She took another sip and checked how much champagne was left in her glass. She hadn’t had that much, maybe a third, but she was already feeling the effects. Not a happy buzz exactly, but the tightness in her stomach had gone and she was definitely starting to feel more kick-ass and in control.
However, the champagne also seemed to be having another effect. Without the normal careful editing of her emotions, the memories were flooding back, bigger, brighter and more hurtful than ever, which was…disappointing. She had gone to a great deal of effort to bury them beneath long work hours and an extremely busy dating life with men who did not remind her of Ben. She took another sip.
Sophie glanced back at the dance floor, which was a mistake, because once she fixed on Ben she couldn’t look away. Now that the initial shock of seeing him with another woman had passed, a weird jagged emotion hit her square in the chest, making it hard to think, making it hard to breathe.
She knew Ben had been dating up a storm; that he had been running through women like a hot knife through butter, because one of the gorgeous blondes he had dated and who was now obviously obsessed with him kept posting photos of them together on a popular social media account. Whenever Sophie needed to remind herself just how big a rat Ben was, all she needed to do was check Buffy Holt’s feed.
But this was the first time she had seen him with a new lover in the flesh.
Another punch of raw emotion caught her, the fierceness of it making her go hot, then cold, then hot again. Her jaw clenched at the horrifying realization that she was jealous.
Her fingers tightened on the champagne flute. She didn’t think she had ever been jealous before. However, she had heard enough about the emotion to understand that the taut, burning anger and explosive desire to do something off-the-wall, like confront Ben and wrench the pretty blonde from his arms, were classic symptoms.
With careful control, she set the flute down on the bar, deciding that it wasn’t helpful to have any more alcohol. The few sips she’d swallowed had already flipped the lid on a Pandora’s box of thoughts and emotions.
Jealousy.
She needed to hit her head against the nearest wall because that meant that somehow, despite every effort, Ben was still important to her. Reaching for calm, she picked up her half-drunk glass of sparkling water and threaded her way to the dance floor. The pretty blonde was now nowhere to be seen, and Ben was standing alone on the edge of the dance floor.
He half turned as she approached, a sleek cell phone held to one ear. Dimly she noted that the call was probably the reason he had ditched his date. Because with Ben, business always came first.
His dark blue gaze connected with hers. His lack of surprise at seeing her informed her that he had known she would be here and he had come to the party, anyway, with another woman. She suddenly knew what the phrase “a woman scorned” meant, because that described exactly how she felt.
“Sophie.” He lifted the phone from his ear. “It’s good to see you—”
A sudden image of the brief note he’d left her after their one night together made her see red. “Don’t you mean nice?”
She’d had time to think as she approached him. She didn’t fling the water because chances were, she was so angry most of it would miss him. Instead, she stepped close and upended the glass over his head. Satisfyingly, water also cascaded over his phone, with any luck killing it.
“Just so you know,” she said crisply, “I’m not a glass half-empty kind of girl.”
Sophie registered the stunned silence punctuated by the motorized click and whir of a high-speed camera, and the flash of multiple cell phone cameras. All documenting the fact that she, a person who hated scenes, had just made a very public, very messy scene with the man she had slept with—and who she was supposed to have dumped—a year ago.
Face burning, feeling quietly horrified, she turned on her heel, walked back to the bar and returned the empty glass to the barman. She managed a cool smile, then made a quick exit out onto the terrace, which led down to a gleaming pool and beautiful gardens. Behind her, she was aware of the hubbub of noise as waiters scurried to clean up the water on the floor so that no one would slip. She was going to have to apologize to them, and to Nick, who would go crazy because she’d made a scene at his launch party.
She reached the secluded far end of the terrace, which was shaded with large, lush potted palms. Gripping the railing, she stared down at the glowing turquoise pool. The sound on Ocean Drive registered. The screech of tires, as if someone had just braked, followed by the long blast of a horn spun her back just over eleven months, to the accident and her last encounter with Ben.
Not that she had been thinking about him when her SUV had skidded on the loose piece of metal on a country road, then rolled down a gully choked with vegetation and trees. She had been focused on a future that did not contain him.
Happily, the airbags had deployed and the safety belt had done its job, but the two full revolutions down the shallow bank had battered her SUV. Worse yet, the seat belt had repeatedly cut into her torso and stomach, leaving a deep bruise and placing an extra load on her spine at vertebrae T11 and T12.
When the SUV had stopped, it was miraculously right side up. After the airbags had deflated, she found herself enclosed by dense brush and staring at the gnarled branches of a tree, which meant she was invisible from the road.
Her handbag, gym gear and bottle of water, all of which had been in the back seat, were now strewn around her in the front of the car. Her nose was stinging from the water bottle hitting her face while the car had been doing its tumbling act.
Not a problem. But the instant she reached for her handbag, a sharp pain in her right wrist and one in her lower back made her freeze in place. A quick inspection of her wrist suggested it had probably taken a hit from both front and side airbags when she’d automatically thrown up her arm to shield her face. It was straight but already swelling, which meant it was sprained not broken. Since she’d had a broken arm as a kid, she knew the difference.
She had no idea how bad the back injury might be. She didn’t think it was too serious because she hadn’t lost any feeling anywhere, but it was starting to throb, and she knew enough from the first aid course she’d done, and from her mom, who had trained as a paramedic, that you didn’t mess around with spinal injuries. The injuries meant she couldn’t afford to try to exit the SUV herself and climb up to the road.
Luckily she had her cell phone with her, which she suddenly loved with passion because it was going to connect her with the good, safe world out there.
She also knew exactly where she was, so at least she could take charge of getting rescued.
Moving carefully, so as not to twinge her back any more than necessary, she retrieved her phone from her bag.
Normally, she would ring the emergency services number, but since her mother, who had trained as a paramedic after Sophie’s father’s death and volunteered for the local ambulance service, it made sense to kill two birds with one stone and ring her.
Annoyingly, she was forced to use her clumsy left hand because her right hand was out of commission. Instead of getting her mom’s number, she scrolled too far and found herself staring at Ben’s.
A sharp, stabbing pain replaced the throb in her back, and she realized she had tensed. The hand holding her phone jerked, and her thumb must have moved on the screen because suddenly the phone was dialing him.
She wasn’t even supposed to have his number, because when he’d walked out on their one night together and disappeared overseas, he hadn’t given her any contact details at all. She’d had to stoop to getting the number off her brother, Nick’s, phone.
A split second