I lift my brows and struggle for a neutral response. “Very funny. Ha, ha. Did you think that up on your own or did one of the PR assistants write it up so you’d have that one handy to use tonight?”

His smile fades.

His gaze softens.

“I didn’t mean anything by it, Kaley. I just wanted to make you laugh.”

I stare down at my fingers. “Well, it didn’t work.”

“I’m sorry. How do you want your coffee?”

“Just black.

He disappears from view.

Graham comes back into the sitting room and sets two mugs of coffee on the table.

I close my hands around mine. The warmth burns. It feels good. I can almost not feel the tears threatening in my throat.

“So why are you a mercenary for hire? Being a bodyguard must be a little dull after Delta Force,” I tease and earn for the effort the dimples back in his cheeks.

He laughs. “Dull? Hardly. You are anything but dull, Kaley.”

My stomach flutters.

“Then why don’t you want me here with you?” I whisper. “Why don’t you ever make a move on me? I can tell you like me, but you don’t do it.”

Oh crap.

I didn’t intend to ask that.

Graham studies me for a moment and then climbs from the chair. He settles on the ground near me, his posture open, accessible and relaxed, but his body a neutral distance away from me.

“Because I’m not the right kind of guy for you, Kaley. I know it. But more importantly, you know it.”

My cheeks burn.

I brush at my face.

Damn.

Tears.

I feel an arm slip around my shoulders. My body is eased into his. His lips are in my hair. “It’s going to be all right, Kaley. What happened tonight to get you upset enough to take off?”

I peek up at him.

I sniff.

The words gather in my head.

No, don’t say them.

I sink into his chest, sniffling more. The words start fighting their way out. “My dad hates me and he should. I’ve destroyed my mom’s happiness. I’ve ruined their marriage. My dad’s out fucking Jen tonight. My mom won’t forgive that when she finds out and my family is a mess and it’s all my fault. And I’m surrounded by people all day every day and I have never felt lonelier in my life. I don’t even have anything to go home to when I’m finally free of this tour. My boyfriend dumped me…”

He tightens his hold on me. His hand moves on my back in comforting strokes.

“Shush, Kaley. Your dad doesn’t hate you. That’s the first thing you’ve gotten wrong. Also, he’s not with Jen tonight. So you can forget that worry. I can’t tell you where he is, but he’s definitely not doing anything you should blame yourself for. Your family is here and together. That’s more than most families are. If you don’t want to be lonely, stop walling everyone out and try letting people in. As for your boyfriend, crap, I don’t have anything to say about that. He’s an idiot if he dumped you—”

I choke out a laugh. “No, you’re wrong. Bobby is wonderful. I’m the idiot. But it was really sweet that you said that. In case you haven’t noticed I am feeling really bad tonight.”

He nods and makes a pout that’s sort of sexy on such a ruggedly handsome man. “I know. You don’t hide it very well. In fact, you’re pretty awful at hiding what you’re thinking and feeling.”

I laugh more comfortably and give him a push. I drop my face in my hands, clutch my hair, and groan. “God, I have the sorriest life ever.”

His hands close on my cheeks.

He turns me to look at him.

His thumbs lightly brush my jaw. “You don’t have a sorry life. You know what you want and you can have it. You know who you love and you can have them. Don’t you know how fortunate that is? And you are one amazing girl, Kaley Stanton. You’re going to do great things in life. I know it.”

He places a light kiss on my lips. It’s friendly and nothing more. It makes my emotions twirl faster. I feel like a jerk for always being a pain in the ass to him and even for my oh so obvious flirting.

God, what’s wrong with me? By now I should have figured out a way to stop doing one dumb thing after another.

I cry harder.

He folds me against his chest. “Kaley, I’m never wrong. Trust me. It’s going to be OK.”

But it’s not. No matter how true Graham Carson can make that feel by holding me in his powerful arms.

God, I wish I could go back in time.

I wish it were as easy to rewind your life as it is to rewind a video.

I would never have ruined my mother’s happiness.

I would never have made that hideous, shocking website and streaming video.

I never would have hurt and humiliated my father.

I never would have been foolish enough to lose Bobby Rowan—oh crap, the room is spinning—and I wouldn’t have drunk so much tonight. My stomach convulses.

Fuck.

I’m going to be sick.

I try to move.

Too late.

That’s vomit on Graham Carson’s lap.

He scrambles for a wastebasket and holds it beneath me, keeping the hair off my face. Over and over again my stomach contents shoot into the can. I can’t stop it. It’s draining. I’m panting. Tense. Waiting for the next round. Nothing. Is it done? How long have I been throwing up with Graham holding me? Oh God, how am I ever going to face this guy again?

He sets the trash aside.

I collapse to lie in a ball with my face against his thigh.

My breathing is ragged.

His fingers in my hair are gentle.

My lids grow heavy.

“I should go back to my room,” I choke out, finding it hard to say the words.

He adjusts my body from its fetal position into something more comfortable for me.

“Sleep, Kaley. Just sleep,” he murmurs. “That’s what you need now. I’ll figure out in the morning how to smooth this over with your dad. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything. Right now you just rest.”

Graham Carson is such a good guy.

He’d be a wonderful boyfriend, if I wasn’t in love with Bobby.

Bobby—I close my eyes and drift away…

Part Two

Kaley’s Dream

“Rewind”

CHAPTER 28

It started as a joke. Just something I worked on one night after learning the last girl from my sorority clique was getting married. I really didn’t do it out of spite or resentment. I didn’t even do it because I polished off a full bottle of Zinfandel that night. It’s just how I fill my evenings when there is nothing better to do: design a blog page, give it a name—How to Train Your Fembot—and start to post.

Who would have ever thought this page would take off the way it has in the past six months and who would have thought there were so many vain guys out there looking to bag a Fembot?

I don’t really think of my sorority sisters as fembots, any more than I think of myself as the token brunette. Sure, I was the only brunette in the clique inside my sorority of rich hotties at USC, but that was totally random and had nothing to do with this being California.

I don’t really resent them all landing their super-duper great guys, marching down the aisle into their oh-so-perfect lives. I had a super-duper great guy. I just didn’t marry him. Oh well, that’s another story for another day and a different blog. Tonight, I haven’t finished teaching overachieving men how to achieve their fembot-perfect wife.

Rule #477: If you want to make the Fembot crawl to you, figure out who her best friend is, and then flirt her up. As much as they pride themselves on ‘the sisterhood’ the second the BFF’s back is turned, she’ll make her move.

My fingers pause and I stare at the screen.

You ought to know rule #477 in spades, Kaley Stanton.

It’s what got me into my current mess. I’m so stupid to have fallen for that one, and definitely over a player like Graham Carson. Graham could write this blog probably better than I do. He made his way through my sorority sisters with a slick-talking, velvet-encased machete.