I take an unsteady step back.
Katie’s lids are heavy. Her eyes are glazed until sheblinks slowly. I think I turned her on. Maybe more than I realized. My best friend.
This is what she looks like when she’s turned on.
The thought sizzles up my spine. Her hair is wild. Her breasts push against her sweatshirt in shallow pants. Her lashes are heavy and her lips are deliciously swollen. There’s no way she’d be able to hide what she’s been doing. I like that.
Shit.
I like it way too much. I take a swift step back, shove my hands into my pockets.
“This is what you’d do on a real date?” There’s a small smile playing at the edges of her mouth. “Your line worked, by the way.”
My thoughts are spinning, trying to catch up. Practice. Right. This is practice and everything is fine. I didn’t cross a line. It wasn’t real.
“Ah, good.” I push out an unsteady breath.
“Tristan,” that voice calls again. My head jerks to the left. Nour rounds the corner, slowing from a jog, eyes darting between us. “You’re late for a date.”
My stomach sinks. I want to tell her that I won’t go. Katie takes a step back. There’s a funny little smile on her face. One I can’t read.
“Go ahead,” she says. “Have fun.”
My hand clenches and unclenches as I watch her jog up the stairs to her apartment. I feel like something is crumbling. The last bits of my restraint, maybe.
This is practice, but I don’t think anything real I find in the future will ever measure up.
28
TRISTAN
I’ve had so many coffee dates at this place in Hart’s Hill that I know the names of the staff members. They even save a table for me now. I’m sitting at that table now on Sunday afternoon, back to the wall, with Nour across the room and the door sign flipped firmly toClosed.
Two days ago I kissed my best friend against the wall of my house, and now I’m on a date with another woman. I sigh and stop my knee from jogging under the table.
“Tristan?”
The woman in front of me comes back into focus. Vanessa Waterford. Pale hair, pale green eyes, a beauty mark by the edge of her full mouth.Attractive, my brain reminds me. My body elicits not one lick of interest.Come on, body.I will myself to be turned on. I can’t go the rest of my life married to someone else and wanting only Katie.
“I’m sorry.” I give her my most charming smile. “You were saying?”
“I was asking why your bodyguard keeps glaring at us.”
I dart Nour a look. She’s not glaring. She’s just watching me. “She’s intense. It’s her thing.”
“Do you only hire female bodyguards?”
I blink at her. “Pardon me?”
Vanessa sips her coffee and slides her waterfall of blond hair behind her shoulder. “You have another female bodyguard. She’s very pretty. The red-haired one.”
“How do you know about her?” I can’t help the bite to my voice.
Vanessa gives me a weird look. “She’s all over social media.” She slides me her phone. “See?” She taps on an app, then types something in the search bar. Images of Katie fill the screen, some grainy, others clearer, some with me, and some on her own.
“What the hell is this?”
“Uh, it’s called being famous? You’re kinda weird, you know that, right?”
