I rolled my eyes and kissed her quickly. When I pulled away, her cheeks were red and she was looking around like she was worried people would see us. “You can do whatever you want with my carrot.”
Mrs. Presley called over to me, saying it was time to get seated. I left Shelby standing there with her mouth open.
CHAPTER 23
SHELBY
There was a lot going on at the Meet the Easter Bunny event but I only had eyes for Carter. He was sitting on the massive chair, nestled in a cute little setup featuring Easter-themed decorations. A couple of huge carrots, big eggs, flowers, and baskets. Lots of balloons in pastel colors.
Carter was chatting with a pair of adorable twins, a boy and a girl. They were little, probably around five or six, and they approached Carter timidly, holding hands like they were Hansel and Gretel facing off against the witch.
Carter beckoned them forward with his big furry paw, and the kids looked back at their parents, who encouraged them forward, already holding their phones to capture the sweet moment. If it ever managed to happen.
I wasn’t sure where he’d gotten them, but Carter suddenly produced a couple of chocolate bunnies. He held them up for the kids, whose eyes lit up. Throwing caution to the wind, the pair of children rushed up in front of Carter.
Using candy to lure children wasn’t generally advisable, and it certainly wasn’t a good lesson to be teaching these children, but this was all in good fun. The kids seemed to have forgotten their fear completely as they reached out to accept the offeredtreats. If Carter had actually been an evil forest witch, those kids would have been toast.
Carter appeared to be saying something to the girl. I couldn’t hear what it was but she was nodding and grinning. Then he handed her the chocolate bunny, which she clutched to her chest with a look of victory on her young face. Then Carter addressed the boy, who also nodded and laughed before he got his bunny. The little boy seemed equally thrilled with his gift.
With a little more discussion, Carter got the twins to smile and stand beside his chair while their parents took pictures. I couldn’t see Carter’s face but he was posing, adding personality instead of sitting still like a statue. I didn’t know what he was saying, but the little kids were giggling like crazy.
Carter was full of surprises. I hadn’t expected to see him at the Meet the Easter Bunny event at all. And I certainly hadn’t expected to see him saunter up as the big bunny himself.
But the biggest surprise of all was how quickly he had forgiven me. I wasn’t sure he would ever speak to me again after finding out I was responsible for the negative post that had gone viral. The whole reason he was in Kentucky was me airing my grievances in a public forum.
The PR campaign Allory was pushing had to be expensive, and technically, all that money was being spent because of me. Well, even more technically, it all started when Allory shut down the town’s livelihood. That ruthless move had wounded the town deeply, and I wasn’t the only one posting angry rants online about their crappy business practices. Mine was just the one that caught people’s attention.
Whoever was at fault, Carter’s Kentucky detour had to be costing a good chunk of money. When it was just him in town, maybe that wasn’t so expensive, but flying in the social media team couldn’t be cheap. Plus food, accommodations, andprobably travel pay. With such a huge price tag, I had expected Carter to be furious.
I knew I was biased against billionaires after what my family had gone through, but I figured all billionaires were greedy. How else could you accumulate so much wealth, right? So any unnecessary expenses would be like cutting off a limb. But Carter wasn’t like that.
He had never brought up the money, the time, or the trouble being spent addressing the bad press. Carter mostly seemed upset I hadn’t told him the truth about it. He didn’t care how I had hurt his bottom line. For him, it was that I didn’t trust him.
Every time I thought I had him figured out, he showed me a new side of him.
Carter was showing me another side right now. A whole herd of children had surrounded him. Judging from the jerseys they wore, the kids were a baseball team. I guessed they had just finished up a game and had come over to take a fun team photo.
Fun seemed to mean ganging up on Carter, roughhousing with the Easter Bunny. Their parents snapped pics and reels, laughing as much as the kids were. I couldn’t be sure but I thought I could hear Carter laughing too.
I wasn’t sure whose idea it was, but before I knew it, Carter was standing up with the kids, holding a bat. Then they were all posed like they were playing an inning with the giant bunny. Some of the kids took turns pitching balls at him. Just slow lobs that he pretended to try to hit. All the while, the kids’ parents were getting pictures and videos of the silliness, forming memories that would probably last a lifetime.
As Carter played around with the kids, having fun in his new role as the town Easter Bunny, I got the distinct feeling he kept looking over at me. There was no way to see for sure, since the head of the costume made it impossible, but I could just feel it, like Carter had awoken new senses in me.
But again, conflicted emotions stormed inside me. Obviously, I wanted him to be looking at me, noticing me, falling for me, but it was also foolish. Every time I let myself believe Carter and I could have something more than this, something deeper that could last, I needed to remind myself this was temporary. Our relationship, whatever it was, couldn’t last for much longer. I could have some fun with him and make some lifelong memories of my own, but I couldn’t let myself believe it was anything more than it was.
In the spirit of enjoying what we had while we had it, I was tempted to cut in line and get a picture of me on Carter’s lap. We didn’t have any pictures together, and it wasn’t technically inappropriate. I was psyching myself up to do it, but then a corndog floated into my line of sight, eclipsing him with its cornbread casing.
Lila was standing next to me, waving the corndog in my face, grinning happily. “What’s got you so smiley?”
“What, I’m just standing here.” I shrugged. “Are you offering me that corndog or are you just teasing me? Because I’m actually hungry.”
“That depends,” Lila said, eyeing me. “First, I need you to tell me why you’re ogling Marc Larson in that Easter Bunny suit. He’s a married man, Shelby.”
I chuckled and rolled my eyes. “That’s not Marc. It’s Carter.”
“Carter?” she asked, turning to look at him again. “Your Carter?”
“He’s not mine. Why do people keep saying that?”
