Wedding Party Collection: Always The Bachelor. Barbara Hannay

stomach at dinner last night. And torturing Ivy won out over golf any day of the week. He just had to accidentally bump into her, the way he’d “accidentally” walked into her room. What he hadn’t counted on last night was getting himself sucked into a touchy-feely debate about their failed marriage.

      She was still trying to pin the blame on him. No big surprise there.

      Miss Perfect. Miss Nothing-is-ever-good-enough-for-me. May be he’d made a mistake or two, minor ones, but if anyone was ultimately responsible for the divorce, it was her.

      And why had she assumed that what he’d done at dinner last night had anything to do with her? He was merely helping a friend. Blake was a good guy, the kind who would give a stranger the shirt off his back in the middle of a blizzard. But as long as Dillon had known him, Blake let his family walk all over him. With golf cleats on.

      Deidre was the perfect match for him. Soft-spoken and demure, and May be a little awkward. Although Dillon sensed there was more to her than met the eye, the spark of something more complex. A confidence that she hadn’t let herself explore. If that was the case, Dillon suspected that she would only take so much more from his family before she blew a gasket.

      He hoped so. Otherwise, they would eat her for breakfast.

      “Well,” Ivy said with a forced smile. “It was…nice seeing you again.”

      He chuckled. “Now, that’s a lie if I ever heard one.”

      “You’re right, it is a lie. Goodbye.” She turned and marched off, weaving her way through the crowd of people clogging the streets. Did she really think he was going to let her off that easy?

      This was a vacation, and he intended to have fun.

      Ivy zigzagged her way through the crowd, resisting the urge to break into a run and let Dillon see her desperation.

      The market was hot and noisy, the air filled with the spicy scent of unfamiliar and delectable foods she had been hoping to sample. There were a million different things to see and do, places to explore.

      And she’d planned to do it alone.

      Barely thirty seconds passed before she heard Dillon say, “Where’s the fire?”

      She groaned to herself. He wasn’t going to leave her alone. He was going to dog her all afternoon, like a joy-sucking leech. And how had he managed to find her? She’d waited until no one was around to sneak out of the house, and she hadn’t told anyone, not even Deidre, where she was going.

      Had he lied about golf? Had he hidden somewhere and waited for her to leave, then followed her? Would he be that devious?

      Dumb question. Of course he would.

      What had she done to deserve this?

      She could play this two ways. She could act as though she didn’t care, or she could bluntly tell him to leave her the hell alone. But she knew Dillon. Admitting he was annoying her would only fuel his determination. The best way to possibly get rid of him, the only way, was to pretend she didn’t care either way. Eventually he would get bored and find someone else to torture. She hoped.

      Either way she would be stuck with him for the rest of the afternoon. May be longer.

      Yahoo. She could hardly wait.

      She cast him a sideways glance. He walked beside her, thumbs hooked loosely in the front pockets of his jeans, casual as you please, and for an instant she felt a tiny bit breathless. He wore a pair of faded Levi’s, polished cowboy boots and a white tank top that accentuated the golden tan of his shoulders, the lean definition in his biceps. His hair had that casual, slightly mussed look, as if he’d just rolled out of bed and run his fingers through it. Which is what he used to do ten years ago.

      But when a person looked at him, really looked, it was clear there was more to him than just a pretty face. You could see the breeding, the auspicious roots.

      He wore his status well. It complemented, but didn’t define him.

      “So, you’re a hotshot author now,” he said.

      “If you say so.” She tried to keep it light and brief. She didn’t want to say the wrong thing and give him a new round of ammunition to fire her way.

      “I heard you’re writing a followup to that little book of yours.”

      “Did you?” He could condescend all he liked, but that “little” book had made more money than she and the coauthor, Miranda Reed, had ever imagined possible.

      Having both endured grueling, nasty divorces, the project had been more therapeutic than financially motivated. They hadn’t even been sure anyone would want to publish it. In fact, they had been fairly certain the manuscript would sit untouched on some apathetic editor’s desk, yellowing at the edges and gathering dust.

      Not only did it sell, it became ensnared in a bidding war between several publishing houses. Since its release it had been topping the bestseller lists. It was a pure fluke that it had struck a chord with so many readers. And disturbing to discover the staggering number of women who had endured, or were presently experiencing, painful divorces.

      It had solidified Ivy’s belief that happy, successful marriages were a rare anomaly not experienced by the majority of the population. And with very few exceptions, women were better off staying single.

      “I would think you’d have run out of material by now,” Dillon said.

      Was the hotshot billionaire afraid he would be seeing his checkered past in print again?

      Well, well. This was interesting.

      “Do I detect a note of concern?” she asked.

      “The truth is, I was thinkin’ May be I’ll write a book, too.”

      If he was trying to scare her, he would have to do better. “Good luck with that.”

      “A tell-all with every intimate detail of our marriage.” He grinned and nodded his head, as if he was really warming to the idea. “Yeah. Or better yet, May be I should send a letter or two to Penthouse Forum.”

      “Sex with you was not that exciting,” she said, knowing as well as he did that it was a big fat lie. Near the end, their sex life had been as volatile as their tempers, as if they had been taking out all their frustrations in bed.

      “Are you forgetting the time we got creative with that bottle of hot fudge and you let me lick it off your—”

      “I remember,” she interjected, fighting the blush that had begun to creep up from her collar. Hot fudge hadn’t been the only food they’d experimented with. She had fond memories of a can of whipped cream and a bottle of maraschino cherries.

      “And if memory serves, you had a particularly sensitive spot, right here…” He reached up and brushed the tip of his index finger against the spot just below her ear.

      She instinctively batted his hand away, but not before a ripple of erotic sensation whispered across her skin, making her feel warm and shivery at the same time. She shot him a warning look.

      His victory triggered a triumphant, smug grin. “Yes, ma’am, it’s still there.”

      “Try it again and you’ll lose that finger.” Verbal torment was one thing. Touching was off limits.

      “I think I just figured out your problem.”

      So had she. He was walking right beside her.

      But she had to ask, “Which problem would that be?”

      “Sex.”

      Sex? Oh, she couldn’t wait to see where he was going with this. “My problem is sex?”

      “I’ll bet you haven’t had it in a long time.”

      She thought back to Deidre’s comment about Ivy’s less than active sex life. The truth was, she hadn’t been with a man,