“Don’t fight the urge. The bastard deserves a good slapping. I can’t believe he went to Aruba! Who does that?”
“I know, right?”
“Selfish dick.”
The outrage in her friend’s voice made Claire laugh, and the giddy sound was only confirmation that she would be lost without Natasha. They’d known each other since they were five years old, attended the same schools all the way through to high school graduation, and although their paths had branched off when Natasha enrolled in med school and Claire went for her MBA, the two of them had remained close.
Claire still remembered the day Natasha had come out to her as a lesbian, back when they were seventeen years old. Natasha had been so worried things would change between them, that Claire would freak out and pull away, but the confession had only strengthened their bond. Claire had wanted so desperately for Chris to love Nat as much as she did, but he’d never warmed up to her best friend, and now she had to wonder if that had been a warning sign all along.
“Seriously, though, how are you doing?”
Natasha’s soft inquiry cut into her troubled thoughts. “I’m fine,” she said truthfully. “But…shit, I’m so embarrassed. I’m dreading having to explain to everyone why we cancelled the wedding.”
“You don’t have to explain a damn thing. You and Chris broke up. End of story.”
She laughed again. “My parents will want more details than that.”
“Fine, you can give Nora and Ron the deets. But nobody else needs an in-depth explanation. They can mind their own business.” Natasha paused. “I really wish I could fly home and be there for you, do something to cheer you up.”
“You’ve already done a lot.”
“Well, I want to do more. I promise you, the second the plane touches down on the runway a couple of months from now, I’m picking you up, bringing you to my place and giving you an epic cheer-up session. We can get really tipsy, sing some awful karaoke and dye our hair blonde just like we did after Sandy dumped me. Deal?”
Claire grinned. “Deal.”
They spoke for a few more minutes, but it was nearly midnight in Sierra Leone, and when Natasha confessed she’d been up for the past thirty-eight hours working at the clinic, Claire felt so guilty she practically forced her friend to hang up.
Dropping the phone on the bed, she went over to her suitcase and unzipped it. Her plan was to take off this flimsy honeymoon dress, put on some comfy clothes, and reflect on this day from hell, but when she heard a clinking sound in her bag, the plan promptly changed.
She reached between the stacks of clothes and pulled out the bottle of Lagavulin single-malt scotch, which sold for three hundred bucks a pop. She didn’t normally buy such expensive liquor, but she’d wanted to surprise Chris on their honeymoon and toast to their marriage with his favorite brand.
As she traced the edges of the bottle’s label, she thought about the plan of action Natasha had just outlined. Getting tipsy sounded pretty damn appealing…but who said she had to wait until March? At the moment, she couldn’t think of anything better than getting a little wonky in the head and not thinking about this disastrous day for a little while.
With a decisive nod, she started to untwist the bottle cap, then froze when she heard muted footsteps coming from the hallway. She expected a knock on the door, but it didn’t come. Instead, another door opened and closed, and then there was nothing but silence.
Her face grew hot as she pictured Dylan and Aidan alone in a bedroom together. Embracing. Or maybe doing more than embracing…
She quickly banished the wicked thought before it put down roots and sprouted a whole bunch of dirty images in her head.
But as she opened the Lagavulin bottle and brought it to her lips, she couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in the other room.
Chapter Three
Aidan followed Dylan into the master bedroom, noting the rigid set of his roommate’s shoulders—and was that guilt in those deep green eyes? Clearly it was, because the second the door closed, Dylan lobbed an apology in his direction.
“I’m sorry, man.”
Aidan wrinkled his forehead. “For what?”
“For bringing Claire here without warning.”
Dylan dragged both hands through his dirty-blond hair before shrugging out of his black suit jacket. He tossed it on the king-sized bed, then loosened his slate-gray tie, yanked it off and threw that aside too.
Aidan’s gaze tracked the movement of Dylan’s long, callused fingers as they unbuttoned the top two buttons of his white dress shirt. Then the SEAL let out a weary groan and stretched his arms over his head, causing the muscles on that broad chest to flex in the hottest possible way.
The sudden, all-consuming arousal that seized Aidan’s body no longer startled him. He’d been attracted to both sexes for as long as he could remember, but his attraction to Dylan surpassed anything he’d ever experienced. He was addicted to the man, craved him on a whole other level, and no matter how many times he fed the addiction, no matter how many mind-blowing releases they gave each other, he constantly wanted more.
Snapping out of it, he leaned against the tall dresser and watched as Dylan flopped down on the bed. “You don’t have to be sorry. You did the right thing getting her out of town.” He hesitated. “Did Chris seriously just leave without telling her the wedding was off?”
“Yup.”
“Wow.” Aidan searched his vocabulary for an adjective with some tact, but in the end, he couldn’t control what came out. “Your brother’s a f**king ass**le, man.”