Taming the VIP Playboy by Katherine Garbera

about his arms around her all night. She’d dreamed of them being on that yacht of his together and making love on the sundeck.
    She put her hands in her hair and stood there for a minute trying to get her head around the idea. It didn’t matter that she’d already thought he might not be serious about her. She didn’t want to see the proof that the very next night he’d gone out with someone else.
    But she wasn’t a coward and she never ran away from anything. She walked into the kitchen and saw the coffee mug her sister had left for her next to the paper. There was a Post-it note on it in Marcia’s handwriting warning her that there was a picture of Nate inside.
    She poured herself a cup of coffee and then took the mug and the paper outside with her. She sat down on the bench next to the water feature and let the scents of the garden surround her. The sweet smell of jasmine mingled with the scent of hibiscus in the air. The soundof the water flowing in the fountain soothed her troubled nerves.
    She took a sip of her coffee and then set it on the ground at her feet before she opened the paper. The Miami Herald didn’t have anything as lurid and gossipy as the New York papers but they did have a society page owing to how many celebrities made South Florida their home.
    The picture was…she looked away and then made herself look back at it. Nate had his arm around the other woman and she was laughing and looking up at him. The same way that Jen had looked up at him. She’d been pressed to his side and she knew the weight of his arm on her shoulder…knew how it felt to be that close to him. And this hurt.
    She tossed the paper aside and picked up her coffee mug. She walked around the garden wondering what to do. Alison had said that men who were fun liked to have fun. And that the only way to be successful in that kind of dating situation was to realize it was all about fun.
    But to be honest, Jen had no idea how to do that. She wasn’t a fun girl. She wanted it to mean something that she’d had sex with him. And that they’d talked about their pasts. She needed it to mean more than just a bit of fun.
    And that wasn’t Nate’s fault. It was her burden. She was the one who’d been impulsive and jumped before seeing where she’d fall.
    This was what her sister had tried to warn her about. But there was no way that she could have heeded that advice. There was something seductive about Nate. It wasn’t just the sex, though, that had been earth-shattering. It was more the man behind the image.
    If he’d just been the charming playboy then she’dhave expected this, but he’d seemed to be more than that. Now she was going to have to deal with the fact that he’d moved on. That was what he did.
    She took another sip of her coffee. She couldn’t hide away here or even quit and try to find another job. There weren’t that many high-level clubs that needed Latin dancers. She just wasn’t going to find another job like this and she didn’t want to leave her home again.
    She’d had a lot of time to think yesterday while she’d been watching Riley and it had occurred to her that not getting back on the dance circuit had been a good thing. It was time for her to start settling down and thinking about family.
    Forget that at the time she’d spun silly fantasies in her head of Nate giving up his playboy lifestyle and settling down with her. The truth that she’d discovered yesterday still remained. She was ready to start looking for a home. To start making a life for herself.
    And she didn’t want to have to start again somewhere where she had no roots, no family and no friends. She refused to let Nate Stern drive her away from the job and the community that she’d started making her own. She’d just stay away from him and he’d never know how much that one night of fun had cost her.
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    Nate had reached