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Kaleb stews. He’d rather lose the project than only make a few hundred thousand bucks. But Henry’s on fire.
And sentiment is moving—I can feel it in the room.
There’s a preliminary vote. People want Locke to develop the parcel. They want more meetings. They want Henry.
I want him, too.
I’ve set Smuckers down on his leash and take a breath, trying to come down from the panic I felt. Some teenaged girls are petting him. Brett and Kaleb are talking with Henry and he’s nodding, hands shoved in his pockets.
He puts his suit jacket back on. All buttoned down. Perfect Henry.
Not looking at me.
Is he mad? He doesn’t like being pushed around. Well, Bernadette was his mother.
When I glance over there next, he’s coming across the room toward me, bypassing small groups of people, computer bag slung over his shoulder.
Brett stays behind. He looks angry.
Henry looks…beautiful.
My pulse races.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says when he reaches me, breathless. He takes Smuckers’s leash and my hand. “Now.”
“I can carry…”
“I got it.” He’s pulling me along, down the hall, toward the door, with Smuckers trotting alongside on the leash.
Somebody calls his name. I don’t know if it’s Locke people or neighborhood people. They want him back.
“I got your gift,” I say. “It’s the most beautiful thing anyone ever made for me.”
He shoves open the door with strange force. My heart jumps. Is he going to yell at me, too?
I step out into the night, afraid to face him. Did I screw up again?
A strong hand grasps my arm. Henry spins me back to him. I’m flush up against him.
He gazes down at me, breath ragged, pulse banging beneath his strong jaw. He looks at me like he wants to say a million things, eyes full of tenderness. Wonder. People never look at me like that. But Henry does.
I brush my knuckle along the scruff of his beard, a whisper of a touch with enough electricity to light up the night.
I mouth his name: Hen-ry.
“Goddamn,” he grates, dark and needy.
His lips come down on mine.
There’s nothing tender about this kiss—he devours my mouth. His tongue sweeps lewdly across mine. A fist closes around my ponytail. He pushes into me, or maybe that’s me, pushing into him, finding the way we fit, hot and perfect.
He pulls away. “The hell,” he says. “How did I not believe you? How did I not trust you? All this time—god, I was an asshole.”
“It was a lot to ask, that level of trust.”
“Not when it’s you.”
My heart slams out of my chest.
