Katie glanced over at Savannah who hadn’t made much of a peep since Monica came home.

“Dean and I…” Katie ignored the chill down her spine. “We, ah…”

Monica placed her hand in the air. “Wait. This needs wine.”

Boy, did it ever.

Monica uncorked a bottle of wine and poured two glasses before settling into the sofa with her legs curled under her. It was as if she were getting ready to watch a movie. Her sharp gaze focused on Katie before she uttered the words, “Let me have it.”

After drawing in a fortifying breath, Katie started again. “Dean and I dated…secretly.”

Why Katie thought the sky would fall as she voiced her past, she didn’t know…but she did.

Monica sipped her wine and smiled. “I knew it.”

“We hadn’t set out to. It just kinda happened. And no one, not my brother, not my diary, knows about it.”

Monica put a hand in the air. “Why the secrecy?”

Katie shrugged. “We run in some tight circles back home. We thought it would be better to keep our relationship to ourselves to avoid any of those awkward Do we invite Dean or do we invite Katelyn? situations.”

“Sounds like you anticipated the breakup from the beginning.”

The memory of their first kiss surfaced in her mind. The softness of his touch, the pine scent of his skin. The way he cupped her head so she couldn’t pull away…

“Oh, to be a fly on the wall of your brain,” Monica said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you blush before.”

Katie sighed and covered her face with her hands.

Maybe Monica would understand if she started from the beginning. “Dean and my brother have been best friends since high school. Being the younger and annoying sister, the two of them didn’t pay a lot of attention to me. But you’ve met all the boys and none of them are hard on the eyes.

“When I hit thirteen, my hormones went crazy. My mom, if you can call her that, had already run off. She’d call once in a while, but I didn’t have another woman to confide in. My dad tried by having our housekeeper keep tabs on me, but I wanted nothing to do with her. I started wearing clothes that made me feel grown up and loved the attention the guys gave me. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t always had a crush on Dean. But he didn’t look. Not once.”

“He looked eventually,” Monica pointed out.

Yes, he did. There were times over the years Dean would stand beside her brother Jack as the two of them confronted her with another tabloid article about her dating life. She took Dean’s sharp disapproval like she had her brother’s or her father’s. She ignored it. Eventually Jack backed off…hell, even her father didn’t bother with anything more than a grunt or a shake of the head these days.

But not Dean. He’d suggested she find a different guy to date, or different club to hang out at.

It was one of those Change what you’re doing, Katie conversations with Dean that resulted in that first kiss nearly two years ago.

“This guy is scum,” Dean had spit out between his teeth as he slapped the tabloid on the table in front of her. They were celebrating Jack’s birthday at the ranch and Dean had pulled her into an empty room to talk.

Katie tossed her chin up in defiance. “I’m not sure who died and left you as my fairy godmother. Not even my father tells me who I can sleep with and who I can’t.”

Dean’s face had grown even harder. The cleft in his chin was so tight she could probably bounce a golf ball off it.

“You’re sleeping with him?”

The him Dean referred to was an actor. And in reality, only a friend. But the tabloid had snapped a picture of the two of them leaving a club and suggested that Mason was cheating on his current girlfriend and that Katelyn was the “other woman.” It was laughable, really. The tabloids seldom painted a clear picture. Dean knew this but still raged on as if the magazine were gospel. A few times the rags would get the story somewhat right but she hadn’t slept with nearly as many people as the public thought she had.

As Dean obviously thought she had.

“That,” Katie poked her finger into Dean’s broad chest, “is none of your business.”

“It damn well is my business, darlin’.”

“Oh, really? How so?”

“You’re Jack’s sister. I’ve known you since before you wore a training bra.”

Katelyn glanced down at her ample cle**age and purposely tugged her shirt a little lower to reveal more skin. “Are you telling me you’re looking out for me like I’m your sister?”

Dean opened his mouth and then closed it.

That was the moment she knew that Dean didn’t look at her as a sister. His gaze had heated and desire flashed over his face.

Katelyn’s knees suddenly felt weak. As if sensing her inability to stand, Dean slid into her personal space and cupped the back of her head. She froze, hardly believing he was touching her. Then his lips met hers in a kiss that defined the art of kissing. He was soft and warm and made her tingle. Her eyes closed while she opened to him like a flower did to sunshine.

It ended too soon. Both of them were stunned by the kiss.

Neither of them acknowledged what had happened the rest of that day.

Not twenty-four hours later, Dean knocked on the door of her suite. When she asked what he was doing there, he told her he wanted to kiss her again. To make certain he hadn’t imagined the experience.