Des nodded, his eyes scanning the front page of the plan.

“I still want to start up my own mixology school. Since we now officially have Libby’s vodkas here, I want to keep that partnership.” He tried to keep his face neutral but even saying her name was like stabbing himself in the chest. “If you look at page three—”

“That’s a brilliant idea.” Des looked up from the report.

“You haven’t even read the whole plan.”

“Paul…” Des laid a hand on his shoulder. “I never questioned the idea when you brought it to me before, but I wanted to know you were invested in it. I take my business seriously, and I want my partners to do the same.”

He hadn’t thought that hearing his brother say that would be so relieving… His family was everything to him. “There’s no one else I’d rather do business with.” Des stuck out his hand, and Paul shook it firmly. “Let me look over the report at home, and we can talk through the plans in more detail. I’ll want to make sure the numbers are sound, but I like the idea. I think you’ll be brilliant.”

“Great, because we have a group coming through this week to try it out.” Paul grinned. It was a risk, but he knew the idea was solid. He’d show Des that he wasn’t the only Chapman with an entrepreneurial mind.

Des rolled his eyes. “What if I’d thought it was a terrible idea?”

“Then I would have done it anyway to prove you wrong.”

His brother clapped him on the back. “You sticking around tonight?”

“Nah,” he said, wiping down the bar and stacking the remaining glasses into the dishwasher.

“Still avoiding Libby, I see.” Des shook his head.

“Tonight is her night, I don’t want to spoil it.” He swallowed down the pain that reared up whenever he thought of her.

Against his will, he missed her like crazy. If he managed to go a day without consciously thinking about her then his dreams would be filled with her sweet face. Memories, fantasies, and wishes all combining to torture him night after night.

“Do you really believe you’d spoil it by being here to support her?” His brother sighed. “Don’t you think that’s exactly what she wants?”

“You know the whole engagement and everything was fake. We weren’t really in…” He couldn’t force himself to say the L word.

“Weren’t you? You’re not as good an actor as you seem to think you are.”

“I fooled you, didn’t I? And everyone else.” He turned away so his brother wouldn’t see the struggle going on inside him.

“I think you’re trying to fool yourself, and you’re failing,” Des said. “If that relationship was a scam then why were you happier when she was around?”

Paul slammed the dishwasher door shut and jabbed a finger at the start button. “Who says I was happier?”

“My dishwasher, for one.”

Paul turned and folded his arms across his chest. “Any other inanimate objects able to back that up? Does the blender want to weigh in, too?”

Des shook his head. “You’re so full of shit sometimes. The way you looked at that girl wasn’t a scam, it wasn’t fake, and it certainly wasn’t you being a good actor. I look at Gracie the same way, I know what it means.”

“It doesn’t matter anyway. We’re not together now, and that’s not going to change.” He didn’t add that there wasn’t a hope in hell of Libby taking him back even if he did go groveling back to her.

Which he couldn’t…could he?

No…he’d been momentarily fooled into thinking relationships could work. Nothing more.

Des motioned for one of his staff to start unpacking the boxes of decorations that had arrived earlier that afternoon. “I’ve never seen you look at a woman that way before. Not even Sadie.”

Paul folded his arms across his chest. “It was all part of the act.”

The words rang hollow in his ears. Meaningless.

It wasn’t an act, and hadn’t he decided to give up lying to his family after the wedding?

“If you say so.” Des shrugged in a way that confirmed the words sounded as believable as they felt.

“She wouldn’t take me back anyway.” But he wanted her to, despite the fact that his conversation with Sadie had cemented the concerns that already existed. And if the pain he felt now was anything to go by, losing Libby after being with her for a longer period of time could prove fatal.

He sighed. He was miserable without her, that couldn’t be denied…but love?

Yes. It was true, he’d never looked at another girl the way he looked at her. He’d never felt about another girl the way he felt about her.

“You don’t know that.” Des pulled a bottle of tequila down from the spirits shelf and poured two shots.

“What are the shots for?” Paul asked warily.

“Dutch courage.” Des slid one glass over to him and picked up the other in his right hand. “Salute!”

They clinked glasses and downed the shots. The tequila warmed his insides, filling him with a comfortable glow. He’d need more than a shot’s worth of courage to lay himself at Libby’s mercy. He wasn’t sure there were enough shots in all the world.

But that was the point, wasn’t it? Big risk for big reward.

“You’re an idiot if you don’t think she’s worth dealing with a little fear.”

He couldn’t deny it, a lie of that magnitude could not pass his lips. “I don’t know if I can.”

“So you gave the ring back to Ma?”

The ring was in his wallet as it had been since Libby had left it on the table next to the bed the night of the wedding. He’d carried it around for a month, telling himself that he was going to give it back to his mother. Instead, he’d kept it close to him every day while he thought about how much he’d fucked things up with Libby.

“I’ll take that brooding silence as no,” Des said smugly.

“What would you be doing now if you’d never been with Sadie?”

Paul looked up. “What do you mean?”

“If you’d never been cheated on, would you still be avoiding the situation with Libby?”

“I don’t know. How can I answer that?” He sighed. “It’s not like I can pretend it never happened.”

Des nodded. “Sure, but you don’t have to use it as a yardstick for life.”

It was a crazy thought. How would he act if he’d never gone through that situation? If he’d never been brought to his knees by someone he cared about?

Possibilities swirled in his mind. Some good, some terrifying. But the possibility that history wouldn’t repeat itself had taken root in his mind, warming him like she had done so many times before. Tempting him with what could be.

Tonight was her night. He wasn’t going to steal her thunder by throwing his issues onto her shoulders. He loved her…and for the moment that meant letting her bask in the glow of her success.

“Regardless, I can’t stay. Libby will have plenty of people here who care about her, I’m not going to distract her on her big night.”

Des threw his hands up in the air. “Then you’re in the same category as her father.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She’s been trying to get him to come along tonight, but the bastard won’t return her calls. We had a few drinks when she came in to finalize the fit out for tonight, and she told me he’s avoiding her.” He raked a hand through his hair. “So I called him. Told him I was Libby’s PR manager.”

“And?” Paul didn’t like where this was going.

“He said he had better things to do with his time than watch his daughter throw her life down the drain.”

“Did she hear him say that?”

He shook his head. “No, she doesn’t know I called him. She used my phone one night to see if he’d take her call if he didn’t recognize the number but he didn’t answer…so I called him on my own.”

Kirk Harris was in a league of his own when it came to being a bastard. Libby deserved so much more from her family…and she deserved so much more from him. It might be too late, but he loved her, dammit. And now he had an idea of how he might be able to make it up to her.