“Ouch.”
“Yeah, well. I deserved it. I was a self-absorbed, selfish dick.”
“You don’t seem self-absorbed or selfish to me,” she said.
“Like I said, give me some time.”
She didn’t believe this. Or more accurately, she didn’t want to believe it. The thing was, he said only what he meant, and she knew he meant this, to his core. He’d warned her from the beginning that he would disappoint her.
She just didn’t want it to be true.
“The truth is,” he said, “I’m busy all the time and no woman’s going to be okay with that for the long term. So undoubtedly, I’m going to end up a lonely old man, just like Clarissa so aptly predicted.”
“I don’t believe that,” she said. “I’ve seen you engrossed in work. You’ve still always made time for your friends. And me.”
“That’s because you’re a welcome distraction.” He tugged her hair. “Beautiful, funny, smart . . . but a definite distraction nevertheless.”
She stared at him, torn between melting at what he thought of her and wanting to cry at the knowledge that this would never be anything more than an amazing interlude. “Good thing, then, that I’m just a temporary one,” she said with more cheer than she felt. Because what she felt was a hollow pit in the depths of her gut that she didn’t want to name. She pulled a quarter from her purse and turned to the fountain.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Making a wish.” She tossed the quarter into the water and closed her eyes.
“For . . .?” he asked, sounding worried.
Silly man. Although he should be worried. “For true love. For you.” She opened her eyes and grinned at his horror. “See, you do believe.”
“You’re a scary woman,” he said.
“Now you’re catching on,” she said as from inside her pocket, her phone went off again.
She sighed.
“You should probably make sure the house is still standing,” he said. “Here, let me.” He took the phone and looked at the screen. “Do you have a third brother named Jackson?”
“No.” She took the phone back and stared at it before hitting ignore.
“Problem?” Spence asked.
She took a deep breath, realizing with a shock that she’d so thoroughly distanced herself from her life for the past week she’d actually forgotten about Jackson. “He’s my agent.”
Spence looked surprised. “You must be close to being published to have an agent. That’s great, Colbie.”
His encouragement was sweet, but it also made her feel guilty for not telling him about this part of her life. You’ve only known him five days, she reminded herself. And this escape was private. And extremely important to both her mental health and her career. And whether they knew it or not, it was also important to her family, staff, and editorial team, all of whom counted on her. And in fact, just thinking about it, she felt the familiar smothering pressure to sustain the franchise her life had become sink into her chest.
She looked into his eyes and knew she couldn’t do it—she couldn’t, shouldn’t, keep secrets from him. He was private, incredibly so, but honest. She needed to be the same. At least as much as she could be. “You know how you’re bad at love?” she asked. “Well, so am I. I picked Jackson as my first love and it wasn’t reciprocated.”
His eyes were sympathetic but not pitying, which was a good thing. A nice thing.
“Since the past sucks,” he murmured, slowly pulling her into him, kissing her jaw, “maybe we should stick to the present.”
Good idea. Great idea. But she wasn’t done coming clean. “Spence?”
“Yeah?” His mouth was on her throat now, so erotic and sensual that she felt her eyes roll back in her head.
“There’re things about me that I still haven’t told you,” she whispered. “Things I’m not ready to talk about, at least not yet. Are you okay with that?”
He met her gaze and held it. “I want only what you’re willing to give me, Colbie. No more.”
For a moment, that stopped her. He wanted only what she was willing to give, meaning he didn’t need anything more than that. Which meant he really was fine with this being whatever it was until she left. And after that, the end.
And as she’d said that was what she wanted too, she had no business even thinking about it. None at all.
But she was thinking about it, a lot.
She was thinking how nice it would be if they decided to take this wherever it took them, even past their Christmas Eve expiration date.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t, and she swallowed hard past the disappointment before she spoke. “Given what I just told you, and how I’d feel in reverse, meaning if you were telling me that you were holding something back, I wouldn’t blame you if you want to walk away,” she said softly, and it was with mixed feelings that she watched him crane his neck to look around them, certain he was about to do just that.
“We’re alone out here,” he said instead and pulled her in closer. “Pretty rare.”
“Spence —”
“We all have secrets, Colbie,” he said and kissed her gently, his passion clearly in check. “And we laid out our line in the sand from the beginning.”
“That being . . . that this thing between us is temporary, right?” she said. “Because I’m neither relationship material nor geographically desirable, and you’re . . .”
“Bad at this,” he helpfully filled in for her.
She nodded and then she shook her head. “Except you’re not bad at this, Spence.”
“I am,” he insisted. “And that’s a promise.”
“So you’re saying that it’s a good thing we don’t have time?”
He gave her a small smile.
Yeah. That’s exactly what he was saying. That it was a good thing they didn’t have time. Again, she worked to shove the disappointment deep but wasn’t entirely successful. Time to pull back and regroup, she thought. “I had fun tonight,” she said. “Thanks for the date. It was pretty incredible.”
“You’re more than welcome. I had a great time too.” The warmth in his gaze, the heat from his body . . . Even with what they’d just discussed, it was all heady stuff. More so when he wrapped his hand around her ponytail and used it to bring her face closer to his. And then he gave her what she was pretty sure he’d intended to be another quick kiss—but wasn’t. Not by a long shot, and when it ended, she had to lock her knees to keep from slipping into a puddle of longing on the ground.
With a gravelly groan low in his throat, Spence drew himself away from her. “That’s getting harder to do,” he said.
“Kiss me?”
“Stop kissing you,” he corrected. “The fountain must be taking your wish seriously.”
She saw the teasing light in his eyes, swirled in with a good amount of heat, and managed a smile in return even though she thought maybe the fountain was taking her wish very seriously indeed.
Chapter 14
#GodBlessAmerica
When Spence got home, he was far too keyed up to sleep. Thinking he’d work, he went to his office and logged on to his computer. But his concentration was even more shot tonight than it’d been all week.
He gave up and went to bed, telling himself he’d get back at it tomorrow.
But he didn’t. Not that day or the next three. That was because for three straight days he pulled Colbie from her apartment and knocked something off her list. He took her shopping in Union Square, for dim sum in Chinatown, and wine tasting in Napa Valley.
But not the nights. The nights he worked. Not full throttle, because his brain felt otherwise occupied with one sweet and sexy Colbie, but he did try. And as he stared at his screens, he realized that he was actually making a very real, very serious attempt at balancing Colbie and work.
As for whether he was successful at it, the jury was still out. But three days in, he sent what he had to both Caleb and Joe—who was consulting with them on the security end—hoping one of them might be able to put a finger on what he was missing. Then he dragged his exhausted ass into bed. It was three a.m. and he looked at his phone for the first time all day.