The Almost Wives Club: Kate Read Online Free Page B

strode toward the exit, pretending she didn’t hear him asking her to just wait a second.
    “How was everything?” a cheerful voice asked as she strode past the hostess.
    “Fine, thank you.”
    She was out on the street before she remembered she didn’t have her car and that she’d meant to get the restaurant to call her a cab. Naturally, there wasn’t a cab in the vicinity and she had no intention of going back in that restaurant.
    For a moment she glanced up and down the street in Santa Monica as though a cab might magically appear or, even better, Ted, might come back for her. Apologizing for dumping her like that.
    When neither miracle occurred, she decided to walk a bit, clear her head, and then find a cab.
    She set off, thinking some exercise might help calm the strange mess of emotions. She’d barely gone half a block when a familiar voice called, “Hey, I’m sorry.”
    She grit her teeth. Really? He had to follow her? “It’s fine.”
    He was beside her now, and she realized he was tall, not as tall as Ted, but over six feet, broad of shoulder and far too attractive. A woman passing on the street eyed him the way a very thirsty person might eye a drinking fountain.
Please
, she wanted to call out,
take him
.
    “Let me give you a ride home.”
    As if
. “No, thank you.”
    “Can I call you a cab?”
    “I can get my own cab, thank you.”
    He fell into step beside her. “I love how you say thank you after every statement even when you’re pissed off.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Kate!” He grabbed her arm. “Don’t marry him.”
     

Chapter Three
    She was so startled by Nick’s words that she stopped walking and he turned her to face him. She got a momentary impression that he was as startled by his words as she was. Was that more of his precious stream of consciousness?
    A street light lit him from above so he seemed momentarily haloed, though nothing else about him was remotely angelic. He dragged a hand through his hair. “I know this sounds crazy, but I want to see you again.”
    “Well, you can’t.” And she ignored the tug, the insane, barely acknowledged tug from somewhere inside her urging her to go forward, to wrap her arms around him, to say, the hell with it. She wasn’t married yet.
    He must have picked up something for he stepped even closer. He was no longer haloed, now he was backlit so his face was in shadow. She thought he might try to kiss her. Wondered what she’d do if he did. She felt her lips begin to part, felt the pull toward him in some elemental way.
    She thought she heard him curse, softly, under his breath, but how was that possible? The man had been hitting on her all night. Then the crazy moment passed. He reached into his jacket, pulled out a business card and handed it to her. “I don’t like the man you’re marrying. I’m telling you right now that if you were mine I would never walk away from you in the middle of dinner.”
    “What if it was an emergency?”
    “Then, I’d take you with me.”
    She stared at the card even though she couldn’t see it clearly in the dark. “I can’t take this.”
    “You can reach me day or night on my cell phone. If you ever need anything. Please. Just take it.”
    She stared at the business card, then risked a quick glance at him. “Thank you.”
    Then he smiled down at her, a twisted smile. “I hope it works out for you.” He leaned in suddenly and kissed her cheek, a soft brush of his lips.
    And he walked right on past her and out of her life leaving her with the scent of him in her nose and the memory of his kiss burning her cheek.
     ***
    “Don’t marry him.” The words haunted Kate as she settled into the back of a cab and stared out the window as the car motored toward her apartment. The cab smelled of something unpleasantly sweet, perhaps disinfectant or a previous occupant’s cologne.
    A news program in a language she couldn’t identify played softly. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t concentrate on