Page 45 of Pick Me This Time

“Honestly? I don’t know if I am,” he admitted after pausing for a beat, taking a few more steps into my living room and taking a slow look around.

I sighed. “The farm will be fine, you know. Insurance will pay for the repairs to the bakery and⁠—”

“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” he said, interrupting me to let me know that I’d been dead wrong about what was bothering him.

I frowned, arching an eyebrow at him. “Why not?”

“You’re Eric’s little sister, for one,” he said. “Two, I live in New York City. I can’t stay here, Daphne. I can’t move back to my hometown. I needed to get out of here for a reason and I can’t have this holding me in place now.”

My head jerked back. He was rambling a little bit, rattling things off as if he was reading from a mental checklist, but what he said was offensive—and it also broke my heart a little bit.

“Is that what you think of me, then? That I’m just someone who’s going to hold you back? Or that I’ve been held back by our hometown?”

“That’s not what I’m saying, Daph.” He came a little bit closer, finally making it to within three or so feet of me.

I stood, unable to bear having him look down on me while we had this conversation. “What are you saying then, Sterling? That I’m just Eric’s little sister who’s stuck in a town you can’t stand?”

“No. It’s not that. I love it here. I just can’t stay.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” I said, exasperation winding its tentacles around my organs and squeezing. “We kissed. I didn’t ask you to marry me and I’m not expecting you to give me a ring because of it. It was just a kiss.”

“It was not just a kiss,” he said vehemently and I frowned. “I’ve kissed a lot of people, Daphne. And that? That was not just a kiss.”

The air between us charged as he moved closer. I started to melt despite the fact that we were in the middle of some kind of weird spat, but Sterling shook his head. “Is that what kissing someone is supposed to feel like? Did you feel it too?”

“I did feel it, and I don’t know,” I confessed, my voice barely above a whisper. “I’m not sure what that was, but I do know that I’m never going to be the same again.”

His handsome features contorted as if he was in pain, a soft groan escaping from him. It sounded like he was being tormented, but his gaze dropped to my lips and I was sure he was going to kiss me again.

We got so close that I could feel the heat of his lips on my own. My eyes closed, my heart skipping a beat in anticipation, but then suddenly, all that electric energy vanished.

When I opened my eyes again, Sterling was gone and my door slammed shut behind him. I was left reeling and confused, sagging back down on the couch and dropping my head into my hands.

My heart ached, his words racing through my head like they were trying to hurt me all over again. Sterling North had kissed me, and in doing so, he’d changed me. I didn’t want anyone else. Didn’t even want to look at anyone else ever again, but it seemed he didn’t feel the same way.

I wasn’t naive. I’d always known he wasn’t about to date someone like me, let alone throw away his glitzy life for a simple one in Allisburg with me.

The problem was mine. Because now that he’d kissed me once, all I wanted was to do it again. And again, and again, and again. But I knew it wasn’t going to happen. I just didn’t know exactly how I was supposed to move on from it.