Page 15 of Now That It’s You (The Can’t Have Hearts Club #5)

“Kathy with a K ,” the blonde offered, not extending a handshake. “I was before you, but after Brittney. Is Brit here?”

Chloe shook her head and took a sip from her glass. “She was invited, but she couldn’t make it. Opening night at her new restaurant.”

“I can’t wait to try it,” said a second brunette with curls tumbling to the middle of her back. She nodded at Meg. “I’m Marti. Matt and I had a short little thing right before you, but I worked with him for a few years after that, so I knew all about you.”

Meg swallowed, trying to process what was happening. She’d known Matt had other girlfriends before her, of course, and she’d assumed there were others after. He’d been five years older, so his life and love experiences had dwarfed hers when they’d met at her twenty-second birthday party.

Studying Kathy-with-a-K, Meg realized why she looked familiar.

The girl Matt dated for three years before her, the one whose smiling face taunted Meg from Sylvia’s collection of family photos on the mantle, the one Matt had once described as “not that interested in sex” in a misguided effort to soothe Meg’s jealousy.

At the time, it made Meg feel smug and superior. Now, she just felt sad.

“Brittney sent her regards,” Chloe said to Cathy-with-a-C. “She wanted to meet you.”

“Brittney Fox?” Meg asked, trying to place the name.

“Before both of us,” supplied Kathy-with-a-K. “Though I found out later he was still hooking up with her the whole first year we were together.”

“There’s a shocker,” muttered Cathy-with-a-C, shaking her head. “A leopard doesn’t change its stripes.”

“Spots,” Marti corrected. “A leopard doesn’t change its spots.”

Cathy-with-a-C rolled her eyes. “A zebra, then?—”

“And anyway, he had changed,” Chloe insisted. “He was faithful to me from day one, and he’d made all kinds of changes in his life like trying yoga and giving up red meat and working with a therapist and?—”

“I used to hate you.”

Meg looked at Kathy-with-a-K, alarmed to realize the woman was speaking to her. Maybe she hadn’t heard right. “I’m sorry?”

“I hated you. For years, actually.”

Meg blinked. “But we’ve never met.”

Kathy shrugged and took a sip of her drink. “I hated that you moved in together so soon, when it took him two years to move in with me. And then when you two got engaged?—”

“After almost nine years,” Chloe pointed out, folding her arms over her chest. “He proposed to me after only three months.”

Meg opened her mouth to reply, but stopped herself.

What did she even say to that? And why did Chloe’s words sting so much?

She’d known all along that Matt had been a bit of a player in the years before they met.

He’d even confessed once that he hadn’t always been faithful to others, but he insisted to the end he’d been true to her.

He swore it, even when he’d come clean about his dalliance with Annabelle.

“It was just the one time, Meg, I swear to you ? —”

But it hadn’t mattered. One time or a hundred times; it was all the same to Meg.

“So what do you do, Meg?”

Cathy-with-a-C was looking at her, and Meg cleared her throat and wondered where the hell Kendall had gone. She might want that drink after all. “I’m?—”

“She’s a chef, like all of us,” interrupted Kathy-with-a-K. “Or a caterer or a baker or something like that. Matt only dates women who work with food.”

“Or beverages,” Chloe said. “Matt was very supportive of my dream of staring my own kombucha company. He even arranged it so I could quit my job at the bakery to spend all my time developing the business plan and brewing new flavors and?—”

“Wait, you’re not Meg Delaney, are you?” Cathy-with-a-C stared at her. “You are! You’re the one who wrote that cookbook! The aphrodisiac cookbook everyone’s talking about?”

Kathy-with-a-K sniffed. “Can’t say I ever needed any help in that department.”

Marti rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I heard.”

Meg took a step back, then another, wondering if she’d walked into some sort of alternate universe populated by women who looked vaguely similar and had loved Matt or maybe still loved Matt.

She had to get out of here. She had to escape the press of bodies and the echo of memories and the clamor of voices?—

“I’m sorry, would you excuse me?” Meg stepped back again. “I need to find the restroom.”

Chloe pressed her lips together, clearly disappointed in Meg’s bladder. “Down the stairs, take a left, it’s at the end of that hall,” Chloe said. “Hurry back, though. You should definitely meet Sarah.”

“Is that Sarah with an h or with no h ?” asked Kathy or Cathy or Marti—hell, Meg couldn’t be sure.

She was practically running now, making a beeline for the door as she dodged two women she recognized as photography colleagues Matt worked with five years ago. Were they exes, too?

Meg shook her head and skirted a cluster of uncles. It doesn’t matter now , she told herself. What difference does it make if you held a special place in his life or if you were just one of many?

She was moving so fast when she hit the stairs that she had to catch herself on the railing. The stupid high heels wobbled as she took the steps two at a time and wished she’d picked a dress that wasn’t so snug around her thighs.

Panting by the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, Meg glanced left.

Three or four women stood lined up outside the restroom, each of them representing some conversation Meg didn’t want to have.

She looked the opposite direction where the hallway veered sharply down a dimly lit corridor.

She hesitated, then turned that way, marching like she had a purpose to forestall any questions about where she was headed.

Her lungs filled with air as the voices faded behind her and her footsteps slowed with her pulse. She just needed a few minutes alone, someplace quiet to collect her thoughts. She spotted a door up ahead and reached for the knob, praying it led to a quiet conference room or an unoccupied office.

She pushed it open and breathed in the scent of Pine-Sol and bleach. The space was dim and spacious, and she could see rows of paper towels and tissue lining a shelf overhead.

“Cleaning closet,” she murmured. “Close enough.”

Meg stepped inside, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness as she pulled the door closed behind her before anyone could notice the crazy woman ducking into a supply closet.

As soon as the door snicked shut, her breathing slowed to normal, and she unclenched the fists she hadn’t realized she’d been gripping.

Blinking a few times to clear her vision, she squinted around the little room.

Something that looked like a mop lurked in one corner, the wheeled yellow bucket beside it glowing oddly in the light that seeped around the edges of the door.

The high heels were killing her, so she toed them off and said a silent prayer the floor wasn’t too filthy.

The concrete felt cool and soothing under her bare feet, so it seemed worth the risk for that small slice of comfort.

She thought about fumbling for a light switch, but decided against it. It would be just her luck to have one of Matt’s relatives amble past and decide to turn off the light, and how would she explain the fact that she was standing barefoot in the broom closet at her ex’s funeral reception?

She should probably text Kendall to say she’d gone to the bathroom, but she just needed a minute to herself.

With a sigh, she moved deeper into the closet.

It was darker back here, quieter. Meg had to squint to make out shapes as she slipped past shadowy boxes and shapes she could barely make out.

She bumped her hip on a big box of something—paper towels, maybe?

When she stopped a safe distance from the door, she did a slow turn, then closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall.

At least, that’s what she tried to do. The wall moved. It was warm and bumpy and had hands that reached up to cup her elbows.

She gave a startled cry and started to struggle, but the hands were gentle and the voice in her ear was as familiar as the cedar scent now tickling her nose.

“Hello, Meg.”

Kyle felt pretty sure groping his brother’s ex-fiancée in a closet at Matt’s funeral reception was a new low even for him.

But hell, it’s not like he tried to grope her.

And it’s not like he stalked her here, either.

He’d just wanted a few quiet moments alone to collect his thoughts and escape the throng of relatives eager to tell him what a great guy Matt was and how Kyle looked just like him and did he think Matt would have liked the service?

Of course Matt would have liked the service. It was all about Matt.

But that was a shitty thing to think, so he’d come down here to give himself a time-out, maybe take a stab at being less of a jerk.

Only now he was here holding Meg from behind, her body pressed lush and round against him, and he remembered the upside of being a jerk.

Kyle cleared his throat. “It’s just me, Meg,” he whispered against her ear.

She turned to face him, and he dropped his hands from her elbows, breathing in the lilac scent of her in the dim little closet. Her hair brushed his arm, and Kyle had to fight the urge to reach for her again.

“Kyle? What are you doing here?”

“Oh, you know—taking inventory of the toilet paper, making sure the fire extinguisher is up to code, checking to see if the mop needs to be replaced.”

“So, escaping?”

“Pretty much. You?”

“Same thing.”

They both went quiet, and Kyle used the opportunity to study her face in the dim interior of the closet.

He’d been in here ten minutes, so his eyes had adjusted to the darkness.

The ghost beams of light seeping around the door gave him enough to see the glint of silver in her eyes, the subtle curve of her cheek.

Her expression seemed uncertain, but she hadn’t made a move to leave yet.

“So this is awkward,” she said