Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 45361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
“Why did you kiss me that night?” she asks after a pause.
Because I couldn’t stop myself. All night, I’d been obsessing about you and imagining crazy things. Wishing my brother had found somebody else.
“You were so beautiful, and you looked at me this way. It was like you’d been waiting for me to kiss you all night. Or maybe that’s just old-man wishful thinking.”
“Okay, let’s get this straight. You’re not old.”
“I’m forty-three, Layla. You’re twenty. Unless my math is worse than I thought, that makes me old.”
“No, you’re older than me, but you’re not old. Anyway, look at you. You’re fitter than most men my age. Plus, you don’t have all that douchebag energy that so many guys my age do.”
“Okay, point taken.” I grin. “I won’t call myself old again. Hell, Layla, it’s almost like you don’t want me thinking of myself that way because it would make a certain romance awkward.”
“It already is,” she says, “but it wasn’t wishful thinking when you kissed me at the wedding. All night, I was watching you. I won’t lie. I wanted it, and if you’d kept kissing me, I don’t think I would’ve stopped it, but that doesn’t make it right.”
“It doesn’t,” I agree, “but that doesn’t mean I want you any less.”
“We’re. Being. Good.” She folds her arms. “Okay?”
“Are you trying to convince yourself or me?”
“Both of us,” she says. “So, you need to start pulling your weight.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Layla
I’m not sure how much longer I can do this, pretending it’s possible to fight the chemistry between us. I’ve heard people talk about that before. A spark people share. A connection that goes beyond words.
I never thought I’d feel it… until Mom’s wedding.
As Miles drives me to work, I have that same feeling. It’s like an instinct, a whisper deep within, that he is my man, my soulmate, my everything.
“Mom’s happy,” I say as work approaches.
I almost want to hit traffic to give us more precious minutes together. At least this is a Mom-and-Noah-approved way for Miles and me to spend time together, but that’s crap. They would disapprove if they knew what we’d done.
“She is, and so is Noah. I’m happy for him. You know his history?”
“About his fiancée cheating?”
Miles nods. His forearms are tense from squeezing the steering wheel, almost as if he’s holding it tight to stop him from touching me. It’s the same reason I’ve got my hands clasped in my lap, a way to keep myself well-behaved.
“An ugly thing to do to a person,” he snarls. “Cheating is unacceptable. When a man commits to a woman, he should commit. That’s his woman from the day they become official. Nobody else should even enter his mind.”
“Don’t you mean her mind?” I ask.
He looks at me, his eyes swimming with intensity. Was he talking about us?
“Yeah, of course.”
“I hate it too,” I reply, wondering if I’m right. “Once somebody commits, that should be it. I’d never cheat on my boyfriend.”
“I’d never cheat either,” he says fiercely.
“But how can you know? You haven’t dated for years. Maybe when you find somebody, she’ll be so annoying, you won’t be able to stop looking elsewhere.”
“Never,” he says.
“Was that true? About not dating?”
“I’m not a liar, Layla.”
“It’s just… when traveling all over the world, opening all those amazing buildings, working on your business, you must’ve had options.”
We turn the corner that leads to the long stretch, the restaurant at the end. We’ve got minutes left. It shouldn’t, but the thought of leaving him hurts me.
“I’ve had options,” he says, nodding, “but that doesn’t mean I ever wanted to act on them. I meant what I said. Until I find a woman…”
He trails off, and I know why. I should let him move on to something else. This doesn’t help my whole be good thing, but I have to know.
“You really care about. Who makes you feel something.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
“Doesn’t that mean…”
He smirks, glancing at me. “It means you’re the first woman in over fifteen years who’s made me want to take a chance, but clearly, it’s a chance we can’t take.”
My heartbeat picks up. This could be perfect. Something we reflect on in the future—the moment he tells me how much I mean to him.
I can’t let myself feel that. I shouldn’t have asked.
“That sounds like a line,” I snap unfairly since I don’t believe it is.
Amazingly, I believe he means it. He knew I was his the second he saw me, just like I knew he was mine.
“It’s not a line,” he growls. “I wouldn’t even know how to use lines, Layla, but I get it. We shouldn’t be talking about this.”
He pulls up outside my workplace, finding a spot on the side of the road.
“I’m sorry. I don’t think you’re a liar.”
“I didn’t know who you were at first. I saw you at the party and thought, damn, I want to learn more about her. I want to spend the entire night with her. I want to ask her on a date. I want her number. All this stuff, and then I saw you across the aisle, how Elena smiled at you before she spoke the vows, and I knew.”