Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes, but she didn’t wipe them away. Instead, she let them fall while she readjusted, re-created, reframed. By the time she drifted off to sleep, she knew exactly what she had to do.

Heath heard Annabelle go into her bedroom, but he didn’t stir. Now that the hunger in his body had been satisfied, the despicability of what he’d done hit him hard. She cared about him. A whole world of emotions he didn’t want to acknowledge had been looking back at him from those honey sweet eyes tonight. Now he felt like the biggest jerk in the world.

She’d told him that this was a disaster in the making, but he’d built his life around crashing through roadblocks, so he’d ignored the obvious and charged ahead. Even though he’d known she was right, he wanted her, so he’d taken, and the consequences be damned. Now that it was too late, he absorbed exactly how big a disaster this was for her, professionally and personally. Her emotions were engaged—he’d seen it in her face—and that meant she couldn’t ever go back to the business of being his matchmaker.

He rolled over and punched his pillow. What the hell had he been thinking? He hadn’t been thinking, that was the whole problem. He’d only been reacting, and in the process of getting what he wanted, he’d blown her dreams right out of the water. Now he had to make it up to her.

He began drawing up a plan in his head. He’d talk up her business and find some decent clients to throw her way. He’d use his PR people and media contacts to get her press. It was a good story—a second-generation matchmaker brings her grandmother’s old-fashioned business into the twenty-first century. Annabelle should have come up with it herself, but she didn’t think big enough.

One thing he couldn’t do was let her keep introducing him to other women. That would break her heart. Selfishly, he didn’t like the idea of her not working for him anymore. He liked having her around. She made things easier for him …something he’d repaid by screwing her over, literally and figuratively.

Like father. Like son.

The despair that settled over him felt old and familiar, like the sound of a rusty trailer door slamming in the night.

He didn’t remember falling asleep, but he must have because it was daylight when the earth moved. He eased one eye open, saw a face he wasn’t ready to face, and turned his head into the pillow. Another small earthquake rattled the mattress. He peeled open his lids and blinked as a blade of sunlight hit him between the eyes.

“Wake up, you gorgeous gift to womankind,” a voice chirped.

She sat on the porch floor next to him, a coffee mug cradled in her hand, one bare leg extended so she could nudge the mattress with her foot. She wore bright yellow shorts and a purple T-shirt printed with a grotesque cartoon troll and a caption that said WE’RE PEOPLE, TOO. Her hair curled in a crazy fracas around her imp’s face, her lips were rosy, and her eyes a lot clearer than his. She sure as hell didn’t look devastated. Shit. She thought last night had changed things. He felt sick. “Later,” he managed.