“Fuck you,” she mouthed back, and he guessed he deserved it. But she left the room. He set down the bouquet and picked up the next tile.
Poppy was so focused on her task she didn’t notice the changing of the guard. It took ten minutes for her to realize it was him handing her tiles.
“What are you doing?” she asked cooly.
Scratch that: She knew he was there all along. She’d just been ignoring him.
“Trying to get five minutes of your time.”
She refused to meet his gaze. “I’m busy.”
“You’ve been playing with that same piece of tile for over three minutes.”
“Maybe because someone came in and broke my focus.” She finally looked at him. “Plus, it doesn’t matter. I’m mad at you.”
“I know.” He took the tile from her hand and grabbed a roll of painter’s tape. “Come with me.”
He gently led her to the Diary Room and closed the door. Placing tape over the camera lens, he unplugged the microphone.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I don’t want this recorded.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “What? What is so important?” She wasn’t just hurt he realized, she was mad as hell.
“You’ve been avoiding me all day and I have something to say to you.”
“I’ve been avoiding you on purpose.”
He smiled. “I could tell.”
“Fine, you have thirty seconds. Go.”
“Thirty seconds?” There was no way he could get through all those steps in thirty seconds, so he decided to jump right in. He held out the tool bouquet and suddenly regretted not listening to Miles. Maybe flowers were the right way to go. Too late now. “These are for you.”
The tiniest of smiles twitched her lips. But she didn’t take it, instead saying, “Tick tock.”
Right. Skip to the good stuff. “This morning was a shit show. When you walked in that kitchen looking all flushed from your shower and wearing those overalls, all I could think of was kissing you.”
“Then why did you sling your arm over me like I was your bro?” she asked, and shit, Miles was right. Her voice was so small and hurt he felt like just another asshole in her life.
“I was an idiot. Because this is the first thing I should have done.”
Setting the bouquet down he cupped her cheeks and gave her a breath-robbing kiss. And,hot damn, she kissed him back. It took her a moment to join the party, but when she did it was like magic.
“What’s the second thing?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“I explain where I fucked up,” he said, taking responsibility for his ridiculous plan. “I went downstairs to make you breakfast in bed, but everyone was already up and asked for my help bringing in the island. We’d just finished when you came down.”
“I don’t care about breakfast. Why did you ignore me?” She whispered the last part and that made his chest pinch painfully.
He ran his thumb down her jaw. “Because I know what it’slike to have your sex life spread all over the place, and I didn’t want to embarrass you.”
She turned her head, breaking contact. “Well, you did.”
“I know. It took me a minute to realize that. Shit.”
“What?”
