I didn’t think I’d appreciate being unable to get ahold of him, either, especially feeling as insecure as I did in that moment. I bit my bottom lip. “Okay.”
“And I told you, if he’s near you, I want to be there.”
“I didn’t know he was—”
“But,” he added, “for all the excruciating times I stood in this office and couldn’t touch you, I’m going to kiss you right now.”
With a small smile, I took a step closer and placed my hands on his chest. His arms came around the middle of my back, and he held me as his lips touched mine.
I felt his love in that kiss. But a small part of me wondered if he knew the difference between lust and love, between now and someday. Bill had asked what made me different from the others. It was true—I had no idea if David had said these same things to other women. He hadn’t known Maria had expected more of him—that she one day thought he’d come around. What had he given her that she’d clung to for so long?
“Hey.”
I opened my eyes. “Hey,” I repeated.
“You’re not with me.”
I searched his eyes for a moment, wondering how he could tell the moment my mind began to wander.
“Now,” he said, “I want to know what he said to you.”
I sighed and dropped my eyes to his chest. “He kissed me.”
David’s jaw squared, his pecs going taut under my palms. “You’re shitting me.”
“It didn’t mean anything. If anything, it reminded me how much—”
“Was it against your will?” he asked.
If I said yes, who knew what David would do to Bill? But the alternative would be worse for me. It was the truth, though. “No,” I admitted. “It happened fast, but when I pulled away, he stopped.”
“I see.”
I heard his disappointment in those two words. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Honestly, I felt nothing.”
“I have no doubt about that,” he said. “I’m not worried about your chemistry.”
“No?” I asked.
He shook his head. “If you go back to him, it won’t be because he fucks you better, will it?”
A flush worked its way up my neck. I was tempted to shut the office door and ask him to back up that claim with evidence. “No.”
David raised an eyebrow. “The correct answer was that you’renotgoing back to him.”
I bit my bottom lip. “I’m not,” I said. “But he said some things I’m still . . . processing.”
“That,” David said, frowning. “That’s what worries me. You’re letting him get in your head, honeybee.”
I smiled barely, a reflex to the endearment. “Whether you like it or not, I’ve always been cautious. I have to be able to think these things through.”
He sighed. “And here, I let myself think I had you.”
My smile fell, and I looked up at him. “Youdo.”
“When Bill called me a womanizer and tried to make you doubt what you and I have—because I’m certain that was his plan—did you defend me? Defendus? Or did you give him reason to think you and I were unstable enough that he could kiss you?”
I dropped my gaze to David’s tie. “I told him he doesn’t know you or us, and that I’m different with you.”
