Falling for Fate by Caisey Quinn Page A

intricate tattoo covering his left bicep and shoulder. Something about possessing that knowledge in a room full of unsuspecting people made the area between her thighs damp. Or maybe it was that he had been, in fact, staring at her like that same area was about to be his next meal.
    “Complicated is my specialty.”
    Truth be told, if she didn’t tell someone, she was going to explode from the combination of shock and pent-up lust that seeing him had unleashed. “Can you take an early lunch? We can go to that Italian sandwich shop across the street.”
    “DeLuca’s or Angelo’s?”
    Fate threw her hands up and almost sent the folder she was holding flying. “Whichever.” She huffed out a breath and tried to regain her sanity.
    Seeing that man again, the one who’d given her a kind of pleasure she didn’t even have words to describe, had her nerves all jangled. And for the love of everything holy, did he not know the meaning of the word discreet? He’d just let his unwavering stare burn right through her clothes for everyone to see.
    Gwen laughed. “Screw lunch. I have a few emails to reply to, a fax to send, and then we’re getting the hell out of here. Call it brunch. I have to know what has you so riled up.”
    “Fine. See you in fifteen.” She plopped down in her desk as Gwen made her way to hers.
    She figured she was probably about to get fired anyways. Taking an early lunch without permission was the least of her problems.
     
    “I’ ll have a pastrami on rye,” Gwen told the cashier at DeLuca’s Italian Eatery.
    Fate ordered a salad, knowing good and well there was no way she could eat. She couldn’t really afford it either, but she needed something to do with her hands during what was sure to be a painfully humiliating conversation.
    Once they’d gotten their food, they slid into a booth by the window.
    “All right, spill it. I’m dying here.” Her roommate was practically bouncing up and down in her seat.
    Fate took a deep breath and long drink of her tea. She purposely remained silent, trying to piece together the best way to explain how she knew Dean Maxwell, before his father had introduced him that was.
    Gwen looked ready to shake it out of her. “You’re kidding me right now, right?”
    No, the damn universe was kidding. Or just plain cruel. So far, it was looking like the latter.
    “So, um, about what happened with Trevor…” She ran a hand through her hair and tried not to let herself warp back in time.
    “Yeah, yeah. Fiancé was a dick and was ‘blowing off steam’ inside your best friend. Got that part.” Gwen shook her head. “And you walked in on them at the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding. I gotta say, if it were me, they’d be dead and we’d be having this conversation through plate glass.”
    She laughed despite the old ache the memory conjured. Except that the ache was missing this time. Odd.
    “Yeah, um, all of that happened. But there’s slightly more to it. Afterwards, I ran out. Just took off down the beach and away from…everything.” She glanced around to make sure no one they worked with was within hearing range. “It’s just, I didn’t have much, you know? Everything I had, I had because of Trevor. His family was my family. My mom had…issues. Walking away from him literally meant walking away from everything. From my whole life.”
    Gwen nodded and gave her the universal head tilt of sympathy. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
    “No.” Fate shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I just want to explain where my head was at because I’m afraid what I’m about to tell you will make you think bad of me.”
    “Think bad of you? Did you murder someone? ‘Cause, again, if you did, I’d understand.”
    The memory of that night was slamming around inside her, demanding to be released. “Not exactly. I did, however, take off running and then fling a four-hundred-dollar pair of heels into the ocean. At which point I prayed for the