Stop Taking Me for Granted (Love, Crisis, Second Chances #3)

Prologue

Mandy

Three years ago

I still remember the exact day Damon looked at me for the first time. Not the way he'd looked at me for twenty years—like furniture, like a fixture of his sister's childhood—but the way a man looks at a woman he wants.

I stood outside his apartment door for a full minute before I let myself knock, smoothing my skirt for the tenth time, catching my reflection in the chrome elevator doors and hating how much I cared what it showed.

I'd spent three days choosing that dress.

Not too much—just enough to hint at a waist he'd never once noticed.

I'd curled my hair for the first time in my life.

Dabbed gardenia perfume at my throat, the kind you'd only catch if you leaned in close.

It was pathetic, and I knew it. To him I was Nico's tagalong. His sister's shadow. He'd had a girlfriend for the last four years—Caroline, elegant and polished, the kind of woman who looked like she'd been assembled from a bridal magazine. Everything I wasn't.

And still, every single time I was about to see him, my heart forgot how to behave. My palms were slick around the internship application I'd spent a week perfecting—my excuse, my alibi, the flimsy cover story for a crush I'd been nursing since I was fourteen years old.

I took a breath and rang the bell.

The door opened, and the smell hit me first—whiskey, thick enough to choke on.

It was two in the afternoon. The curtains were drawn like a wound sewn shut, the apartment dark and airless.

And there was Damon—the golden boy, the untouchable one, the man who walked through life like the floor owed him something—collapsed against the arm of his couch, shirt half-open, eyes glassy and unfocused.

"Damon?" My voice cracked. "What happened?"

He lifted his head. His eyes were bloodshot, rimmed red, and the smile that crawled across his mouth was the ugliest thing I'd ever seen on him. "Caroline left me, Mandy."

The words hit me like a fist to the sternum. This man—the one who never lost, who never even flinched—was gutted. Hollowed out. Over a woman. And God help me, even through the ache splitting my chest in two, some small, starved part of me thought: good.

I'd loved him for over a decade. And in ten years, he had never once looked at me like I was the reason his world could end.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, buried the ache, and did what I always did around Damon—armored up. "Guess Caroline's smarter than I gave her credit for. Took one look at what a bastard you are and ran."

I expected a smirk. A cutting reply. The usual volley we'd traded since we were teenagers.

Instead, he laughed—low, rough, dangerous in a way I'd never heard from him.

He pushed off the couch, and even wrecked, even drunk, he filled the room the way he always did, shadow stretching long across the floor.

His eyes found mine and held them like he was seeing me for the very first time in his life.

He stepped closer. Closer than he'd ever stood. His gaze dragged over me, slow, and something in it made my skin go hot.

"That mouth of yours was made for a courtroom, Mandy." His voice dropped, rough at the edges. "But if you were as smart as you like to think, you wouldn't have shown up here looking like that."

Before I could ask looking like what, his hand was in my hair and his mouth was on mine—hard, hungry, tasting like whiskey and heartbreak.

I didn't let myself hope for anything real. I told myself it was a fever dream I'd wake from by morning.

Because I knew Damon. I'd sat beside Nico on that same living room rug and watched a decade's worth of women cycle through his life—beautiful, easy, forgettable.

Caroline had been the only one who lasted.

The only one he'd ever brought home for Christmas.

I could still see the way he'd looked at her across that table, soft and focused in a way he'd never once looked at me.

That memory alone had carved something out of me I never fully filled back in.

So I knew exactly what I was. Not the woman he wanted—just the wreckage he reached for when his own life came apart in his hands. A crutch with a familiar face.

I told myself not to want more. I told myself to be ready, always, for the door to close behind me.

But six months into a relationship neither of us admitted to anyone, Damon did something I never saw coming.

We were at my favorite bistro, candlelight bleeding gold across the tablecloth, when he reached into his jacket, pulled out a small velvet box, and dropped to one knee in front of the entire restaurant.

He looked up at me—and for once, there was nothing guarded in his face. Just something raw. Something almost frightened.

"Mandy." His voice didn't waver. "They say the smartest thing a man can do is marry his best friend. You know me better than anyone alive. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Marry me."

"Yes." The word left me before I could think better of it.

He slid the ring onto my finger, and my eyes burned with tears I let everyone believe were happiness.

But underneath the joy, something in me had already gone cold and still.

Because I'd counted the words as he said them. Smartest decision. Knows me. Rest of my life.

He never once said I love you.

I told myself it didn't matter. Damon was a lawyer down to the bone—logical, exacting, allergic to sentiment. Maybe this was just how a man like him loved. Quietly. Practically. In a ring instead of a confession.

I buried the doubt so deep I almost believed it was gone.

When we announced the engagement, the room went silent with shock. For ten years, everyone had watched us trade insults and eye-rolls across every family dinner. Nobody had seen a single warning sign. We'd gone from nothing to married without so much as a rumor in between.

Champagne. Laughter. A living room full of people who loved us both. Everyone thrilled—except Nico.

She pulled me aside first, her smile gone thin. Then she crossed the room straight to Damon, who'd just shrugged out of his coat, and planted herself in front of him like a wall.

"Spare me the press-release version," she said, arms crossed. "Tell me the real answer. The exact moment you knew you were in love with her."

The room laughed. Someone raised a glass, egging him on—come on, golden boy, let's hear the golden boy's heart.

Damon wore that lazy, unbothered smile he always wore when he was about to win. He slid an arm around my shoulders and pulled me in against him, easy and possessive, like I was something he already owned.

"Honestly? I don't remember one exact moment."

His voice was warm, teasing, pitched for the room.

He glanced down at me, and something flickered behind his eyes I couldn't name.

"One day she just... wasn't Nico's little shadow anymore. She turned into this stunning, infuriating woman right in front of me, and I couldn't look away."

The room erupted—laughter, applause, someone shouting for a kiss. Even Nico's frown finally cracked into something softer.

It was charming. It was perfect. It was exactly the answer a room full of guests wanted to hear.

And it wasn't an answer at all.

He'd slipped right past the only question that mattered—the falling. The moment his heart actually gave out on him.

Because maybe there wasn't one. Maybe he never lost his footing over me the way he had over her. Maybe this wasn't love at all—just cold arithmetic, the wreckage of a broken engagement, and the safest, easiest choice standing closest to hand.

My nails bit crescents into my palms, hidden in the folds of my dress.

But the room was warm, and his arm was around me, and I was drowning in the one thing I'd wanted since I was fourteen years old. So I smiled. I leaned into him. I swallowed the bitterness climbing up my throat until it disappeared.

It's fine, Mandy, I told myself. You have a lifetime to make him fall.

We had years ahead of us. Decades. And I was certain—I was so, so certain—that if I stood close enough, long enough, one day he would look at me the way he'd looked at her across that Christmas table. One day the cold arithmetic would catch fire, and it would be real, and it would be mine.

That night, wrapped in his arms with the ring cold and unfamiliar on my finger, I believed it with everything I had.

I had no idea how wrong I was about to be.