Page 80 of Never To Be Mine

“But I have a terrible track record with relationships.” He looked away, focusing on the ceiling instead of me. “I always get restless and mess things up. I stopped pursuing relationships because I end up hurting people who didn’t deserve it.”

“So you stopped trying?”

“Pretty much. I’ve been keeping things casual. No expectations, no commitments, no one getting hurt when I inevitably fuck it up.” He finally looked at me again. “I’m not saying that to be an asshole. I’m just being honest about who I am.”

“I appreciate the honesty.” It was hard to hear, but I wasn’t looking for a wedding ring. “For what it’s worth, I’m not exactly winning any awards in the dating department either.”

“Yeah?” He rolled onto his side to face me, seeming relieved that I wasn’t running for the door. “What’s your excuse?”

“Too many duds in a row.” I laughed, but it came out a little bitter. “I tried the whole dating app thing for a while. Met some guys who seemed decent on their profiles, but in person? Complete disasters.”

“So what about me? Am I a dud?”

I looked at him in all his naked glory. As if he could ever be a dud.

“Absolutely not,” I said. “You’re different.”

“Different good or different bad?”

“Good. Infuriating, but good.” I traced a line down his chest with one finger. “You make me laugh, even when I’m trying to be mad at you. You’re passionate about your work, which is really sexy. And you’re way smarter than you let people think.”

“Keep going,” he said with that cocky grin. “My ego can take more.”

I smacked his chest lightly. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Too late.” But his expression turned serious again. “So what do we do about this? About us?”

“I don’t know.” I bit my lip, trying to think it through logically even though logic had clearly left the building the moment we’d started kissing. “We could pretend it never happened and go back to being strictly professional.”

“Could you actually do that?”

“No,” I admitted. “Not really.”

“Me neither.”

We lay there in silence for a moment, both of us thinking.

“What if we just tried?” I said finally. “Like actually dating. Seeing where this goes.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that? After I just told you I’m terrible at relationships?”

“You were terrible at relationships,” I corrected. “Maybe you just hadn’t met the right person yet.”

“Or maybe I’m setting you up for disappointment.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “But I’m a big girl. I can handle disappointment. What I can’t handle is spending the next however many months working together with random hookups and I think it’s pretty clear there will be more moments like this.”

He grinned. “You’re hooked.”

“Stop it.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure I want to try. I can’t promise it’ll work out, and you can’t promise you won’t fuck things up, but we could at least give it a shot, right? Try dating like normal people. See what happens. No harm, no foul. We’re both going in with our eyes wide open.”

A slow smile spread across his face. “Yeah. We could do that.”

“Good.” I leaned over and kissed him. “Now, I have to get dressed and make an appearance at the office.”