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had
read the situation so easily. “You’re disgusting. I’m not going to listen to
any more of this. I’m going to bed. And you’re crazy if you think Daddy will
let you invite Jaxon to the wedding.”
    “You let me worry about him. You just worry
about how you’re going to explain to your current boyfriend why you can’t keep
your eyes off your ex.”
    “Meddling bitch,” Sela muttered on her way
down the short hallway. She slammed her bedroom door.
    “I heard that!” Kiki laughed. “You’re just
mad ‘cause you know I’m right!”

Chapter Two
     
    “You want me to do what?” Joe McNeil
asked. “Buddy, you must be losing it. Why would I fire Sela? She’s one of my
best waitresses.”
    Jaxon was crossing the line, but he
couldn’t get the idea of Sela working for High Rollers out of his head. He
needed to spend more time with her, and hiring her was the only way he could
think of to accomplish his goal.
    “Call it a personal favor.” Unbeknownst to
Sela, Jaxon had bought the building that housed her place of employment years
ago, making him her boss’s landlord.
    “I guess I gotta keep my landlord happy,
don’t I?”
    They toasted, Jaxon with a glass of scotch
and Joe with vodka.
    “But I thought you and Sela were through,”
Joe said. “She’s dating some professor now, you know.”
    “Yeah, I know.” Jaxon leaned back in the
comfortable chair, thinking it might be time for High Rollers to upgrade their
interior. “What’s he like?”
    Joe shrugged. “I don’t know him that well.
He seems all right, I guess.”
    Jaxon smiled. “That’s a ringing endorsement
if ever I’ve heard one.”
    Joe locked eyes with him. “At least she’s
not miserable anymore. It’s nice to see her smile again.”
    “I know I was an ass for breaking up with
her. I shouldn’t have done it, but I’m trying to make things right. Can you cut
me a little slack?”
    “That depends,” Joe said, stroking his
greying goatee. “Are you sayin’ you’re ready for a commitment this time
around?”
    Jaxon shifted, uncomfortable under Joe’s
perusal. He was rarely on the receiving end of an interrogation, and he
couldn’t say he liked it. “I was committed to her before.”
    “No, you weren’t.” Joe snickered. “You may
have stopped sleeping around for a spell, but that doesn’t mean you were committed
to building a life with Sela. Trust me, son, I’ve been married a long time, and
any woman will tell you it’s no fun bein’ with a man who’s always got one foot
out the door.”
    “Did Sela tell you I made her feel that
way?” Jaxon felt the weight of guilt barreling down on him. Of course he’d made
her feel that way. Every time she’d tried to talk about the future, he’d shut
her down.
    “Maybe not in so many words, but I got the
feeling she said as much to Marlie.”
    “Did I hear my name?” Marlie, Joe’s wife, came
up behind Jaxon and bumped his shoulder with her hip. “Well, I’ll be damned. We
haven’t see you around these parts in a dog’s age, sugar.”
    “I’ve been trying to keep my distance for
Sela’s sake,” he admitted. “I thought seeing me here might make her uneasy.”
    “Oh yeah?” Marlie claimed one of the two
vacant chairs at the table. “How’d you know she wouldn’t be here tonight?”
    “Her sister told me.”
    Marlie raised an eyebrow. “Since when are
you and Kiki best buds? I thought you’d be on her most wanted list after what
you did to her big sister.”
    If one more person reminded Jaxon of how
badly he’d screwed things up with Sela, he thought he might lose it. “She
called me earlier to confirm I was still coming to her wedding. I asked her if
Sela was working, and she said she’d gone to the beach with a couple of
girlfriends.” An image of Sela wearing a string bikini on his boat flashed
through his mind, and he wondered if he’d ever be lucky enough to rub suntan
lotion all over that beautiful body again.
    “I’m glad she’s