Tough Luck Hero Read Free Page A

now he wondered if he hadn’t paid enough attention to Natalie, either. Well, obviously, since she had left him standing there at the altar without anything other than a quick apology text.
    Actually, it hadn’t even really been an apology.
    One line, obliterating a relationship that he had spent two years building. A relationship that was supposed to shore up the foundation of his life. And she’d just knocked it all down.
    I can’t do this.
    That was all she’d said.
    Fast-forward a little bit—through scenes he couldn’t even remember—and here they were.
    He swung his legs down over the side of the bed, something beneath his foot crinkling as he did. He shifted it, groaning when he saw what was there. “You didn’t happen to wake up fully clothed, did you?” he asked Lydia.
    Her mouth was a flat, angry line, which was par for the course with her. At least when he was talking to her. “No,” she said.
    â€œDammit,” he said, looking down at the condom wrapper that stood as pretty hard evidence as to what had happened after their hasty wedding. He couldn’t remember that portion of the evening any better than he could the hours before.
    It had been...well, it had been a long damn time since he’d had sex. Something to do with Natalie wanting their wedding night to be special.
    Well, his wedding night had certainly been something .
    He just couldn’t remember what. And here he was, looking at a very rumpled, rather attractive woman, not having a clue in hell what had happened between them.
    She shifted uncomfortably beneath his gaze. “ What? ”
    â€œI don’t suppose you remember last night?” he asked. “After we got here, I mean?”
    â€œNo,” she said, her voice tight.
    That was very Lydia. Rigid. Tight. Determined and single-minded in ways that were designed to dig beneath your skin and keep digging until you crawled out of said skin and left it behind. Something about the way she was made him feel like he needed to take a step back from her. And even then, that space between them always felt alive. He didn’t like it.
    â€œMaybe we used a condom to make balloon animals?” he suggested.
    Her face turned bright red. He wasn’t entirely certain he had ever seen Lydia flustered, but that was the only word for what she was right now. And something about that grabbed him, hard and fast, low in his gut.
    A memory of something. Or maybe just a fleeting reminder of fantasies he didn’t let himself have. Images that pushed at the back of his brain. That he never, ever let come forward.
    Just what it would be like to see her lose all that control. To him.
    He gritted his teeth, ignoring the fact that his dick was deciding to wake up. Ignoring those thoughts that he couldn’t afford to have. Not now. Not ever.
    â€œSomehow, I doubt it,” she said, clipped. “Did you find...”
    He bent over and picked up the wrapper, holding it up.
    Lydia’s entire frame seemed to sag. She clutched her head, a low moan escaping her lips. “I don’t do things like this,” she said.
    â€œYou think I do?”
    â€œNo. But I really don’t do things like this. I am not spontaneous. I am not irresponsible. I do not...sleep with men that I don’t like.”
    He snorted. “I don’t usually sleep with women with superiority complexes.”
    And he’d ended up with Natalie how ? But she didn’t ask that out loud because she thought it best not to poke that particular beehive. “Why? In case they conflict with yours?”
    This was a return to form for her. Rumpled she might be, in yesterday’s dress, with her makeup drifting down her cheeks and her dark hair fluffier than usual, but she was buttoned-down inside. Completely. Thoroughly.
    He’d damn well let her stay that way.
    â€œListen, I think it’s pretty easy to get an annulment,” he said.