Free Never Kiss a Stranger by Winter Renshaw Page B

foot of her bed, the same place I’d spent curled up in an inconsolable ball the night I found out about Kyle and all of his indiscretions. The same place I laid when I swore off men and love and romance and anything else that could make me feel.
    I told her I was going to be independent and self-sufficient to a fault. I’d never let another man control my heart again. I’d never rely on another man to boost me up, either, professionally or socially. I could do it all on my own. My heart wrapped itself in barbed wire that night.
    “So, what’s going on?” Coco asked. She looked completely different without her camera-ready face on, though she was still gorgeous. We shared the same almond-shaped eyes and heart-shaped, swollen lips. With our high cheekbones and long necks, we looked like two aristocratic sisters born in the wrong century.
    Who’d have thought we were a couple of dirt-poor Kentucky girls who’d flown from the only nest we’d known in search of something better for ourselves?
    Tears stung my eyes. My attempts to blink them away were useless.
    “Uh-oh.” Coco scooted closer to me, rubbing her hand against my back. “What’d the bastard do to you?”
    A knock at her door pulled her away from me for a second.
    “What do you want?” she said as she pulled the door open. Harrison’s muffled voice on the other side seemed to be asking her a question. Or telling her to do something. Probably the latter. “No, I told you. No. I’m not. You’ll have to find someone else to do that interview.”
    Harrison said something else that I couldn’t make out.
    “Never in a million, billion years. I’m not doing that interview,” Coco said, stomping her foot into the carpet. “I’m with my sister. I don’t know why you’re picking right now to discuss this.”
    She slammed the door, looking flustered and red-faced as she returned to her spot next to me.
    “I’ll never understand why you two still live together,” I sighed, almost grateful to not be talking about my issue.
    “It just works.” She shrugged. “And you know why? It’s because I don’t care. Once you care, you’re fucked. But if you don’t care, you find you can really put up with a lot. If Harrison walked out tomorrow and found his own place, I’d be thrilled. It’s because I don’t care.”
    I didn’t believe it for one second, but I didn’t have the energy to argue with her on that fact. We’d gone rounds on it before, and I’d lost every time. Coco was quick on her feet whenever she had to defend her life choices.
    “What if you wanted to date someone new?” I asked. “You can’t bring him to the house you share with your ex-husband.”
    She pursed her lips, looking at me funny. “You know I don’t have time to date.”
    It was true. When she wasn’t anchoring the weekend news, she was being flown around the world to anchor the Olympics or various royal weddings.
    “Anyway, enough about me. What’s going on with you? You never come over this late.”
    “I had dinner with Wilder today,” I said.
    “Oh, so he does have a name.”
    “We were supposed to hook up one time, Coco. One time. I let him talk me into another. And another. And then he stayed the night. And then we had dinner.” My shoulders fell, as if the weight of the issue was too heavy for them to bear a second longer. “He invited me over tonight.”
    “Sounds like he might actually be a nice guy.”
    “That’s the problem. I’m starting to like him. I didn’t want it to get this far. I’ve completely fucked myself over.”
    “How so?”
    “If I walk away from him,” I said, “I’m going to miss him like crazy. I’ll always wonder what might have been. And if I stay, try to make this work with him, whatever it is, I know myself—I can’t juggle my career and a relationship with someone like him. I already have too much on my plate. And I don’t want to get hurt again—”
    “Addison, stop.” Coco placed her hand on mine. “Slow