It was a good thing he had finished the last of his champagne, because he would have spat out his drink at the absurdity of her question. “What are you talking about?”

She dropped her head and pushed her hands through her hair. He missed her hand on his arm. He wished she’d wrap those slender fingers around him once more. When she lifted her face, she seemed both sad and frustrated.

“Here’s the thing. Grant Abbot indicated that he’s interested in me, and well, I’ve kind of been into him for a while,” she began, and his gut tightened when she said that. Sure, she told him now and then about an occasional date she had in New York, and he’d even met the infamous Scott, who he wanted to punch for making Casey feel like shit about herself, but hearing her say she was into some other guy when he was so damn close to her that he couldn’t get the sweet citrusy-scent of her shampoo out of his mind, pissed him off. Especially because that smell was driving him wild.

“You’re interested in him?” he asked, as if he were tasting dirt. Jealousy pulsed through his veins. He had no right to be jealous. He was all wrong for Casey. She wanted love, and tenderness. She wanted commitment and the possibility of forever.

Those were notions that had no appeal to him. He’d been there, done that and had the ugly scars to prove it. A few years after earning his MBA and landing his first job in management at a startup, he’d met the woman of his dreams—a gorgeous artist, dark and beguiling, with haunting eyes and a wild spirit. He and Joanna fell fast and hard into love, the all-consuming, raw and passionate kind that becomes your oxygen. They relied on each other. They desperately needed each other, in every way. He would have done anything for her, and so he did. She was a struggling young sculptor aiming to return to graduate school, and since he had moved up quickly in his career, leaving the startup for a job in the hotel business, he paid for her MFA.

And boy, did he ever pay when he learned she’d been having an affair with her sculpting professor, some supposed world-renowned artist named Claude who Nate only thought of as a world-renowned prick.

Never again, he’d vowed. Never again would he put his heart on the line like that. It was far easier and a hell of a lot more fun to play the field, to bounce back and forth with women, never settling, never giving anyone his heart again. Call him a playboy. He was fine with that. There wasn’t a more fitting title for his relationship approach. Casey knew it, Jack knew it, his own sister, Kat, happily married and with twin daughters, knew it too, and Nate didn’t try to hide it from anyone.