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“What do you hear about me?”
The waiter brought over two coffees and a tiny silver pitcher of cream. Reese poured cream in, stirring until her coffee was the color of a light wood. “Well, I used to hear that you were a bad boy. Now I hear you have a girlfriend, but I’m not sure I believe the rumors.”
“Depends on whether you’ve heard that my girlfriend is a blonde or a hot brunette.”
Reese smiled. “Hot, huh?”
Sterling touched her hand on the table. “Very. But you know that it’s not just your looks that hooked me. You want to know when I started to fall for you?”
Fall for you. Those words made her almost giddy. She could hardly believe this was her life. “Tell me.”
“It was when we had that meeting to go over all my social media stuff.”
She just stared at him. “Were we in the same meeting? That was the one where you were acting like a brat.”
“That’s your nickname, not mine.”
Reese shrugged. “I stand by what I said. But I’m confused. You acted like you totally hated me in that meeting. It was literally the worst meeting with a client I’ve ever had.”
Sterling laughed and took her hand. “I was being awful and I’m sorry. But you proved more than your competence at your job in that meeting. I saw how you wouldn’t back down or give up, even when I was being awful. Then you shared how you wanted to be seen and how you saw me. It was like you saw the man I want to be, like you could see my thoughts—things I don’t tell anyone. I thought you were beautiful before that, but a pretty face won’t turn my head. You, my dear, turned my heart.”
Reese could not look at him. With her free hand, she rubbed the table cloth between her fingers, trying to focus on something else so that the knot of emotion in her throat might disappear. Sterling may have thought she saw his thoughts and what he wanted, but in that moment, it was like he had seen what she had always hoped a man would say to her. What a man would see in her.
If she looked at him, she would be throwing away any hope of walking away from this with her heart intact. Maybe it was too fast. Probably—no, definitely it was too fast to fall in love with him. But she felt like in the brief time they’d had together on the tour and here in this whirlwind day, she had seen him. She may not know all the little details about him or his whole history, but he had opened up and let her in to see who he really was. And she didn’t want to walk away.
“Too much?”
Sterling’s words startled her thoughts and she looked up. In the dim light she couldn’t pick out the green in his hazel eyes, but she could read the vulnerability there. Reese squeezed his hand. “Do you feel like this is … fast?”
He smiled and kissed her hand, letting his lips linger there for a long moment. “If I think about it logically, yeah. But when I’m here with you, it feels somehow totally right. I only wish I could slow time to have more with you, or maybe speed it up so we could skip forward to where we knew all those tiny details about each other.”
Oh, her heart.
“For someone who said he wasn’t good at these kinds of conversations, you sure have found the words. I don’t know what to say.”
“So, I’m not being an idiot here?” That vulnerability still shone in his eyes. “You feel it too?”
“I do. I’m a little scared about what happens when we leave this little bubble, though.”
Reese could not imagine hiding this on the tour bus. Or continuing to push the fake Morgan relationship. She wouldn’t be able to do it. Would Morgan be crushed? They had sort of talked about it without talking about it, but Morgan would probably still be hurt.
“Then let’s enjoy the most of it, okay? Stay in the bubble as long as possible. Figure out the details later. I’d like to go back to the hotel.”
Reese shifted in her seat. What would Sterling expect from her? They had spent a lot of time kissing earlier that day. Did that give him the impression that she wanted more? It wasn’t just that she wanted to wait until marriage. She had found plenty of church-going guys who claimed to agree with that. But most of them saw that as the final line to cross and were totally okay pushing for other things physically. For Reese, kissing was the line.
The emotional surge she felt from just kissing Sterling reminded her why. It had made her feel even more connected to him, like she had already handed over her heart and said, “Do with it what you will.” Reese wanted to save even the deeper emotional connection for marriage, not just the physical. She had probably gone too far with Sterling already in that regard. She definitely hadn’t girded or guarded her heart well.
She probably belonged better in another century. Or maybe another culture? Like the Amish country. She could handle no electricity and no zippers.
Sterling’s voice startled her out of her thoughts. “Hey, I said earlier that I was going to protect your honor. I meant it. I’ll end the night in my room. As for my expectations, I fully expect to get to know you better. There are still a lot of embarrassing stories you haven’t shared. I can tell you’re holding back. Oh! And I have a surprise. You can trust me, Reese.”
He stood and held out his hand. She followed him down the hallway, sure the light from her smile could have lit up the whole hotel. When they got into the empty elevator, he invaded her space, pressing a kiss to the side of her face near her ear.
“You are so beautiful, Reese. Inside and outside.” Another kiss. Her eyes closed. “At least … the parts I’ve seen.”
He had a wicked, teasing smile as he touched her collar. Reese giggled as the elevator bell dinged and the doors opened. She followed him out, legs shaking.
“You have a way with words,” she said. “You should consider a career in something that involves that.”
