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Dad: Dinner with Charles at La Peire on Thursday night.
“Tell him no,” Drew says, like it’s the most obvious solution in the world.
“I can’t.”
“You want to go to dinner with that old fuck?”
“No,” I snap, then lower my voice. “Of course not. But my father isn’t a reasonable man. He doesn’t take no for an answer. He’ll just bulldoze straight through me until he gets what he wants.”
“He’s an asshole.”
“Don’t say that,” I shoot back. “He’s just protective. He thinks he’s doing what’s best for me.”
Drew gives a short, skeptical laugh. “So your plan is to just roll over? Marry the guy because Daddy said so?”
“No. I have a better idea. Normal men hate feeling forced into anything, right? So I’ll go to the dinner and I’ll repel him. Then he’ll be the one who tells my dad it’s not going to work. I’ll act heartbroken, Dad will feel guilty, and eventually he’ll back off. After that, I can do whatever I want.”
Drew raises an eyebrow. “And how exactly are you planning to scare him off?”
“I’ll tell him how excited I am to start having babies right away—three daughters, minimum. How I’m planning to cut my hair into a cute little bob the second we’re married because it’ll be ‘so much easier with a baby.’ And that I’ve always dreamed of having them really close together so we can have one of those loud, chaotic houses with toys everywhere and the TV blaring all day.”
I pause, grinning. “Oh, and I’ll make sure to tell him how much I love the idea of him coming home from work every day so I can talk about my feelings for forty-five minutes before dinner. Men hate that stuff, right? That’d scare even you off. ”
Drew stares at me for a long second.
“I don’t scare easy. But him? Yeah.”
He reaches over and tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear, his thumb lingering along my cheek for a beat longer than necessary. The simple touch sends a spark racing down my spine.
“You’d better be convincing with Charles,” he says, eyes darkening. “Because if he tries anything with you, I’ll break his fingers one by one.”
I roll my eyes. “How romantic.”
Drew’s mouth curves into that lazy grin I’m becoming dangerously addicted to. “Give me a kiss.”
“No,” I say automatically, even as my gaze drops to his lips.
His hand slides gently to the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair as he pulls me closer. The moment his mouth meets mine, everything else fades. The kiss starts soft and sweet, almost tender, but quickly deepens into something warmer.
I melt into him completely. There’s something about the way Drew kisses me—like he has all the time in the world and still can’t get enough—that always catches me off guard and leaves me breathless.
When we finally break apart, Drew rests his forehead against mine.
He presses one last soft kiss to my lips, then leans back and pulls me against his shoulder. His arm settles around me easily, naturally, like this is something we’ve been doing forever instead of something that’s somehow spiraled completely out of control in the space of a few weeks.
“You wanna go walk on the beach?” he asks quietly.
I glance down at my heels and laugh under my breath. “In these shoes?”
“Take them off.”
I smile despite myself and slip off the heels one by one, letting them drop onto the floor mat.
Drew leans over the back seat, rummages around for a second, and then tosses a beat-up black baseball cap into my lap. I pull the cap low over my eyes, tucking my hair up underneath it. Drew watches me for a second, strangely quiet, his gaze lingering a little too long.Then he clears his throat.
“Maybe it’s not completely out of the question.”
I look up. “What is?”
