“We should get you to the hospital.”
“You’re assuming it’s a bad thing to have a moose in your heart.”
“How could it be good?”
I double down. “Are you saying there’s something wrong with me?”
He holds up his hands in surrender. “Never.”
“Then my heart moose is just fine,” I say.
He spreads an arm across the back of the booth,inching his hand toward my shoulder. “Yeah, I’d say so too.”
He leans closer and swipes a strand of hair from my cheek.
Oh.
That’s not hair. That’s…an eyelash.
“Make a wish, Isla.” He holds out his finger with a tiny eyelash on it. That fizzy feeling returns to my chest as I cycle through wishes and wants.
I want to stop being so attracted to my client.
I want to win the competition.
I want to match him.
I want him to be happy.
But as he waits for me, patiently, his green eyes full of intrigue—and maybe hope—I want something else entirely.
A kiss.
Deeper than the one under the mistletoe.
Longer too.
And…real. So real.
Only I have to stop wanting that.
I blow on the eyelash. I wish to stop feeling so much.
As the lash floats through the air, the server arrives with our dinner.
“Here you go,” Phillipa says, setting plates and glasses down, along with a soda fountain–style glass filled with chocolaty goodness and two straws. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
A pill to resist my client?
“I’m all good,” I say.
When she leaves, Rowan says, “This bet—what are the stakes?”
My heart.
I shake some ketchup onto the plate, grab a fry, and swipe it through the condiment, then give his question some thought. But before I can answer, he says, “Salted caramels.”
I stop with the fry midway to my mouth. “Those are the stakes?”
