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“Fair.” She swallows nervously. “What do you want to know?”
“Tell me why you didn’t marry Vance. Tell me the truth.”
Inez’s expression changes completely, all playfulness falling away. It’s like I just took her back to a place she’d rather forget entirely.
She plops onto her back, stretching out against the cushions and staring blankly at the ceiling. “I didn’t really have a reason. At least, not a reason that would make sense to anyone but me. It was just this feeling I had about him. I can’t explain it.”
“A feeling that he was a fake bullshit artist?” I say a little too harshly. I can’t help it. Just the thought of that dude makes me so fucking mad.
“Y-yeah…Something was just off with him.” She abruptly rises into a sitting position and I watch one strap of her tank top slip down her dainty arm. “And the most confusing part is, he was technically everything I wanted in a man. Handsome, successful, confident.”
“The guy is corny as hell. Those terrible lines he’d say to you made me want to block my ears with hot wax.”
She chuckles lightly. “His lines were supposed to be romantic.” Her laughter fades away. “Seriously, though. I’ve always wanted a guy who is super expressive with the way he feels about me. I missed out on hearing ‘I love you’ growing up and I always wanted a man who’d tell me exactly how crazy he is about me. But even though Vance would say all the perfect, swoony things, it felt…wrong.”
“Because you knew that he was acting. He was putting on a show for the cameras. I don’t understand how everyone was falling for it. Thank god you could see that that Vance dude didn’t have a sincere bone in his body.”
“Right.” She frowns at me. “All I know is, every time I’d look at him, I’d just see red flags everywhere.”
Now, I’m wondering what she sees when she looks at me. Am I a red flag? Or is there any chance I’m someone she could see herself with?
She drops her head and shakes it. “From the very beginning, I had a weird feeling about Vance. But I think the point of no return was a few nights before the wedding when I walked in on him at the hotel bar, having a conversation with his talent agent.”
I feel my eyebrow rise slightly. “His talent agent?”
Inez nods. “The two of them had their heads together, basically debating over whether or not getting married to me would help him land better movie roles. He was trying to convince her that marrying me would be good for business somehow. Something about fan perception. Miss Talent Agent Lady didn’t seem to be buying it, though. She seemed to think that staying single would be better for his career.”
The more Inez talks the tighter my chest gets. Especially when I see that conflicted look on her face.
“When I announced my presence in the room, Vance tried to smooth everything over and convince me that I’d understood the conversation all wrong. He claimed that he loved me and that America would love me, too. He said he just knew that everyone in the whole world would fall for me the way he had. But ever since that night, I could never shake the feeling that he was into me for all the wrong reasons. And to this day, I’m still wondering if I overreacted about the whole thing, if I let my insecurities talk me out of the best thing that will ever come my way.”
She looks to me, confused and unsure, like she hopes I’ll have the answers that she doesn’t.
I hear myself speak in a low rumble. “You know what I think? I think that when your gut tells you to run, you need to run. You don’t need another reason why. Following your intuition is a good enough reason, and anyone who doesn’t agree can go fuck themselves.”
She scoffs. “Foul mouth.”
“Oh excuse me!” I hold up a hand in surrender. “Let me rephrase—the haters can go make sweet passionate love to their middle finger for endless hours. Is that any better?”
Inez laughs softly and lightly punches me on the upper arm. “You’re a mess.”
“But I’m right.”
Her head bobs slightly. “But you’re right.”
My eyes lock on hers for a scorching moment, before falling to her lips. What flavor…? Licorice or sour gummies…? I wonder silently.
I’m an idiot for thinking I can solve all her problems with a kiss. But suddenly, kissing her is all I want to do.
I feel myself scooting across the couch, closing the gap between us. I’m ridiculously hard and I know these khaki shorts I’m wearing aren’t doing a great job of hiding my erection. She glances at my lap and when she gets a preview of what I’m working with, she’s scooting closer, too.
Fuck, yeah. She wants this.
My arm that’s draped around the back of the couch closes in around her shoulder. I trace my fingertips along her goosebump-covered arm. Her eyes lock on mine and her breathing grows quick and shallow as she waits for my mouth to meet hers. My eyelids fall shut and I’m ready to just fucking go for it.
But then I nearly jump out of my skin when a door bangs open somewhere in the blackness of the house.
“Daddy!” Tiny footsteps race through the dark hallway. “Dad!”
