The Seduction Vow (3 page)

“
Wait. What?” He stood.
“What did I do? We were having a good time. Too handsy? I’ll back
off.” He reached out and took hold of her arm.

“
No. It’s not you. It’s me.
I just have to go now.”

Graci pulled against his grip. She
underestimated how lightly he was holding her and staggered when he
immediately let go. Her head was spinning from the vodka, and her
balance sucked. She careened into a person standing behind her and
might have fallen if a hand hadn’t reached out to steady her.

“
Whoa. Look out there. You
okay?”

“
Yes. I’m f…fine,” she
stammered and, oh great, now the tears had arrived like an
unwelcome rainstorm. They choked her voice and trickled down her
cheeks. She looked up at the guy holding her arm and into the
bluest pair of eyes she’d ever seen.

His forehead puckered as he looked back and
forth between Graci and Mike. “This guy bothering you?”

“
Hey!” Mike
said.

“
No. It’s nothing like
that,” Graci said. “He didn’t do anything. It’s me.”

Those eyes were really blue. Unreal blue,
like some actor whose name she couldn’t think of right now. For a
moment, she was so drunk and confused all she could do was stare
into those mesmerizing eyes and wonder if he wore tinted contacts
or something.

“
Forget this.” Mike’s voice
came from somewhere behind her, but it was already far away.
Distant.

The blue-eyed man’s frown smoothed, and he
smiled. “Sure you’re okay? You don’t look so good.”

She sniffed and wiped her damp cheeks. “I’m
fine. I just…haven’t drunk in a while and I… Oh.” Suddenly, the
pleasant swirly feeling inside her turned into churning. Her
stomach somersaulted and her ears rang. She was going to puke right
there in the middle of a crowded club. She clapped a hand over her
mouth.

The man didn’t ask again if she felt all
right. He took a firmer hold of her arm and dragged her through the
throng toward the restroom.

Graci barely made it inside and dropped to
her knees beside a toilet before her guts let loose. Everything
came boiling up, the booze, the pain and betrayal, the loss and
loneliness rushing out of her in a cathartic gush. Thoughts of Joey
mingled with the pain in her stomach as she purged him from her
system. Damn if he would occupy even a tiny part of her mind or
heart for one more moment.

After she was through, she rested her
forehead against one arm and simply breathed.

“
Are you gonna be okay? Can
I get you anything?” some girl asked.

“
Thanks. No.” Graci dragged
herself upright.

The girl offered breath mints.

Her small kindness seemed saintly,
overwhelming, and Graci almost started crying again.

After she’d splashed her face, rinsed her
mouth, and sucked on one of the mints, her drunken weepiness seemed
to have abated. Still a little weak and shaky, she walked out of
the restroom.

The blue-eyed man waited outside. “You gonna
make it?”

Crap! Of all the people to witness her
humiliation, it had to be the hottest guy she’d seen in ages.
“Yeah. Thanks for helping me. That was so embarrassing.”

“
No big deal. We’ve all
been there.” He smiled sympathetically.

“
Yeah, but maybe not so
publicly.”

Her savior’s vivid blue
eyes were only part of a really hot package. Faded T-shirt and
jeans hugged a lean body. Blue tats coiled around his biceps and
down his forearms. A Celtic design enhanced the muscles on one
side, and what may have been Chinese figures marked the other. She
couldn’t make out the pattern on the side of his neck without
staring, which she did
not
want to be caught doing, so she barely glanced at
the tattoo or the piercing in his eyebrow. Shaggy brown hair,
longer than hers, fell in waves over his forehead and neck, and the
scruff of a beard and moustache framed really nicely shaped lips.
Good God, was she actually standing here, swaying on her feet,
thinking how kissable his mouth looked?

The sexy man nodded toward the area where
Mike and his friends still sat. “Was that guy your ride home? You
need help getting a cab?”

“
No. He’s not… I came here
alone. I can drive home. It’s not far.”

He grimaced. “Mm. Sorry, but I don’t think
you should. You got a friend or somebody I could call?”

Tara would come in a heartbeat if Graci
called, but her teasing later would be relentless. She shook her
head. “I guess maybe I do need a cab.”

Before she could take out her phone, he’d
already begun punching in a number on his. Graci leaned against the
wall and rested her eyes. The music and voices around her swelled
and receded in an odd rhythm. She was the calm eye at the center of
a hurricane.

A hand touched her shoulder, and Graci opened
her eyes to stare into the stranger’s eyes again. They really were
an unearthly shade of blue. A kind smile creased the corners and
made them sparkle. “Want to move outside? Your ride should be here
soon. I called about fifteen minutes ago.”

She blinked away the fog. Fifteen minutes and
he’d stayed by her, waiting with her. That was either really kind
or really creepy.

“
I’m feeling much better,”
she said. “Thanks again for helping me. But I got it now. I can
make my own way outside.”

One eyebrow curved in doubt. “Sure?”

“
Yeah. Really.” She pushed
off the wall and stood on her own two feet to show him she wasn’t
swaying anymore. “Thanks again for helping me.”

“
You’re welcome.” He lifted
his hand in a little farewell salute. “Bye.”

Graci walked toward the exit with as much
grace and dignity as she could muster. On her way past the stairs,
she noted that her friend Mike already had a different girl on his
lap. A blonde this time. They appeared rapturously happy together,
swallowing each other’s faces. The uncomplicated hookup Graci had
intended for herself had moved on to someone else. Easy come, easy
go, yet she couldn’t help feeling she’d dodged a bullet. But if she
couldn’t even make out with a stranger without having a meltdown,
fucking one was going to be nearly impossible. Maybe she just
wasn’t a fucking sort of girl.

It wasn’t until she was in the cab on her way
home that Graci realized she’d never asked the blue-eyed man’s
name. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t as if she’d ever see him
again. In fact, it would be better for her pride if she never had
to be reminded of this night again. Chalk one up to getting back in
the game. Well, she’d done that much. Jumped in with both feet.

Making up with Corinne, a new look, a new
apartment, and a first foray into flirtation—even if it hadn’t gone
the way she’d hoped. At the rate she was plowing through her mental
checklist, she’d be hang gliding or having sex within the
month.

Chapter Three

“
The Minority Trio, back
together again.” Tara threw one arm around Graci and the other
around Corinne. “I missed us. I’m so glad you guys are talking
again.”

“
Please don’t use that
nickname. You know I never liked it.” Corinne moved away from
Tara’s embrace and went to dig through her enormous purse. “It’s
weird.”

“
But it’s who we are, you,
me, and Graci, a subset of our group of friends. Although you’re a
little iffy, white-bread Asian.”

Graci tugged on one of Tara’s braids. “You
always have to bait her?”

“
Hey! You want your
souvenir gift or not, bitch?” Corinne shot back at Tara, and, oh,
it felt good to hear her flat, dry voice again after several years
of silence.

Hanging out together at Tara’s place was a
blast from the past. The mess and clutter and even some of the
décor reflected Tara’s bedroom in her childhood home. High school
memories spilled through the floodgates of Graci’s mind, and her
residual animosity toward Corinne washed away. It still hurt a
little that Corinne hadn’t kept her reservations about Joey to
herself and supported her. But if Graci saw one of her friends
heading toward a brick wall, she’d try to stop them too.

“
Anyway, at least I
tried
to get in touch
with my roots, even if my Korean experience wasn’t everything I’d
hoped it would be,” Corinne said. “I finally looked like everybody
around me, but I felt like a poser. People would address me, and I
had to shrug and say
h
angukmal mollayo
. How pathetic is it
that the only thing I know how to say in my so-called native
language is that I can’t speak it? I should have hired an
interpreter to travel with me.”

Graci patted Corinne’s shoulder. The two of
them had never been huggers. “I’m sorry. How did your parents feel
about you taking this trip?”

“
Dad was okay with it, but
I think it hurt my mom’s feelings. She can’t understand why she
isn’t ‘enough’ for me. She doesn’t realize this doesn’t take away
from how much I love her. I don’t think of her as my adopted
mother. She’s just my mom. But there’s part of me that’s always
been…curious, I guess. I had to see my birthplace for
myself.”

Graci nodded. “I get that.
Our family took a trip to Mexico once, and even though it’s
not
my birthplace,
several generations from it, I felt like I was making some sort of
pilgrimage. The relatives I met didn’t really feel like family, but
I did feel…something.”

Corinne found what she was searching for and
pulled a small bag out of her purse. Her eyes squinted as a smile
took over her round face. “Sorry, Graci, I didn’t buy anything
special for you, since we weren’t in touch. But here are a couple
of little things I picked up at a marketplace.”

Graci opened the bag to find a beautiful
painted fan, some funky little dolls, and colorfully wrapped
candies. She smiled at Corinne. “Thank you.”

“
You’re welcome. And again,
I’m sorry about the way things turned out with Joe. I know you
really loved him.”

Graci exhaled, but the tightness in her chest
was a little less tonight. “Yes. I did, for too long. Toward the
end, I guess I didn’t anymore but just hadn’t realized it yet. Feel
free to say you told me so about the entire relationship.”

Corinne grabbed her hand
and frowned. “I would never
ever
say that or even think it, I swear.”

The thought police weren’t going to monitor
Corinne, but Graci thought it herself. Joey was a dick who’d wanted
to have his pure-white wedding cake and eat more exotic desserts on
the side. She was more certain than ever that Tessa hadn’t been his
first, and if she and Joe had married, he would have continued to
sample other dishes.

A fresh wave of shame washed over her for her
obliviousness, humiliation at being made a fool of, and sadness for
the loss of a love she’d put so much faith in. Her relationship had
been a sham. Could any man be trusted? Could she trust herself to
discern who was worthy? Maybe next time she wanted to get serious,
she should run the guy by her friends and let them tell her whether
she was making a mistake.

She regretted these past two years of not
communicating with Corinne, Bree, or Adya. In addition to the
fallout over Joey, everyone’s lives had moved in new directions,
and it had been pretty easy to let go of the closeness they’d once
known. But it was impossible to permanently sever relationships
with sisters.

As Graci watched Tara
unwrap a peacock-blue two-piece garment—a
hanbok
,
Corinne called it—she realized these women
were
the sisters her
brother-filled life had lacked. Time and busy lives might keep them
apart, but when they were together again, it was like coming
home.

****

Several hours later, Tara insisted they’d
watched as much Nicholas Sparks as any human being could stand in
one evening. It was time to go out. She verbally whipped Graci and
Corinne off the couch and into something other than sweats. She
insisted they raid her closet, so Graci found herself dressed in a
top that showed much more skin and cleavage than made her
comfortable. But she was all about escaping her comfort zone these
days, right?

Before they got out of the car to go into the
bar Tara had chosen, Graci wriggled and tugged at the top, which
constricted her ribs. “We’re not even the same size. I look like a
sausage squished in a casing that’s too tight.”

“
You look hot. Just take
shallow breaths,” Tara advised.

“
She’s right. You’re a
hottie.” Corinne winked. “You know better than to argue with Tara.
It’s easier to go with her flow when she’s got a plan.”

The bar was crowded, and Graci had a
flashback to that night last week when she’d made her first foray
into single life. It wasn’t a pleasant flashback—except for the
memory of blue, blue eyes and a kind smile.

But this time she was with her girls under
Tara’s expert guidance. The crowd at the bar was three deep, and
the waitstaff zipped around like rats on speed, but somehow Tara
placed an order, and they had their drinks within minutes. Then she
actually found them a table near the stage, where a local band was
tuning up.

The Horseheads.
Dumb name
. Then Graci
caught sight of the guy warming up on the keyboard. She stopped in
the middle of taking off her coat and stared at her rescuer from
the other night, the brave, brave man who’d sacrificed himself to
escort an almost puking girl to the restroom.