Nice Girls Finish Last by Natalie Anderson Page A

quipped. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’
    She kept shaking her head but couldn’t pull back her smile. ‘Incorrigible. Unrepentant. Impossible. Please give up.’ She really meant that.
    â€˜I can’t believe you’re asking me to.’ He dropped his joking manner and moved back in on her, closer than before.
    Her skin tingled, threatening to burst all over with goose bumps. Oh, he was good. Temptation shook her foundations.
    â€˜Yes,’ he whispered, stepping closer and holding her gaze captive.
    Was he saying yes for the both of them?
    She swallowed, but she couldn’t stop her honesty. ‘Okay, I won’t deny I’m attracted to you. But it’s more intelligent to walk away.’ And she was so determined to do the intelligent thing, the right thing for her this time.
    â€˜How can that possibly be more intelligent? You know it’ll be good.’
    â€˜I told you.’ Her chest ached while her belly burned. ‘Too much of a good thing leaves you feeling bad.’
    â€˜So we won’t have too much, then.’ He shrugged. ‘Just a little more.’
    It wouldn’t work that way for her. She’d fall quickly, deeply, uselessly. It would take nothing to fall hard for Seth.
    â€˜Look at me,’ he said quietly, but with an undertone that made her nerves screech. ‘Just for a second.’
    Seth really needed to see into her eyes to try to fathom what she was thinking. Except when he did he still had no bloody idea.
    â€˜I don’t want to have a fling with you,’ she said softly.
    He paused, knew he had to be honest with her. ‘Lena, I’m a lifetime off marriage.’
    Her eyes flashed. ‘I’m not exactly painting the nursery, either.’
    â€˜Okay, but let me tell you why I’m not.’
    â€˜You want to share your sob story to win me over? Play on my emotional feminine side? Butter me up so I say yes?’
    Her sudden cynicism silenced him for a second—someone had to have played a real sob story on her in the past. ‘No, I just want you to understand where I’m coming from.’ Mainly because he wanted to know what her story was and he figured if he shared, she’d share. It usually worked that way. Once he understood the reason for the reluctance, he could see her through it. Carefree didn’t mean careless, after all. He only wanted nice, light, naughty fun for both of them. And while she might sound as if she wasn’t interested, she was all eyes and ears.
    He put it lightly. ‘Look, my parents divorced in one terrible mess. Put me off for life.’
    â€˜How convenient for you to have an emotional reason for not committing,’ she said sarcastically.
    He bit back a laughing grunt. She had no idea of the reality. That divorce had been too long in coming—months of bitterness and betrayal. Months of his mother trying to make it work. Months of him trying to be the model son.
    â€˜Fortunately I was spared a nasty custody battle,’ he said drily. Yeah, there’d been a total lack of custody battle. The father he’d once been dumb enough to idolise had walked out and never looked back. Too busy with his new family to be interested. His mother had been devastated and Seth hadn’t been enough to help her. And that made it suck all the more. All that hideous turbulence combined with teen displacement had seen his anger threaten to screw his life completely. Control had come in isolation, with him literallyfighting it out. And he’d learned what he needed to succeed—just his emotionally unencumbered self.
    He forced himself to breathe, to keep the flippant tone, to fast-forward. ‘But of course I do have an evil ex.’
    â€˜Of course you have an evil ex. Do tell,’ she anti-invited, saccharine sweet. There was no softening her.
    â€˜First year uni. Medicine. I scored the girlfriend that all the guys wanted. The hostel