A Defender's Heart. Tara Taylor Quinn

couldn’t be severed. He’d been confident. Cocky.

      And wrong.

      Why had she invited him tonight?

      And worn that dress?

      Heather didn’t do anything without reason.

      Clearly her two closest friends had been communicating a similar message to her just before he’d come in. She’d felt compelled to assure them that she was over him.

      Swelling with a bit of...he didn’t want to examine what...he momentarily liked the idea that they’d been talking about him.

      At her engagement party.

      Because she shouldn’t be marrying another man.

      They belonged together. They always had.

      He stepped closer to her, his lips a couple of inches from hers, when the swinging door from the living room pushed open and a man he vaguely recognized stood there.

      In black pants, a white shirt and a black-and-white silk tie, the man put Cedar on edge. It was his confidence, his wealth—judging by the quality of his clothes and the watch he wore—and the way he held himself.

      He remembered where he’d seen this man before. At one of Heather’s parents’ parties. He was the dentist who lived down the street.

      So why was Heather leaving Cedar and the kiss they’d almost shared to walk over and put an arm around this man?

      “Cedar, I’d like you to meet Charles,” she said.

      If not for years of courtroom practice, Cedar might have let it be known that his solar plexus had just taken a massive blow.

      “The dentist,” he said, reaching out a hand. “We’ve met.”

      He hadn’t remembered the guy’s name. Or had any inkling that this...this dentist was the man Heather planned to marry. He was closer to her parents’ age than their own.

      “At the Labor Day barbecue, year before last,” he continued, feeling ornery and not happy with himself. “Heather and I had just returned from a trip to Egypt, and her parents insisted they see for themselves that she’d made it back unharmed.”

      They’d been travel-weary, wrinkled and could hardly manage to keep their hands off each other. The trip had been partially for business—he’d had to meet with a man who’d skipped the country, but had information that could exonerate a very important client of Cedar’s. He and Heather had also had a lot of time alone. He’d been able to focus on her almost exclusively for three whole days.

      Charles, the fiancé, nodded, seemingly not the least bit put out by Cedar’s rudeness.

      “Glad you could make it tonight,” he said instead. “I know it meant a lot to Heather to have you here.”

      And the guy didn’t find that discomfiting? Or odd?

      “I told Charles the same thing I told the girls,” she said, her free hand on the man’s flat stomach, just above his belt. “I’d like us to be able to be friendly if we ever run into each other, and I’m glad to see you here with none of the old feelings between us. Good or bad.”

      Was that so?

      What did you call the almost-kiss that would have happened if not for Charles’s suspiciously timed entrance?

      Lianna had sent the older man. Cedar knew it as surely as he knew he’d be getting drunk that night when he got home.

      “I wanted you to meet Charles and hoped you’d wish us well,” she continued now, sounding more like her mother than ever.

      “I do wish you well,” he said, including them both in his best courtroom smile.

      Heather would see through it. But then he wasn’t buying her stance, either.

      Still, he’d play along.

      Didn’t have much choice, really.

      He needed her help, or a young woman might die at the hands of a man Cedar had put back on the streets. The man he’d manipulated Heather into helping him set free.

      He hadn’t done it to serve justice, but to serve his own compulsion to win.

      “Then I hope you’ll come join us for our celebratory toast. The champagne’s been poured and passed around. We were just missing my bride-to-be.”

      With a bow of his head, Cedar conceded defeat. Or compliance. Or whatever the hell he was doing. Because Heather had asked him to come to her party.

      He stood beside the happy couple as they were toasted again and again. He sipped champagne. And tried his damndest to be okay with the fact that the woman he loved was about to marry another man.

       CHAPTER THREE

      SHE’D ALMOST KISSED HIM. Or let him kiss her.

      It had been a conditioned response. She knew that. But she was still disappointed in herself. If she was going to be happy, to quit worrying about making poor choices and letting herself down, to stop being paranoid about people using her and about being unable to use her skills on a personal level, she had to manage to be around Cedar and not capitulate to whatever he wanted.

      To anything he wanted.

      He wanted her. The knowledge was a boost to the pride he’d injured when he’d put her low on his list of priorities. But she wasn’t proud of herself for having felt a thrill of gratitude that at least she’d mattered to him for more than how she could help him reach his goals. For more than the asset she’d been to his career and his unending drive to win.

      He hadn’t won her, and he wasn’t going to.

      The only reason she’d agreed, before he’d left the other night, to see him again—to meet him for lunch to discuss some business matter he had—was to prove to herself, and to him, that the incident in the kitchen had been an anomaly. A natural reaction to seeing a lover again for the first time since their intensely painful split. The pain had faded, the hurt feelings and blame dissipated, leaving room for good memories to slip in. Good memories were healthy. She welcomed them.

      However, she wouldn’t be swayed by them. Because she knew that memories were all they were. A few good times in between all the bad. They weren’t significant, didn’t represent a way of life. Or possibilities. They were merely the bag that lined the trash can.

      Trying to scroll through the bad memories, she faltered, finding far more good ones that outweighed the disappointments—regularly missed occasions, perennial lateness, a constant lack of returned phone calls... Until that last case, the last week, the last day.

      While most of Cedar’s clients were wealthy businessmen who were charged with white-collar crimes, during the last year they’d been together, he’d taken on two high-profile criminal cases. She’d never been completely sure why. He’d earned a reputation by then; Cedar Wilson commanded the highest price, but he did what it took to get the job done.

      The change in him had been gradual, as winning began to matter more than justice. More than right and wrong. Or even his clients. Maybe that was why she hadn’t seen it coming, because it had happened slowly, over time.

      Or maybe because, at home, he was still the man who struggled with insecurities. A grown-up version of the young boy who’d never been good enough to deserve personal acknowledgment from his famous father, the singer Randy Cedar-Jones. He’d called him after every case, telling him—through voice mail—about every victory. Without taking offense when there was never a response.

      At home, he was a man who touched her tenderly. One who cooked beside her, who slept beside her, who woke her with a smile and a cup of coffee every morning.

      As she dressed for lunch on Monday, she reminded herself of all the hard-earned lessons of the past year. And of