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I focus on her face, her lips. The smudge of mascara only adds to the heady heat of this moment. Her eyes track mine, back and forth. I bring my fingers gently around the back of her neck.
Thoughts of Sebastian intrude, and I stop for a second, a flare of triumph burning inside of me.
Hold up. No. I amnotthinking of my brother at a time like this. And this isn’t about one-upping him. I have a gorgeous, funny, intriguing woman in my arms, on a beach, and we’re both still moderately wet from our swim that, frankly, made me feel more alive and more comfortable in my God-given manliness than I ever have in my life.
And she seems like she wants to kiss me too, if her shudder just now is to be believed. I never would do this without her full consent, because what if she didn’t actually want to and then I go and screw up a perfectly fine friendship?
Crap. What if she actually doesn’t want to?
Get your head in the game, Oliver. Go in for the kill and kiss her already. If she didn’t want to, she wouldn’t be looking at you like that.
I rub my thumb gently across her lips. They’re so soft.
“Oliver?” Her voice is a whisper.
Forget Sebastian. Forget her grandfather who would love to write his name in my blood. Forget that low life Troy who used to kiss her.
I stutter over thoughts of Troy, the man who didn’t value her and now real anger is starting to course through me. How could he have not valued Sophie? Where does he get off?
Why, oh why on God’s green earth am I in my head right now?
Do this now, Oliver.
Before I can mentally wipe these aggravating and inopportune thoughts away, Sophie’s eyes close. But it’s not the eye closing that happens right before a kiss. Her head’s not tilted towards me anymore. She’s squeezing her eyes shut. Tightly. As if she’s…embarrassed? Upset?
No. No. No. No. No.
Her eyes fly open. “Are you moving to Capri?” she asks, her brow in a harsh line.
“I—” Not what I expected her to say, and I stammer, not sure how to say it, but knowing she deserves the truth. “I have to—”
Her gaze travels over mine. She closes her eyes again and gives one swift nod.
“Sophie,” is all I can think to say, my mind begging to go back in time.
I try to pull her close to me again, try to bandage up the chasm that’s suddenly between us.
It doesn’t work.
Chapter 13
Oliver
I drop my hands and Sophie takes a step back from me, her bare foot sinking in the sand. She jams one hand against her lower back and the other one to her forehead, like she’s annoyed and checking for a fever.
“That was…” She shakes her head and wets her lips, her gaze to the sand.
“I’m sorry.” I don’t know what I’m sorry about except for everything. For spending years being like Troy and not seeing her worth, at least not clearly enough. For missing our standing date last year without more notice or thought for her feelings. For not kissing her. For almost kissing her.
Her cheeks burn red, and she gives a laugh that’s hollow. “What are you sorry for?” Her lower lip trembles, but her voice is strong and she turns away, placing both hands on her cheeks. “It was just…I don’t know. A momentary craziness?”
She nods at her words, and my stomach grows sick.
“A momentary craziness,” she says again. “And I’m sorry, too. Not that either of us should be sorry. Because it was nothing.” She guffaws. “We should not be sorry for nothing,” she says definitively. She whirls back around and aims her pointer fingers at me. “Should we head back? Before Sebastian sics the dogs on us?”
Sebastian doesn’t have dogs. But I’d much rather stick to non-existent dogs than to the subject of what almost happened. What I wanted with my whole being to happen.
“Speaking of dogs, how’s Wilford?” I ask, relieved I could bring up a safer topic.
