Free Masquerade by Lace Daltyn Page A

Hard.
    Beth couldn’t think. She couldn’t even breathe, so she acted on
instinct and ran.
    First
to the locker room where she threw on her clothes, then out the front door
without a backward glance. Half a block away from the club, she pulled
off first one heel, then the other, barely slowing down. By the time she
reached the loft, she was gasping for breath. Keys buried at the bottom of her
bag eluded her, and she all but dumped out the contents on the sidewalk to get
at them.
    Finally, she made it
inside, slammed the door, and slumped to the floor, waiting for her breath to
catch up with her. As the adrenaline seeped out of her body, an overwhelming
tiredness replaced it. The energy to move away from the door was more than she
could muster, so she sat there on the floor trying to make sense of what had
just happened.
    How had Tony ended up
working here, at the place she’d been drawn to by an
obscure ad in a magazine she never read? The one man, the one memory she
came here to get away from had just been tossed in her lap. Beth slapped the
floor. Damn it all. She’d filled out that application to get Tony out of her mind. Out
of her heart. Out of her sex life. She needed
to move on. Now, after several years and one ex-husband, here he was again.
    A knock on the door
behind sent her flying several feet away, her heart well ahead of the rest of
her body.
    “Beth?”
    Tony. How the hell had he found her?
    He knocked again. “Please
let me in. We need to talk.”
    Tony. The boy who’d become her whole life in a night. Beth went to the
door and leaned against it. She’d loved him before,
but that night had welded their hearts together. Or so
she’d thought. His betrayal had ripped that weld apart, leaving a gaping hole. Especially later...
    She’d fought to close that wound. Fought to free herself of Tony’s influence.
    The knock was softer this
time as if he knew she was at the door. Even his voice was quiet. “Come on,
Beth. I know you’re in there. I need to explain.”
    What could he tell her
that would make any sort of difference? Beth stared at the door, wondering if
maybe getting some closure was what this was all about . She’d just had the most amazing sex—again—with a man
who’d wrapped himself around her heart and then left her to fend for herself.
Maybe she needed to hear him out in order to get past this once
and for all .
    With a heart heavier than
ever before, Beth opened the door.
    Tony stood on her
threshold with his shoulders hunched and his hands digging deep holes in his
pockets.
    “Thanks,” he said, and
then his mouth fell open. Beth glanced down. She’d left in such a hurry and with her costume in shreds, so she was braless beneath
her white t-shirt, and it didn’t hide much. Well,
let him stare and see what he’s missing.
    He clamped his mouth shut
and stepped inside. After he entered, Beth shut the door, then turned around
and leaned against it, waiting.
    “I’m sorry,” Tony said.
    The hangdog look on his
face validated his statement, but it was too little too late. Tears stung her
eyes as she realized those were not the words she wanted to
hear . She shrugged, unable to respond.
    “I love you.”
    “Oh, please!” She pushed
off the door and stomped past him, then whirled to face him. “You screwed me, then got engaged to Marci the very next day. You don’t know
the first thing about love.”
    “I—”
    “No. You don’t get to talk yet. You get to listen. I loved you back
in high school, and you knew it. That night—” She gulped. “That night was the
culmination of all my hopes and dreams. You,” she pointed at him, “were the
only guy I wanted to be with, to make love to. Corny as it might sound, I saved
myself for you.”
    She paced away from him,
to the far wall. “And it was everything I thought it would be.”
    When she turned back, she
knew he could see the tears on her cheek. She brought her head up. “Then, the
very next day, you crushed it all, tossed