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Surprised, because he hates me. Not surprised, because he might hate me, but Jesse isn’t that kind of asshole.

I remember how smug William would be when a colleague would make a mistake or fail in something. It hadn’t quite sat right with me, but I hadn’t really put much thought into it. Maybe I should have. Maybe I should’ve seen the warning signs…

I cut off that train of thought. There’s no use in going down that road.

Jesse frowns. “You okay there?”

“You spun me a lot,” I say, fumbling for an excuse.

“Here, let’s get you back to the table.” Jesse puts his hand on the small of my back. I try to ignore the fissure of heat that shivers up my spine at the touch. It’s natural in a crowd like this, especially when I’m on the small side.

It still makes a flush rise to my cheeks, even though it shouldn’t.

“Your turn, Cade,” Jesse announces cheerfully.

Hendrix and Easton burst out laughing. I frown at them. “What’s so funny?”

“Cade never dances,” Hendrix explains.

I drape myself over the table, being overly dramatic for the joke. It gives me a distraction from the way I nearly made an idiot of myself, anyway. “Aww, Cade! What a spoilsport!”

“We all went, Cade,” Jesse agrees, grinning at him.

I expect Cade will grunt out some excuse. If the others say he never dances, then I believe them. Dancing doesn’t really seem like Cade’s thing, and stubbornness sure is.

But instead, to my surprise, he steps up and pulls me into his arms.

Chapter 5

Cade

“Oh.”

The small sound escapes Grace as she stares up at me with wide, soft eyes. She looks surprised, and I can’t blame her.

“You don’t have to, Cade,” she says gently. “I was just joking. We all were.”

She’s leaning against me already, and the scent of her envelops me. I swallow hard. I can’t remember if Grace always smelled this good and I just forgot, seeing as she was younger and our friend’s baby sister, but if she has always smelled this good then damn I’m glad I forgot.

It’s been driving me crazy all night.

She smells like the perfect spring day. I don’t know how any man’s supposed to resist that. The fact that this William guy resisted it enough to go and fuck some other woman is beyond me. I wasn’t impressed with the man from the jump but I didn’t know he was downright insane.

“I don’t mind,” I say gruffly.

Grace smiles. “You sure?”

I nod.

She takes my hand and leads me out onto the dance floor.

I really don’t dance. At all. I can’t lead properly. But if Grace minds, she doesn’t let it show. She just starts doing her thing, and I match my movements with her as best I can.

Turns out, it’s better than I thought. Strange, but not too hard.

“Look at you go.” Grace smiles up at me. “We’ll make a dancer of you yet.”

“Don’t count on it.”