Hoping to cover up her shock at hearing his name, Krista smoothly (she hoped!) answered her sister. “Nope. He’s working tonight. So I’ll probably see him there.”
Her sisters and Jamie nodded their heads, all with varying degrees of ‘knowing’ looks in their eyes.
“Does he know that Chase is back in town?” Jessie asked.
“I don’t know,” Krista snapped.
Jessie’s brows rose. “Oookay.” Her sister sat back against the chair.
“I just mean, it doesn’t matter if he does or doesn’t know that Chase is back. It has nothing to do with us,” Krista said, softening her tone.
“Umm…” Jamie was nervously biting her lip. “I’m not sure if I should tell you this. I thought maybe I should, but then I thought, ‘No, it’s none of my business.’ Then I thought, ‘If it were me, I’d want to know,’ but then I thought—”
“Jamie.” Krista interrupted her ramblings. “Just say it.”
“Alex invited Chase to the engagement party tonight,” Jamie blurted, all of the words coming out so fast it sounded like one very long word… AlexinvitedChasetotheengagementpartytonight.
“What?!” Krista sat straight up in her chair.
Jamie nodded, wide-eyed, as Becca’s hand flew over her mouth in shock and a small smile lifted on Jessie’s face.
“Why did he do that?” Krista wanted to kill her cousin. What could have possibly possessed him to invite her ex-boyfriend to her sister’s engagement party?
Jamie’s left shoulder lifted as an apologetic expression fell over her face. “I don’t think he meant to upset you. He said he ran into him at the hospital. He was happy to see him again, and I guess thought his brothers would be too. He said that he specifically asked Chase about you and Chase told him that you guys were good. He said that you were the one who called him about his mom.”
Krista flopped back in the chair as all of her energy drained from her body. She’d been so looking forward to this party. A time to let her hair down. Dance. Drink. Be merry. Well, bully on that. None of that was going to happen if Chase was in attendance. Not only would Krista have to fight the inner battle that she faced every time she and Chase were within one hundred yards of each other, she was also going to have to do it amongst a very interested audience. Most of which were her family members. She knew that they would all be watching to see what would happen between them. It was going to be like a juicy soap opera and Krista had unwittingly just been cast as the lead role.
Then a thought hit her. Jamie had said that Alex had invited Chase. She hadn’t said if he’d accepted. Maybe he would respect the fact that this was Krista’s family, not his, and keep his distance.
Yeah, and maybe pigs would fly.
“Did he say if he was coming?” Krista tried to modulate her tone, not allowing any of the panic that was bubbling up inside of her at the thought of his being there to bleed through as she sliced her eyes to look at Jamie.
Jamie nodded once again. “Yeah, he did. I’m sorry, sweetie. He said he’s coming.”
Of course he is.
Krista shut her eyes, took in a deep, cleansing breath through her nose, and blew it out through her mouth. As the water bubbled around her ankles and the massaging chair did its thing, getting out all of her body’s kinks and working on her sore muscles, she tried to let her mind go blank. It might sound strange, but sometimes Krista did her best thinking when she stopped trying to figure everything out.
After several moments of concentrating on relaxing her entire body, letting the soft sounds of jazz softly playing over the speakers wash through her and clearing her mind, genius struck. Well, that might be a slight exaggeration. A new plan did pop into her mind though, and to her, it sounded brilliant.
It occurred to her that she had been going about this whole Chase thing all wrong. Part of his appeal was their sparks, their fireworks, which were fueled by passion and intensity. Since he’d been back in town, she’d let him goad her into getting riled up. Really, her behavior had left her wide open for it. But if she was nice to him, then he wouldn’t have the openings to push her buttons. Therefore, the intensity level would drop, thereby dropping the fireworks-slash-sparks level.
The second part of her inspired plan was the realization that her strategy to stay away from him, keep her distance, was backfiring. Big time. What that plan was in fact doing was making Chase seem more appealing.
All her life, Krista had always loved a challenge and wanted things more when she was told she couldn’t have them. That was exactly what she was doing with Chase. It was self-inflicted, but the only thing her subconscious, hormones, and heart knew was that he was off-limits.