AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Janie blinked, and another fat tear dropped from her eyelash. She swiped it away. “You won.” Her jaw clenched as she swallowed, then she narrowed the space until a mere two-foot gap of chilly space remained between them. “I couldn’t last two weeks, just like you said.”
“You only had two days left.”
She wrapped her arms tight around her middle. “I couldn’t do it.”
A surge of liquid heat blurred his vision. “Janie . . .” Hunter shook his head. “I didn’t win anything.”
Swiping another tear, Janie sniffed. “You don’t want to claim your victory? You’d have my café and your hired cook.”
Hunter motioned between them with two fingers. “This isn’t what I wanted.”
“Then why did you make the bet?” She stepped closer, her voice a hoarse whisper.
Hunter dared to trace the length of her arm with his fingertips. “I called it off. I don’t want you as my hired help. I don’t want you to lose the café.”
That stubborn chin lifted. “Then what do you want, Hunter Wallace?”
“I want us to both stop losing.” He stepped closer still.
Janie moved backward. “That’s not how a bet works.”
“I’m not talking about a bet.” Reclaiming the proximity she’d pried open, he clasped her arm in a gentle hold. “I’m talking about you and me and this ongoing war. I want it to stop.”
She trembled in his grasp but didn’t retreat. Instead, she nodded. “How do you suggest that happen?” she whispered.
Hunter held her gaze, feeling himself pulled to her as a surge of warmth bloomed between them. Raising his left hand, he found he trembled as he slowly grazed his fingers up the length of her bare neck. His heart galloped when her eyes slipped closed at his touch.
He swallowed, desperately hoping he didn’t screw this up. “Maybe we could start with me being honest.”
Janie visibly swallowed. “Honest about what?”
“About why I keep acting like a jerk with you.” He lowered his head, grazing her temple with his lips. “And telling you that I’m sorry for it.”
Janie moved only enough to recapture his gaze. “I tried to be your friend, Hunter.”
“I know, and it made me crazy.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s not what I want. It’s not all that I want, and I don’t know how to be a casual friend with the woman I’m still in love with.” There. He’d said it. And meant it with every torn corner of his heart.
Janie stared up at him, a blend of disbelief and tenderness in her look. “You still . . .” She closed her lips and rolled them tight while her brow furrowed.
How could she not know? Hunter slipped both palms along her jawline to hold her face. “I never stopped, Janie. Even when I tried, I couldn’t stop loving you.”
A stream of tears rolled next to her nose. “You left,” she cried.
A leftover ache rolled through his chest. Would they never recover from that? Hunter nodded. “You stayed.” He felt the warm trail of his own tear cut a path toward his beard.
Dizziness swam through his head as Janie reached to smudge that wet trail with the pad of her thumb. “I’m sorry for it, Hunt.”
Her touch was thrilling and comforting at once, and Hunter couldn’t suppress the longing to feel the loveliness of her mouth any longer. She met his tentative kiss with equal hesitation.
“I wanted to hate you for hurting me,” she whispered.
“I know,” Hunter choked out.
A cry shuddered through her, and she gripped his shirtfront. “I was sure you hated me.”
