Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 612(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 612(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Matt’s voice yanks me back to the moment, my perspective altered somewhat. I’ve been blaming him since yesterday. Blaming him for his choices and ignoring my own part in that first heated moment.
“I fancied you pretty much from the moment I set eyes on you in that grotty pub. From the second your palm landed on my chest. It sounds pathetic, I know, but I just said something stupid, and you misunderstood. Instead of putting you right, I just rolled with it like a complete eejit.”
“But why? Why did you do that?” Because it makes no sense. Matt is as hot as any man I have ever met. I know it wasn’t to impress me.
“It was a precaution,” he says, visibly uncomfortable. “I didn’t want to end up spending the night with you.”
I say nothing. And he says nothing, like there’s nothing more to be said.
“Wow,” I manage eventually. “I hope that sounded better in your head.”
“What? No, that’s not what—”
“Maybe you should’ve practiced first. Said it to a mirror a few times.”
“Fuck it,” he says, slumping back and kind of throwing up his hands. “Well, here’s something else you won’t believe. I don’t do one-night stands.”
“Like you’re not an escort?” I retort, my words ugly.
“I’d make a really shit escort.”
Au contraire, my brain offers. You hit all the high spots.
“I want an emotional connection as much as the physical. I want to be in your head, and want you to be in mine, as much as I want to be inside you.”
Something in his tone, his sincerity, allows my mind to slip back in time again. In his lap, skin to skin, nothing between us but the look on his face and the way he said my name. He was inside me, and I him. And suddenly, I believe him.
“Remember, I’d also spent the afternoon at an ex’s wedding. I had some idea of what you had to look forward to. Or not. And I tried to talk you out of it.”
“Fine, but what happened still happened, whether you meant it to or not. And you still lied to me,” I retort, hanging on to that line of blamelessness despite my slippery grip on it. “Do you have any idea how I felt yesterday? What I’d thought back on as a perfect night suddenly turning so sordid.”
“Sordid,” he repeats with a curt nod. “Kind of like how you left me an envelope stuffed full of cash.”
“Which I feel so great about now,” I mutter as something painful blooms inside, like a poke to an old bruise. Embarrassment makes me defensive and mean. Those old familiar hurts make me want to crawl out of my own skin. “Feel free to return it.” I fold my arms across my chest. “You with all your success—I’m sure you don’t need it.”
“I get why you did,” he says, without bite now. “But we both know that the money, the lies, none of it detracts from the night we had. I know I should’ve said before we got to the suite, but I wanted to tell you in private, not where those arseholes might be hanging about. I was so into you, and you were amazing.” Words begin to spill from him. “So beautiful and brave, and I wanted you more than I’ve wanted anything. I told myself it would be worse to tell you once your dress was on the floor—you were already half naked, and I’d already half lost my mind. But that’s not to say it was altruism. I just wanted you so much.”
Grief and hope bubble up inside me, the sensations taking me by surprise so badly that I give a sharp sob. Because no matter how sincere he sounds, no matter how heartfelt his words, I’m about to tell him something that’s about to change both our worlds.
And maybe his mind.
“Hey, now,” he says, moving closer.
I press my palm to my mouth, vehemently shaking my head. Don’t touch me. Don’t come near. Just . . . too late.
“Sweetheart,” he croons, rubbing his big palm in circles across my back, the fingers of his other hand folding over mine. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
“You—didn’t—make—me—cry,” I gulp out between sobs, my chest and shoulders jerking with each word.
“But I have. I’d punch myself in the face if I thought it’d do any good.”
“You—didn’t—make—me—sad.” I suck in air like a woman who’s preparing to be drowned by a wave. “You—made—me—pregnant.”
Chapter 18
Matt
Tell me something. But maybe not that.
I slump back in my seat, my hands falling away. Then rubbing at my chin. Pressed across my mouth. I glance away, down the length of the room to the windows, and watch as the lights turn clinging raindrops the colors of Smarties. A couple seated there plays footsie as the bartender pulls a pint. The door opens, and someone leaves. Someone else walks in. Ordinary actions, ordinary lives that are unchanged by the moment before. Meanwhile, as my world is . . .