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  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Anger flared inside her at the accusation in his voice. “How the hell was I supposed to do that, Raphael? Call the cell phone you disconnected? Send a letter to the old family house that you sold in Baton Rouge? Beg your administrative assistant at JerTech for your contact information?”

  She curled her hands into fists to hold back the urge to hit him, then sucked in a steadying breath. “It’s been eight years since our relationship ended for all intents and purposes. We’ve both moved on and lived successful lives, so I don’t think we owe each other anything. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the party.” She ducked under his arm.

  “Wait.” He wrapped a hand around her wrist. “That’s it? We don’t see or talk to each other for almost a decade and you can just walk away like we were nothing?”

  Another surge of anger swept her. How dare he make it seem like she was at fault? “We were friends, Raffie,” she told him, clenching her fists so tightly her nails dug into her palms. “We were friends when you needed a friend, then we were more when you needed more. You needed me, and I was glad to be there for you. But you didn’t need me anymore.”

  It hurt her to say it, and it appeared that it hurt him to hear it. He released her. “And what if I need you now, Macy?”

  “You don’t need me, Raphael,” she said as gently as she could. “I’ve seen the women you date, and I know how you plow through them like the Mississippi during a flood. Besides, even if I wanted to go there, rumor has it that you never have the same woman twice. That means I’m automatically disqualified. I have no desire to be a fling or a notch in your bedpost. No desire to go there again for old time’s sake or anything else.”

  A member of the wait staff emerged from the serving corridor. “Macy, there’s a problem in the back; we need you.”

  “Be right there.” She turned to Raphael. “I’ve got to go.”

  The look he gave her ignited her insides again. “This isn’t over, Macy.”

  She lifted her chin. “As far as I’m concerned, it is.”

  Spinning on her heel, she strode away. From the weight of Raphael’s gaze on her back, she knew their reunion was far from done.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Two days later, Raphael stood at the window of his sumptuously decorated offices on the thirty-ninth floor of Place St. Charles. The view of the skyline and the bend of the Mississippi went unnoticed, consumed as he was by thoughts of Macy Lovelace.

  Macy was in New Orleans. Had been for four years. How had he not known that? Maybe he hadn’t wanted to know. So many times over the years he’d forced himself to not think about her, what she was doing, whom she was doing it to. It had been the only way he could stay sane.

  Turning away from the killer view, he resumed his pacing, a maelstrom of emotions still churning uneasily inside him. He’d put her on a plane to Paris eight years ago because her dream had always been to go to culinary school in France and to open her own restaurant someday—a dream backed by him and her family. His dream had been derailed thanks to his father’s death and while he’d been tempted to let the company crash and burn, he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Macy’s father had taught him better than that.

  So he’d stayed, at least for a little while. He’d sent her away even though he knew she’d have stayed if he’d asked her. He’d been on the verge of doing just that, of dropping to his knees and begging her not to leave him, of confessing just how much he needed her, of how his life wouldn’t be the same without her, how she was his life. Just as his father had been with his mother. But at twenty-two, with fresh wounds from the aftermath of his father’s incapacity to live without his mother, the enormity of his feelings for Macy had scared the shit out of him. That more than anything else had been the reason why he’d let her go and closed himself off.

  It had been difficult. He’d lasted two months as CEO of JerTech before the grief, pressure, and expectations caught up to him. What the fuck did his twenty-two-year-old self know about running an industrial company like JerTech? The only things that had made sense back then were Macy and Muay Thai. So he’d turned the day-to-day management back over to the trustee, taken a month to cut almost all his ties to Baton Rouge, and had headed to Paris to surprise Macy.

  Except Macy hadn’t been there. Not in the walk-up he’d addressed his letters to, not at the culinary school she’d attended. She’d disappeared. Frantic, he’d scoured Paris for two days before it dawned on him to call Macy’s father. Carlton Lovelace had told him that he’d talked to Macy, that she was fine, still in Europe, but was taking a break from school. When Raphael had asked to speak to her, Carlton had told him that Macy didn’t want to see or hear from him for a while.

  He rubbed at his chest, remembering the pain like a fresh wound. He’d screwed up, and he’d lost her by waiting too long to go to her. With only Muay Thai left, he’d gone to Thailand and submerged himself into training, his body the only thing he still had control over. When he’d emerged two years later, making a name for himself on the circuit, he’d searched for Macy and discovered that she’d hooked up with that baron. She’d obviously moved on with her life. He’d stopped following up on her then, and thrown himself into one affair after another, one fight after another, determined to put her out of his mind.

  Macy. Seeing her again had ripped him open. God, she’d looked … beautiful had been the first word that came to mind, but he’d been struck stupid by the sight of her and unable to come up with anything better. Amazing. Breathtaking. Ravishing. Alluring. All of those came closer but still didn’t do justice to the wonder that was Macy Lovelace.

  She’d done something to her hair. He remembered how wildly curly it had been. She’d hated it, but he’d loved it, especially when she rode him. Her hair would fall around them like a fiery curtain, blocking out the rest of the world. He’d called it drowning in sunset, and it had been his favorite way to come.

  He shifted his stance, conscious of the heavy erection he sported. It had been an almost constant state since he’d first seen her yesterday. Damned annoying, but Macy had always had that effect on him. Macy, with her warmth and softness that he never tired of exploring.

  Just seeing her again had shifted his world. Gone were thoughts of looking for a quick lay. Now all he could think of, all he wanted, was Macy. Too bad she didn’t seem to return the feeling.

  Fuck that. He’d felt her response to their kiss. That soft sigh, the way she’d wrapped her arms around his neck before she’d leaned into him. The breathy moan when he’d pulled her closer. That wasn’t the response of someone who disliked him.

  Need gripped him, refusing to let go. She wanted him as much as he wanted her, he knew it. He had to have her. He would have her—he just had to get to the bottom of why she was mad at him and apologize for it.

  Settled on a course of action, he crossed to his desk and ran a quick Internet search on Carlton George Lovelace, Macy’s father. It surprised him to learn that Macy’s father still lived in the Lovelaces’ Baton Rouge house that had been as much Raphael’s home as a teen. Surprised and saddened him, because Raphael knew he should have visited the man who had been his surrogate father for years. Truth was, once he’d lost Macy he couldn’t bear to go back to his surrogate family. He’d do it, though, if it meant he’d have Macy.

  “Hello?”

  Raphael tightened his grip on the phone. “Mr. Lovelace?”

  “Yes, who is this?”

  “It’s Raphael. Raphael Jerroult.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t know if you remember me.”

  “Well, of course I do—you were an honorary member of the family!” Carlton’s warm voice spread over Raphael like a favorite blanket. “How are you?”

  “I’m back in New Orleans, and I-I saw Macy.”

  “About time,” The older man sighed. “It was hard being between you two, son. Did you talk to her?”

  “I tried. It didn’t go as well as I would have liked. I want to ge
t in touch with her but I don’t have her contact information.”

  Carlton hesitated. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  Raphael closed his eyes. If Carlton Lovelace didn’t approve, he’d get nowhere. No, he’d just have to try harder. “I’d like to think it is, sir. Even if only so she can tell me to my face why she thinks it’s not a good idea.”

  “She might never admit it, but it hurt her when you lost touch. I always thought that you and Macy …” Carlton sighed. “Never mind the thoughts of an old man.”

  “I know what you mean.” Raphael had had those same thoughts himself all those years ago, lying in the dark listening to Macy sleep beside him. Thoughts that had filled him with terror. “I want to make things right, if she’ll let me. At least I have to try. I … miss her.”

  A long beat of silence. “She misses you, too, Raphael. We all do. It felt like we lost a true member of our family.”

  “I’m truly sorry about that, Mr. Lovelace.”

  “I’m not the one you need to apologize to.”

  “Do you know what happened in Paris?” Raphael demanded, his chest tight. “Do you know why she’s avoided me all this time?”

  A long silence from the other end of the line. “It’s not my story to tell, son. You need to hear it from Macy.”

  “You’re right. And I will apologize. I just need to know how to reach her.”

  “All right. You deserve a chance to set things right. Don’t hurt my girl again.”

  Again? “I don’t intend to, sir.”

  “See that you don’t.” Mr. Lovelace’s voice was gruff as he rattled off his daughter’s information. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, son. It won’t be easy.”

  “Nothing worth having ever is. Thank you, sir.”

  Raphael disconnected, then got to work. He had an apology of epic proportions to make.

  * * *

  “Oh my God, Macy!” Renata exclaimed. “I know you said you had experience with an athlete before, but I didn’t know you meant Sebastian’s best friend!”

  “It was a long time ago, and will you keep your voice down?” Macy looked around Choux, but none of the prep staff seemed to be paying undue attention. One of the perks of owning one’s own restaurant—she could keep the media out and give Renata much-needed space to relax and breathe. The press was totally taken with Renata and Sebastian’s reunion story, making their engagement party the Saturday before front-page news. Four days later and the local media was still talking about it. It wasn’t every day that a gorgeous billionaire bachelor bad boy reformed for the love of his life, and everyone who was anyone in New Orleans was eating it up. It also didn’t hurt that Renata was a stunningly beautiful woman with a mean right hook and a boxing championship.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Macy added as she stirred sugar into her coffee. “You and I were just becoming friends and I didn’t want to put you in an awkward position.”

  “Don’t be sorry, be talkative,” Renata retorted. “I want to know all about you and Raphael Jerroult. Are you his one-who-got-away?”

  Macy snorted. “Hardly. We were friends, really good friends—”

  “With some serious benefits,” Renata cut in.

  “Not at first,” Macy told her, rolling her eyes. “I knew him in middle school, for goodness’ sakes. We both lost our mothers around the same time and we just sort of gravitated to each other. He spent a lot of time at my house with me and my father and brothers, but we were the same age and both geeky awkward then.”

  Renata raised a dark brow. “Really? He didn’t have a gaggle of giggling girls following him around back then?”

  “You mean like he does now?” Macy smiled to take the sting and bitterness out of her words. She knew Raphael’s reputation as the Crescent City Casanova, leaving a string of beautiful, satisfied model-like women in his wake from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, and before that, around the world. She also knew firsthand that the reputation was well deserved and probably had only improved in the intervening years. “Believe it or not, Raffie was a late bloomer. So was I. It wasn’t until college that he began the transformation into the golden-haired angel you see now. By then, he’d been studying martial arts for about ten years.”

  Renata snorted. “Raphael may be many things, but I bet ‘angel’ doesn’t make the top ten. Not that I know him as well as you do, of course.”

  Heat stained Macy’s cheeks. “No, I guess not.”

  “Ooh, look at the redhead blush! You got something you want to tell me? Maybe you want to pick up right where you left off?”

  Macy shook her head. Renata had no idea. There were tons more to tell, and while Macy wanted nothing more than to get her new best friend’s take on her history with Raphael, she wasn’t ready to share everything just yet. “There’s nothing to tell. He kissed me, I kissed him back, told him it wasn’t going to happen again, then I went to check on my staff. That’s it.”

  “That’s not it. Besides, I know a thing or two about reuniting with old flames. Wanna tell me how ‘Raffie’ became yours?”

  Macy took a deep breath, then plunged into the story. “We were both at Tulane getting our business degrees. His dad committed suicide just after we graduated.”

  “Oh, God.” Shocked, Renata covered her mouth with a trembling hand. “Poor Raphael.”

  “I came home with him, helped him with all the arrangements. I comforted him as a friend and then as a lover, and at the end of the summer he put me on a plane to Paris where I attended culinary school as I’d planned.”

  Macy remembered that time clearly. Her father had thrown a going-away party for just the family, Raphael included. They had laughed and reminisced, though Raphael had become more withdrawn by the moment. They hadn’t been apart more than a week since they were twelve and the impending separation had weighed on both of them.

  Their last night together had been the most emotionally intense of her life. She’d suggested that she could remain stateside for culinary training, stay with him. He’d told her no, and the next morning, had joined her father at the airport for final farewells. “We parted as friends, but I hadn’t seen or spoken to him since then, until the night of your party.”

  Renata radiated surprise and confusion. “What? But that’s been … how long has it been?”

  “Eight years.”

  “Eight years.” Renata’s dark eyes hardened. “You were best friends. You were there for him when his father died. Was he your first?”

  Macy didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “We were each other’s firsts.”

  A strangled sound issued from Renata’s throat. Macy could see that her friend was getting her dander up on her behalf, and she almost felt sorry for Raphael. Almost. “You went through all of that with him, for him, and you haven’t seen or spoken to him in eight years? Eight years?”

  “It wasn’t complete silence at first,” Macy explained, understanding why Renata was appalled. “We exchanged e-mails of course, wrote letters back and forth for a while. About two months in, I couldn’t reach him. I took the hint and went on with my life as best as I could. Eventually I made my way back here and opened my restaurants. Raphael’s obviously done well for himself with his Muay Thai career and the company he has with Sebastian and Gabriel.”

  She shrugged, projecting a casualness she didn’t feel. “I figured I’d run into him again one day, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so …” She waved a hand.

  “Intense,” Renata supplied. “Confusing. Overwhelming.”

  “Yes. All of the above.” Macy smiled at her friend.

  “Did he at least give you an explanation?”

  “He wanted to leave the party and go talk but I refused. Everything was too churned up inside. Maybe one day we’ll be able to be friends again, but it’s not as if I have to make a decision about that yet. After all, he’s up in Baton Rouge, and I’m here.”

  A curious expression crossed Renata’s face. “Uhm, hate to break it to you, girlfriend,
but you’re going to have to deal with him sooner rather than later.”

  “Why? Oh, you mean the wedding. It makes sense that he’ll be Sebastian’s best man.”

  “Him and Gabriel both, and our mentor Armand Duparte’s agreed to give me away.” Renata smiled as she twirled her amazing red diamond engagement ring. “But Macy, you need to know that Raphael’s not in Baton Rouge anymore.”

  “What? He moved the company?”

  “He sure did,” Renata confirmed with a nod. “Here. Raphael lives in New Orleans now.”

  Feeling as if she’d just taken a spinning kick to the gut, Macy slumped in her chair. “Oh my God. How am I supposed to avoid him now? He’s knows I’m here.”

  “Do you really want to avoid him?” Renata asked, her voice soft with concern. “You guys really didn’t have any closure, you just stopped communicating. If he was as in to you as you say, I find it hard to believe that he’d stop reaching out to you without a good reason. Something went down between him taking over his father’s company and becoming a Muay Thai champion. Don’t you owe it to yourself, and him, and the friendship you had to at least get together and talk and find out what happened?”

  “I know what happened,” Macy said, struggling once again to keep hurt and bitterness from her voice. “Out of sight, out of mind. The birth of the Crescent City Casanova.”

  Renata reached over to clasp her hand. “Out of sight, yes. But it doesn’t sound like out of mind, for either of you. You need to know the truth. You both do.”

  “You’re really taking this best-friend thing seriously, aren’t you?”

  “I haven’t had a bestie since high school, so I’m jumping in with both feet.” Renata grinned at her. “Besides, you’re the one who got all teary-eyed when I asked you to be my maid of honor.”

  “Well, when you put it that way. …” Macy sighed. “You’re right. I know you’re right. And I know I should be ready to face this. After eight years, it should be easier than this. But this is Raphael we’re talking about.”