His hand grazed her lower back, guiding her through the maze of disassembled equipment and lingering crew.
Her chest tightened, warmth and panic tangling together. She wanted to lean into him, let his words anchor her, but that nagging voice—Peggy's voice, her own voice—whispered that this was the calm before the inevitable crash.
"You're making it really hard to stay professional," she teased.
"Good," he murmured, his eyes locking on hers for a beat too long as they entered the empty tent. "I'm not trying to make it easy."
He glanced around and then he moved quickly, not to the garment bag hanging on the rack, but to her. His palms against her cheeks as he kissed the stuffing right out of her and probably smeared her lip gloss all the way to downtown.
"What was that for?" she asked, breathless.
"Because I wanted to."
"Okay, but my lip gloss now has its own zip code. Was that strategically necessary?"
"Yes. Now, we should probably go back to being professional."
"I can't move. You're still holding my face," she said.
He chuckled and brushed the tip of his nose against hers.
Then it hit her.
She wasn't simply crushing on him. She was falling.
Like, really falling.
She was falling for awkward mornings and shared toothpaste and the way his shirts never stayed fully tucked in. She was falling for messy, inconvenient, terrifying, totally irrational love. The real deal.
Holy crap, I'm falling in love with him.
The thought froze her mid-footstep, like maybe her shoe understood the gravity of the moment.
And the thing about love? It usually came with heartbreak gift-wrapped on the side. Either his or hers. Likely his, because that would hurt the most. The universe had already played its move, and she hadn't even seen the board yet.
Stay? It gets messy and breaks her. Leave? She ruins it before it even begins.
But what if maybe love wasn't always a crash? Maybe, this time, it could be a climb?
He turned toward her, eyes tender and open.
"You know, I wanted to tell you…" she began, heart racing. "I wanted you to know that I think… um… that the thing about today was…"
"Amazing?" he asked, obviously trying to help her out. "I agree and when this works like we know it will…" His tone shifted to an all-business-inspirational-speech. His confidence at an all-time high. "Everything will be exactly what we need."
"What we need?" she echoed.
"Wild Sacks finally gets stability. And Aspen can't say you didn't move mountains to make this wedding a success for Anna and Drake. You did it, Piper. You did it."
Not we did it?
Her heart didn't sink. There was no sinking feeling here. No, this was the start of a shutdown.
This wasn't about them. Gah. He was talking about the deal. And just like that, the fragile, unspoken thing between them started to inch toward being a negotiation she could lose.
"Right," she said, forcing a smile so brittle it might crack with a strong breeze. "The Wild Sacks deal. My job. Total win-win. That's what I was going to say, too."
The confession lodged in her throat, a bitter pill she was forced to swallow.
