Scandal in Seattle Read Online Free PDF Page B

everything I’d planned—my entire game plan—flew off with the sea breeze. I felt like the same tongue-tied, stupefied girl I’d been when we first met.
    Yeah, that wouldn’t do.
    The giant dog skidded to a stop in front of me, panting in my face and whipping its tail around. The combination of the dog and Henry was doing a job on me. Biting into the side of my cheek, I forced myself to conjure up the image of Henry in bed with another woman. I concentrated on that picture until I felt pain trickle into my veins. After a couple seconds, all traces of dumbstruck were gone. Long gone.
    Just in time, too.
    Henry’s jog slowed as he approached. I kept my eyes narrowed at the sand and continued to pet the dog’s head, hoping it would calm me.
    “I’m sorry,” he said.
    It had been years, but I still didn’t like hearing those two words come out of his mouth. It almost gave me PTSD.
    “Molly, stop that,” Henry ordered as the dog licked me with its huge tongue. “Come here.” He patted his legs emphatically. The dog only licked me faster.
    “She still doesn’t listen to you,” I said, shifting my head out of the dog’s shadow so Henry could see it.
    The phrase you look like you’ve just seen a ghost played out before me. His relaxed smile froze along with the rest of his body. His tanned face blanched a few shades, and he studied me like I wasn’t real. I was careful not to look him in the eyes. I didn’t trust myself to look into those brown eyes. That smile and those eyes had torn right through my defenses when we’d first met, and I didn’t want to chance a repeat. So I focused on the bridge of his nose, or his eyebrows, or the dark hollows beneath his eyes. Anything was preferable to looking into Henry Callahan’s eyes again.
    “Eve?” he said at last, sounding as dumbstruck as he looked. “Evie?”
    I internally cringed. No one had called me by my given name in years—at least not as a name and not a profession—and it hit me with the impact of a wrecking ball. No, the irony that my name matched my career field wasn’t lost on me. I was swimming in a sea of irony.
    “Henry,” I said slowly, working up a smile that fell flat. Letting the Errand get personal was making me weak, but it was also what would keep my strong. When the Errand got long and arduous—as G and I both knew it would—the knife of revenge would keep me going strong. It was a first, but I’d have to strike a balance between the personal and the impersonal. That was the only way it would work. I tried on another smile. That one stayed in place and didn’t feel so artificial. “Long time no see.”
    Then he did something I didn’t expect. He kneeled beside me, shouldering his way past Molly, and wrapped both arms around me. He pulled me close. It was painful at first, like his touch was radioactive, and then I started to melt. In fact, I felt a sob threatening to choke out of my mouth.
    What the hell? Who was I, and where was the best Eve in the business?
    Ahh, that’s right. Melting under the embrace of an ex who’d nailed another woman in the bed we used to share. If it wasn’t already apparent, I really was a lost cause.
    “What are you doing?” I whispered after making sure no sobs would escape. I might have unfrozen beneath his arms, but I certainly wasn’t idiot enough to return his embrace.
    He squeezed me just a bit harder before tilting his head toward my ear. “What you didn’t give me a chance to do the last time I saw you.” His voice was that same mixture of soft and strong. “To apologize.”
    I flinched and tried to weave out of his embrace. “I seem to remember a long string of I’m sorry s as you chased after me with a sheet wrapped around your waist and another girl’s lipstick on your neck.”
    Dammit. Leading with the whole “bitter bitch” act would certainly not work me into his better graces.
    Henry let go, gave me a sad smile, and plopped down next to me as he let out a long breath.