AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It would have been so easy to play the bumbling idiot, to tumble against him, take advantage of the secluded darkness of the moment, and lose ourselves in some fantastic kisses.
My blood burned just thinking about it.
He’d said he wanted a distraction. I totally could have distracted him—and from the attention he paid me, he would have been all for it.
But that would have meant showing interest in him. I had no interest in Hawk Danielson.
Even as I thought as much, my traitorous heart gave a little lurch.
“It was anything but romantic,” I said, deciding not to mention his phobia of tight spaces. For some reason, that detail felt private to me.
Seeing Hawk like that had changed things more than I wanted to admit. It had made me respect him for not being as perfect or as prideful as he appeared. There was more to him—and I found myself wanting to know more.
“So tell us.” Brandy scooted away from her sewing machine. “What’s he like?”
I attempted to act indifferent, but it wasn’t quite as easy as it had been during our time in Montana. Back then, he’donly been a stuffy billionaire who was full of himself and out to flirt with whichever woman struck his fancy.
Despite his request, I’d assumed he’d want nothing more to do with me once we got back to Vermont. His texts in the meantime had proven that wasn’t the case.
But after today, something had shifted. He’d been real. And he’d still shown interest in me—not as a weekend fling, butgenuineinterest.
This email was proof of that, because as prideful as it seemed, I was almost sure the custodial staff had been invited because he found out I was on it.
I turned my attention to the cluttered stacks of papers beside the TV, trying to ignore the irony. I cleaned by profession, and yet my apartment grew messier by the day. I hadn’t seen the surface of anything in here since I’d moved in.
“Why do you care?” I asked.
“You can’t be this impartial,” Brandy said. “Especially not if you saw him. I heard he’s scrumptious.”
I lifted my chin. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Chloe belted out a laugh. As my roommate, she knew me better than most people. “That’s the biggest chunk of baloney I’ve ever heard. Seriously, what’s he like?”
My face grew hot. He’d held me when I’d stumbled against him. He smelled like temptation, dressed like tailored charisma, and had drawn my interest in like a magnet.
That whole “hindsight being twenty-twenty” thing wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t I have foreseen this side of him from the start?WouldI have done anythingdifferently?
He’d said we’d lost two months. We’d met in October, and it was now the end of December.
That was time I’d been here. Time I could have spent with him.
Had I made a mistake?
Doubt began to impose—and I didn’t want to let it. Once I got Stina’s stipend, I was leaving after Christmas. I was getting as far away from Vermont as I could, and I wasn’t looking back.
Thatwas why I’d kept my distance. I had to remember that.
“He’s nice,” I said to their inquisitive faces. “He told me a little of his Christmas traditions and kept his cool under duress. He even?—”
“What?”
Whoops. Too much.
“Nothing,” I said. “He held the door as I left, that’s all.”
Except that wasn’t all.
I couldn’t stop thinking about how his face had lit up at the sight of me, about the tender sympathy in his voice when I’d told him about Mom. He and I had shared a connection today, one I couldn’t continue to ignore no matter how badly I wanted to.
