Chapter 1
TWO YEARS LATER
It was snowing. Of course, it was December in Washington, D.C., and it was bound to snow eventually. The fat, fluffy flakes drifted like a wintry cape from the dark, cloud-laden sky. There was little wind, so it fell and piled, and in the time it took Kia Rutherford to escape from the hotel and the very boring party she had attended and to go to the little corner bar, it had covered the sidewalks.
The salt trucks were already running, their plows lifted for now. The heavily traveled streets of Alexandria would stay clear for a while yet. The sidewalks were another matter.
She stepped carefully in her three-inch heels. They were perfectly safe to wear in the hotel, but here, on the slick sidewalk, was another story. She held the skirt of her winter white velvet dress to her ankles and wished she had just tried to grab a cab and risk going home rather than attempting to hide for a while.
There were few places she could hide where she wasn't well known. The bar was one of those places. She had been inside it several times in the past year. It was close to the hotels she was forced to attend events in, and those events invariably included her ex-husband, Drew.
She lowered her head as she ducked into the bar, pulling the wrap that was much too light for this weather around her cold arms.
She waved to the bartender and he nodded quickly as she headed to the table she always snagged. In the corner, where it was dark and shadowed and she could watch. Just watch the patrons as they chatted, laughed, joked.
Friends came in with friends or business associates. They could get a little loud, but they laughed and slapped each other on the back and had fun.
"It's a little cold out there tonight, honey." The barmaid, a young woman named Andrea, sat a chilled bottle of beer in front of Kia and smiled back at her in concern as she let her eyes rove over her evening gown.
Andrea was quiet, a dark brunette with laughing gray eyes and a smile for everyone. Her sweater and jeans attested to the fact that the chill in the air outside often seeped inside here as well.
"Yes, it is," Kia agreed as she accepted the beer. "They're saying several inches of snow tonight and much more in the morning."
"Ten inches, last I heard," Andrea agreed, "We should all just hunker down with a hot man and a hotter fire."
Kia smiled as Andrea turned away.
The pub wasn't very full tonight. It was only the middle of the week, after all. She sipped at her beer and pulled the wrap closer around her shoulders, repressing a shiver as she looked around.
From where she sat, most of the room was visible to her. Only the two back corners were as shadowed as her own. They were private, cocooned with darkness.
She sighed deeply as she played with the chilled bottle of beer, stared down at her fingers, and wondered why the hell she had come here. She could have gotten a room at the hotel. Drew would have known, of course, and getting her room number would have been easy for him, but he couldn't have gotten in. She could have just called security. Except she preferred to avoid a fight. Drew wasn't above causing a scene, and he hadn't yet realized that she didn't give a damn.
All fear of society's gossip had been burned out of her the day she was forced to retract her knowledge of exactly what her husband was, and what he had been a part of.
In two years, she hadn't forgotten that moment for even a single day. Or night. Some nights, she dreamed of it, and the dreams were much different than what had happened in reality.
She smiled at the thought. How brave she was in her dreams. And in those dreams Chase Falladay had tempted her to acts that her ex-husband could never have persuaded her to become a part of.
She picked at the paper label on the beer bottle and tried to tell herself that it was only the loneliness brewing inside her that made those dreams seem so very intriguing.
Two years. She had divorced and now she had no friends. She had learned that lesson quickly. She had had only a few friends, and once one of them started the gossip concerning the club she still wasn't certain about, the others had taken up the cause and added to it. By the time she managed to do the damage control Chase had requested of her, it had blown so far out of proportion that no one would have believed it anyway. And Kia had decided "friends" were more liability man advantage.
She had learned valuable lessons from her divorce. She had learned to trust no one. Except, perhaps, Chase. She almost smiled. She'd done as he told her and sued for a high divorce settlement. She'd gotten it easily. But it hadn't compensated for the pain, the humiliation, or the knowledge that her marriage had been a lie from the first day.
She tipped the beer to her lips once again, her gaze straying across the room. As she lowered the bottle she frowned, her eyes narrowing on that back corner.