ONE NIGHT ONLY

Rosa Matthews was beginning to think the red gown was a mistake.

"You look amazing." Greg the Dentist hooked Rosa’s hand over his arm and studied her with an appreciative gaze that made her cheeks burn.

"Thanks."

She caught herself twisting her wedding band in her favorite nervous gesture and stopped. Telling herself to get a grip, Rosa worked up a self-assured smile that would, hopefully, disguise the butterflies swooping like bats in her belly. Luckily, the elevator’s ping interrupted the moment of uncomfortable intimacy and the mirrored doors slid open, letting in a burst of jazzy music from a live band somewhere nearby. As Greg steered her into the crowded and candlelit ballroom, Rosa adjusted the glittery silver pashmina around her bare shoulders and wondered how soon they could leave.

Yeah, this whole date thing was a mistake, starting with the gown. It was a filmy number that dipped low between her breasts, floated in layers down to her ankles and had a sparkling crystal elephant pin on one shoulder, because she loved elephants. It’d seemed elegant and lovely in the Macy’s dressing room the other day, but she’d foolishly discounted the cleavage factor and the awkwardness of having male eyes—like Greg the Dentist’s here—study her with sexual interest. Discreet and respectful interest, true, but still sexual.

No one but her husband, Jake, had looked at her this way in years. But Jake was dead and she was here at a pre-Valentine’s Day breast cancer fund-raiser with her five-year-old son, Brennan’s, dentist, the man famously known for his wide selection of sugar-free lollipops for well-behaved children.

With no prior warning, Greg the Dentist (she really needed to think of him as Greg) had asked her out during Brennan’s checkup last week, right after the fluoride treatment. This had prompted her to notice him as a man rather than a blue-masked and rubber-gloved medical professional, and what she noticed was…nice. He had warm brown eyes and a wide smile that put mothers and nervous children alike at ease.

To her surprise, after a second or two of stammering she’d said yes. Why not? She was only thirty-five and there should be more to her life than her career as a corporate attorney and her son. Jake had been dead for two years and sick with a brain tumor for three before that. She’d been a dutiful caregiver and then widow. Wasn’t it time to have fun with adults again? Dress up? Wear makeup and possibly even…dance?

Rejoin the living, Rosa, she’d told herself, but that had been last week, when the actual outing with a man was still several days away.

Those days had since passed in a head-spinning blur and now here she was. On a date. And it was all a terrible mistake because she could never love another man the way she’d loved Jake, so why even bother with foolishness like dates?

Some of her turmoil must have shown—she was twiddling her wedding band again—because Greg smiled gently. "Nervous?"

"Is it that obvious?"

"I thought you were going to cancel on me."

"I almost did," she admitted. "Six or seven times."

"Ouch." He shifted closer, looking puppy-dog hopeful and pleased rather than hurt. "Thanks for not standing me up."

Before she could register a protest, he leaned in and brushed her cheek with his soft lips and the wiry bristle of mustache. It was over in a blink and she stared at him, stunned at this first kiss in two years.

Pulling back, he smiled. "That wasn’t so bad, was it?"

To her astonishment, it wasn’t.

"No," she said, and they laughed together, the tension broken.

This date could be fun after all, she thought. But then Greg shifted and the smile died on her lips as someone loomed into view over his shoulder—someone tall, dark and unsmiling, with a glittering brown crystal gaze that skewered her like an insect to a display board.

My God.

Caught and guilty, her pulse running at the speed of light, Rosa took a quick step away from Greg because this unexpected ghost from her past wouldn’t approve of another man’s hand on her arm or lips on her face.

Oh, no, he would not.

Shoring up her courage, she flashed a cool smile and braced herself for what was sure to be an unpleasant encounter of the worst kind.

"Hello, Philip," she said.