Free The Other Side of Us (Harlequin Superromance) by Sarah Mayberry

scalp
had been visible through the regrowth by the time they let her look in a mirror,
ugly and far too visible. She’d waited till she was alone in her room before
letting a few silly, vain tears slide into her pillow. A small moment of
mourning for her lost mane.
    It had been tempting to grow it all out, but it was much easier
to maintain this way. She didn’t have to worry about tying her hair back when
she was doing her exercises and it didn’t require special conditioning
treatments or take half an hour to dry.
    She did what she could with some styling product, trying to
coax some texture into it. Finally she rolled her eyes at her own reflection and
turned away from the mirror.
    Enough, already. She was having dinner with the guy next door,
not attending a bloody state reception for the queen.
    She was heading for the entry hall to turn on the outside light
when the phone rang. She grabbed it from its station on the occasional table as
she passed by.
    “Mackenzie speaking.”
    “Mac. It’s me.”
    She came to a dead halt as she heard her ex-husband’s voice. It
took her a moment to summon the casual tone her pride demanded.
    “Patrick. How are you?” she asked coolly.
    It had been more than five months since she’d last spoken to
him. The ink was long-since dry on their divorce and technically he owed her
nothing, not even a phone call or two. But the friends-with-benefits arrangement
they’d slipped into in the months before her accident had led her to believe
that there was still a degree of affection between them.
    Yet another misconception to add to the many misconceptions in
their shared history.
    “I’m good. How about you?” he asked in the mellow, lovely voice
that made women across the nation swoon.
    Her ex, the matinee idol.
    “I’m well, thanks.”
    “That’s really great to hear. Really great. Gordon’s been
keeping me up-to-date with your progress.”
    “Has he? That’s nice of him.”
    Her words hung in the small silence that followed. She could
hear the click of a lighter on the other end of the line and guessed he’d
started smoking again.
    “Okay, fair call,” he said. “I’ve been an asshole. I should
have called and I didn’t. I should have sent flowers and I didn’t. I should have
done a bunch of things, but it doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking about you.
It doesn’t mean I don’t care, Mac.”
    Mackenzie stared at the toes of her shoes. There were so many
things she could say to him. She could take him to task for being lazy and
neglectful. She could tell him that he’d hurt her, that while she hadn’t
expected undying devotion, she’d assumed he at least liked her enough to want to
check for himself that she was doing okay. After all, that had been the raison
d’être of the highly inappropriate affairthey’d
been indulging in before her accident—that, despite everything, they still liked
and enjoyed each other.
    There was no point, though. Their marriage was over, and
whatever friendship remained was not worth stressing herself over. She only had
so much energy to invest at the moment, and Patrick was a bad bet. Too much work
for too little return.
    “Don’t worry. I’m not going to read you the riot act. You’re
officially off the hook.”
    “Don’t be like that, Mac.”
    She pictured his face, the sheepish, naughty-boy hangdog
expression he’d be wearing. Patrick was accustomed to skating by on the power of
his charisma. Fortunately, she’d become immune to his powers during the first
year of their short marriage.
    “I’ve got someone coming for dinner any second now. Did you
want something or was this just a social call?”
    “It’s about work.”
    So not a topic she wanted to discuss with Patrick. Anything he
had to say was probably the result of gossip and innuendo. She would do better
keeping her contact to the show—and her job—limited to conversations with
Gordon. So did she really want to hear whatever it was Patrick had to say?