“What?” Matt asked. “What’re you talking about?”
“You’re actually stalling,” Evan said, clearly amazed. “I’ve never known you to back away from anything, but you really are leery about seeing Kayla again.” Shaking his head, he said, “Just what the hell happened between you two, anyway?”
Scowling, Matt shoved one hand through his hair and turned his face into the icy, gusting wind. “Long story and one I’m not interested in sharing, thanks.”
“Touchy.”
He glanced at Evan. “You have no idea.”
“You don’t have to like her, you know.” Evan hunched deeper into his black overcoat in an effort to fight off the chill of the wind. “Just be civil.”
Civil.
Matt swallowed the bark of sardonic laughter crowding the base of his throat. He wasn’t going to have trouble being civil to Kayla. The hard part was going to be keeping his hands off her.
For the past nine months, Matt had been in California, running the marketing division of Lassiter Media. He’d taken the promotion and the move to L.A. and considered it a plus that he could put some distance between himself and Kayla so that he could think clearly. If he’d stayed in Cheyenne, he never would have been able to sort out what he was thinking...feeling.
Kayla had blindsided him, plain and simple. There had been chemistry between them from the first and the one night they’d spent together had jolted him right down to his bones. Never before nor since Kayla had he experienced what he had that one spectacular night. She had turned his world inside out and rattled him enough that he’d needed space. Time.
And it hadn’t helped.
Hadn’t changed a damn thing.
He still wanted Kayla.
Matt followed Evan into the gallery and was immediately slapped with warmth and noise. Classical music—something slow and lovely—played undercurrent to the rush of conversation that rose and fell like waves crashing against the shore. Crowds of people, dressed in tuxes and bright, jewel-toned dresses roamed through the elegant space, admiring the paintings and photographs dotting the cream-colored walls. Sculptures in metal and wood and marble stood displayed on stylish pedestals under pinpoint lighting.
Matt saw it all, yet hardly noticed. He slipped out of his overcoat, draped it over his forearm and scanned the crowd, looking for one woman in particular. The woman who had been haunting his dreams for nine interminably long months. When he finally spotted her, Matt felt the oddest sensation—a strange mixture of both calm and excitement that churned through his bloodstream like a virus, quickly spreading until he could hardly breathe.
Her shoulder-length hair was a tumble of soft, light brown curls that tempted a man to spear his fingers through their silkiness. Even in a sea of artsy, trendy people wearing black, Kayla stood out. Black was a stark color that only accented her pale, creamy skin, her dress clung to curves he ached to explore again. When she turned, and their gazes locked across the room, he noted the brief reaction of shock and pleasure in her blue eyes before it faded away into a cool businesslike stare. A flush of color stained her cheeks but it wasn’t embarrassment or desire—it was anger.
Damned if he didn’t find that exciting.
“Hey,” Evan said, “I see Angelica over by that weird bird sculpture. I’ll catch you later, okay?”
“Sure.” Matt didn’t even see his friend leave. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from Kayla.
People wandered in and out of the line of vision locking Kayla and him together, but nothing could shatter the connection alive and sizzling between them.
She felt it, too. He could see it in her eyes, in the firming of her luscious lips. Just as he could see that she wasn’t happy about what she was feeling. He had to bite back a satisfied smile. Good to know he wasn’t the only one being twisted into knots. Kayla wasn’t an easy woman to figure out.
It was one of the things he liked best about her.
Most of the women he’d been involved with over the years were all too simple to understand. They enjoyed being with him because he had access to the rich, the powerful, the famous. But Kayla was different. She looked at the world through eyes that searched out and found beauty in the most unlikely places. She wasn’t interested in society or the connections she could make through Matt.