“I’d like to find a husband. I just…haven’t fallen in love yet. No one I’ve met has felt quite right.” A sad smile touches her pretty pink lips. “I don’t want to settle. I’ve worked so hard to learn how to be a good wife. I want someone to sweep me off my feet and show me that they deserve all the effort I’d like to give them.” Her smile fades. “The guys…are good enough friends, but none of them are right.”
“How would you know who’s right?” I ask.
Slow, her eyes lift, glassy and distant. “I’ll know. He’ll be warm. Comfortable. Someone I don’t need to think around. Someone whose presence alone chases away the worry in my head. He’ll be right, because he’ll makemefeel right. And I won’t have to question everything I say or do around him. He won’t be offended by who I am.”
That is…an impressively low bar. “You are the least offensive person I have ever met,” I whisper.
She smiles. “Thank you. I try very hard to be.”
“No…” I’m leaning in, again, drawn near by her gravity, helpless against the cosmic power of her. “You’re flawlessly thoughtful, Mirabelle. I’ve never met someone as kind and considerate as you.”
“I’ve said a grand number of inconsiderate, unkind, and offensive things to you over the past week, Mr. Anders.”
“You are allowed to dislike me. It’s not inconsiderate or unkind to honestly and respectfully admit to it.”
“Huh.” Eyes fixed on mine, she lifts a hand, fingertips grazing my shirt hem again.
I find myself pinching her chin as my free hand works its way around her apron, bunching the fabric in my grip.
She’s drunk, I remind myself.
Drunk on vodka some guy gave her, probably with this exact picture in his skull.
With a sigh, I lean in and touch my lips to her cheek. “You are precious,” I say, voice raw and desperate. “It’s not your fault if people are too stupid to see that.”
Her lashes fall. “You’re a liar.”
“I think everyone is, at some point. Even if they don’t realize it.”
“You wouldn’t like me if you knew me.”
“Wanna bet?”
Her nose wrinkles. “I hate bets. Gambling is wrong.”
“It’s not gambling if there are no losers.”
She sighs. “What are the terms if there’s no way to lose? How do you win?”
“Let me get to know you. If I continue to like you, I win. If I don’t, I’ll still respect you and your work ethic, so no one loses.”
“Continue?” she whispers.
My thumb finds a home against her bottom lip, and she doesn’t move as I relish in the softness, the way her lips part to accommodate my motions, the—
A flash breaks the night, and Mirabelle flinches.
I growl, releasing her apron and bracing my body around hers to block it from the camera. A curse hisses from between my teeth as I see a dark outline on the edge of the development, tucked in the bushes. Pulling Mirabelle away from the vehicle, I open the door and usher her inside. Shoving myself in the driver’s seat, I open my hand toward her and battle with the mechanisms that might afford me just an inch more room. “Keys, Mirabelle.”
Pale, she retrieves them for me, and I shove them in the ignition.
“They’re gonna tell more lies about us,” she whispers beneath the chug of the engine.
I throw my hand behind her head rest, peer back, and peel out of the parking space. “Yup.”
She buries her face in her hands. “What are they even doing here?”
“They must have followed us from my property and been waiting.”
