I only have one shot to success.

Wrestling.

My parents died. My stepmother had kicked me out, but that’s fine. It’s the past. And I’d been training since.

Soon I’ll prove it in the Olympics that I’m the best.

Then the paycheck from the professional league will only add to the proof.

I will win.

The only part of the plan I hate was losing Vanessa.

In high school, she’d been my rock, until my world fell apart.

But when my kid sister needed me, I found her. And I decided to take her to our cousin’s wedding. I hadn’t thought Vanessa would be a bridesmaid. Now I’m glad I came. We’re adults now and a wedding is a good place to win her back.

She’s holding back though and she clearly has a secret.

Weddings are intimate affairs though and our chemistry is still off the charts.

When I find out her secret though everything might change, but I am making it known I still love only her. If she’ll take a chance on me, then I’ll show her that she’ll never have a worry, ever again.

Vanessa Maye

Avoid Stone for a few more hours, I told myself. You’ve avoided him this long in Napa. It’s easy enough to pretend you’re busy with this wedding. You’re a bridesmaid—they help the bride.

Pep talk done, I stepped back. No more staring at myself in the mirror of the women’s restroom in the hotel lobby. I wasn’t his anymore. We’d moved on. I squared my shoulders in my sleeveless full-length green bridesmaid dress. After leaving Pittsburgh six years ago, he’d never looked back.

Another guest, a woman I didn’t know, came into the bathroom, and I stilled as she headed past me. Then I breathed again as she passed and didn’t even blink at me or pay me any attention.

Stone was out there, and he had no idea I’d had his son, who was currently at home with my mom while I flew to Napa for this all-expenses-paid wedding.

The avoid-Stone-at-all-costs mission had been easy so far since the Steel family had used the wedding as a family reunion. So I’d disappeared after wedding duties to see the sights of Napa Valley, taste wine, and call home. I missed my boy.

The wedding ceremony had kept me busy, but all that remained was the reception. Hopefully, Stone would stay with his little sister and extended family on one end of the ballroom while I stayed on the other.

A toilet flushed in one of the stalls. Time to leave the sink and the white walls with bright mirrors and head inside. The hall was busy with people, but I stopped at the door of the ballroom with a view of one of the vineyards of Napa. The bride, Indigo Steel, was seriously living the dream with this wedding. Everything about this was picturesque. Pittsburgh never smelled this sweet, even in the spring.

I scanned the ballroom to find him. I was at the head table, with the wedding party, and Stone wasn’t anywhere in the room. Good.

I stepped forward to go to my seat, but a strong hand cupped my wrist. My heartbeat strummed, and I glanced up to see the one man I never wanted to see again and the only man who’d ever made me weak in the knees.

His lips curved higher on his square face. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“True.” My heart raced a little more. He didn’t let me go, and I didn’t struggle. I didn’t know who I’d been kidding in the bathroom. If he wanted me, I was his.

“I thought we were cool,” he said. “You helped me track down Emily’s number.”

Cool wasn’t a word I would have used to describe us, but yes, I’d helped him get his sister’s phone number. It was a simple kindness. I tugged my hand away and crossed my arms under my chest, heaving it a little in his direction to see if he even noticed. “One phone call doesn’t make us friends, but I remembered how your stepmother took everything from you, including your cell phone. You were lucky the car was in your name after the funeral.”

“Lana is the devil.” He glanced down, and my nipples betrayed me under the sheer dress.

I dropped my hands so he wouldn’t see how hard he’d already made my nipples.

“And we were more than friends… once.”

I closed my eyes. His nearness still made me ache for more, but he was right. We were the past, and I had our son as a living memory. Ignoring the heat in my veins, I said, “Life moves on, and clearly, you have been favored.”

He brushed my shoulder, just for a moment as he came closer, but my lips tingled for his kiss when he said, “I trained hard—all day, every day.”

“That’s clearly true.” I pressed my hand on his chest, and a shock rushed in me. This was a mistake.

He was all dense muscle, and my fingers ached to discover if he was still hard and passionate underneath that suit of his. I let out a sigh as I let him go. “My mother was convinced you were bad news and would never amount to anything.”

I played with my gold necklace as he rocked on his feet. “My stepmother probably still thinks that of me. She made Emily’s life hard in the past five years, but with you, I wasn’t always a bad boy.”