My son, Roman, age ten, said his pickup line is going to be, “You can’t have ROMANce without me.”
—JEANNIE Q.
There are many epic battles: good versus evil; man versus nature; pepperoni versus pineapple. But not one of them compared to the battle that had been taking place in my head the last few hours. It was like an MMA cage match up there.
On one side, the sensible, logical part of me, the Me who made plans, who took care of people, who made choices with realistic expectations in mind. The other side? That Me was apparently ready to throw both caution to the wind and myself at Chris.
Hours later, my lips still remembered that kiss. It played like a scene from a romance novel and my stupid romantic heart remembered every detail—his hand on my cheek, the feel of his hair in my fingers, the press of his lips on mine. It was all I could do not to start writing sonnets about the whole thing.
Who even was I anymore?
After the photos, we’d been whisked away to change, pack, and eat a quick dinner with the family. Then Piper had driven back with us to Tulsa and we’d all hopped on a 2 a.m. flight back to Houston. What we hadn’t done was talk. Probably because I’d pretended to sleep the entire flight.
Piper parted ways with us and that left Chris and me, alone in his truck for the hour drive back to Two Harts. One hour. Sixty minutes. 3,600 seconds.
I couldn’t stand it.
“About the kiss,” I said five minutes after we got on the freeway. “We should talk about that.”
“Alright. Let’s talk about it.”
“I know it was for show, so I want to make sure things won’t be awkward between us. It was simply a kiss. No big deal.”
It was such a big deal. The biggest of big deals. But I waved my hand in the air like I was shooing a pesky fly.
In the flickering glow of the streetlights, I saw him frown.
I plowed on. “We are contractually obligated to engage in public displays of affection. We were honoring our contract. Was it awkward? Absolutely.”
One of his eyebrows arched. The one hand resting on the steering wheel tightened. “Was it?”
“Of course it was. We’re friends who were practically forced to engage in an activity neither of us wanted. It’s not like you woke up this morning with the intention of having your tongue halfway down my throat by dinner.”
“Huh.” He rubbed his thumb on his bottom lip. Stupid, stupid opposable thumb.
“What?”
“Let’s say, for argument’s sake, I wanted to.”
“Wanted to what?”
“Put my tongue halfway down your throat, as you so eloquently put it.”
I huffed a laugh. “Yeah. Right.”
“For argument’s sake, of course.”
I looked away, fiddled with my seatbelt. “I would remind you we’re in a business arrangement. It’s finite. It has an end date. The more we get tangled in each other’s lives, the harder it will be to untangle.”
“What if we didn’t have to… untangle? What if…?”
What if…? He’d said the same words that night in the pool house. What if scared me to death. Because what ifs never ended well. A what if had made my mother fall in love with a con man who had wrecked her life. A what if had made me think Peter Stone cared about me. I couldn’t stand the thought of another what if going wrong. Especially if it involved Chris. Because I knew with the same certainty I knew my name that when things went badly with Chris (and they would), I might not survive it.
“There can’t be a ‘what if.’”
“Huh.” He patted my knee with his free hand. The touch traveled through my body with lightning speed. “It’s alright. I understand.”
“That’s it.” I half shrieked.
For a long moment, he rubbed his lower lip with his thumb because he was truly trying to drive me insane. “That’s it.”
I stared at his stupid handsome profile. “You are the most irritating man on this entire planet.”
The rest of the drive was done in silence, although he kept smiling to himself.
And that made me nervous.
