“Because I can’t.”
She set her shoes down and came over to the couch. She didn’t sit. She stood in front of me with her arms folded and waited me out.
I gave up after about ten seconds. “He walked me to the door.”
“I assumed.”
“He almost kissed me.”
Her eyebrows went up half an inch. “Almost?”
“Almost.”
“And then what?”
“And then he didn’t.”
I pressed my lips together. I could still feel his thumb on my jaw. I could still feel the exact line he’d traced from the corner ofmy eye to the underside of my chin. I hadn’t had a man’s hand on my face in long enough that I’d forgotten what it felt like. Sutton Randall had touched my face for two seconds in a hallway and rewritten my entire understanding of the concept.
“What did he say?” Hadley asked.
I didn’t want to tell her. The line was mine. The line was the only thing I had from tonight that nobody else had, and saying it out loud would mean letting other people into it.
I told her anyway.
“He said if he kissed me tonight he wouldn’t stop at a kiss.”
Hadley exhaled slowly. “Yeah. He looked at you tonight like Beckett looks at me.”
I turned my head and stared at her.
She was staring at me. Her face was completely calm. There was no joke in it. No teasing. None of the matchmaking glee I’d half expected from her. Just a flat, steady observation from a woman who knew what she was talking about.
I looked away “He’s the CEO of the company I work at.”
“I know.”
“He’s literally the person who signs off on my promotion.”
“I know that too.”
“So what am I supposed to do with this?”
She didn’t answer for a moment. Finally, she said, “I don’t think it’s a what-are-you-supposed-to-do situation. I think it’s already happening.”
I closed my eyes again.
She was right. I knew she was right. The thing that was happening had been happening since nine o’clock Friday morning, and every choice I’d made since then—going to the rooftop, going to dinner tonight, leaving my feet tucked under me on that couch, walking out of his office today without saying anything about the notebook—had been a choice to let it keep happening.
But Hadley had said it out loud. And once a thing has been said out loud by a person who isn’t you, you can no longer pretend you haven’t noticed.
I pushed myself to my feet. “I’m going to bed.”
“Okay.”
“I have work tomorrow.”
“I know.”
