“I slept with a woman once.” Abby closed her eyes. Really? After the promise she just made to herself, then that comes out of her mouth? Had any other bride ever told Jordan this? For some weird reason, Abby hoped she was the first.

Jordan licked her lips before replying. “I slept with a man once, too. I guess we’re even.”

Which made Abby smile. “You haven’t done since?”

Jordan shook her head. “Once was enough. Just to see what all the fuss was about.” She paused. “What about you?”

Abby nodded. “Same. At university. I went to a gay club with Delta, and I met a woman. We got talking. And I thought, why not? She was cute, and you only live once. There might have been some tequila involved, too.”

A grin. “Ah, tequila. Fuelling life’s key moments for decades.”

“You could say that.” Abby still recalled the absolute terror mixed with total elation of waking up the next morning, knowing she’d done something forbidden. Off limits. She’d never had that feeling with Marcus. It had scared her at the time. Now she longed to feel it once more. To be near to daring again.

To cross her carefully placed lines.

Step close to an electric current.

Once she said ‘I do’, everything was off limits.

Abby stared at Jordan. The crackle of possibility was there.

“Was tequila involved when you got together with Marcus?”

Abby shook her head. “Marcus doesn’t like it. He says it usually ends in bad decisions being made. He’s probably right.”

Jordan’s stare was intense, her eyes brooding in the moonlight. “What do you think?”

Abby moved her mouth left to right, then shrugged. Like the next sentence meant nothing. “I think that sometimes, you have to leave things to chance. Chance can lead you down a different path than you intended, but sometimes, it can be a fun one. A right one. I guess I’m worried that once I get married, those paths might be closed off to me.”

What the hell was she saying? Abby strode across to the other side of the terrace, then stopped and clutched the glass wall again. Putting some distance between her and Jordan was the right thing to do. She was too frightened to truly think about what all her thoughts meant. Why, every time she was on her own with Jordan, did her carefully planned life threaten to spin out of control?

The distance didn’t last long. Within seconds, Jordan drew up alongside her, and all the desire Abby had been keeping so carefully under wraps began to seep out, trickling down her body like a leaky tap.

Godammit, she was attracted to Jordan. Abby really didn’t need this. Not when her life was just about to be sorted.

But all those rational thoughts fled from her head when Jordan put a hand on the top of her arm.