man, anyway. He'd done this to her ever since she hit puberty.
    It was an effect much like the one that came from setting a magnet down next to a compass. Like that little arrow suspended on the dial, she went right to him, quivered in his presence, her brain short-circuited by the power he had over her.
    "Hey," Brian said, sneaking up on her while her mind went blank to everything but him. His hand guided her chin up so he could see her face. "What's wrong with you?"
    Every nerve ending in her body went haywire at the soft, sweet touch. She pulled away too quickly, drawing his attention even more with the sudden movement.
    "Shelly?"
    "I'm sorry." She suddenly found herself ridiculously close to tears.
    She wanted to hope, damn him. Despite everything, she wanted that desperately. She wanted to believe she was going to get another chance with him.
    Yet she couldn't hope. She'd done it too many times already. She'd seen so many little things—a soft, friendly touch, a special warmth in his eyes, the tender care of one friend for another in difficult times. And he'd seen her through the worst of times, through her father's death.
    So she knew better than this.
    But, she argued with herself, she'd never really had a chance with him before. She'd never stood a chance against Rebecca.
    But if Rebecca was out of the picture...
    Afraid of the direction of her own thoughts, she decided she was better off concentrating on the porcelain bits and ice and coffee that now littered the floor. "Let me get this cleaned