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He gunned it toward the door of the barn and hooted. “You coming?” He called over the noise of the engine. Ryan McDonnell was full of surprises. I’d never seen anyone excited over driving a tractor, but the guy looked like he was getting to take the best rollercoaster at the amusement park.
“I’ll walk and meet you over there.” I shot him a questioning look. There was only room for one on the seat.
“Get in back!”
It wasn’t a good idea—the tables could shift around and there was barely anything to hold on to, but his smile had me making questionable decisions. I climbed on top of the tables in the cart and grabbed the sides as Ryan gunned the tractor again, pulling us out of the barn and across the wide expanse of lawn to the huge white tent the catering company had erected the day before. A silly smile covered my face as we bumped across the yard, and giggles flew from me as Ryan swerved around, clearly enjoying the drive. I felt like a little kid again, holding on for dear life.
He was hollering and laughing, and I was reminded of the way I’d felt suddenly when he’d asked for milk the night before. Like he was a guy who didn’t feel he had to be a grownup all the time. Like he knew how to have fun. When he switched off the engine in front of the tent, I was still laughing, and it helped ease some of the strange tension I’d been feeling around this man.
This movie star.
This hot new boyfriend of my sister’s.
We unloaded the tables and popped them up, not worrying too much about where they got placed. The caterers would arrange things. I headed back to the door of the tent when we were done. Ryan had gone out a second before, and I shot a final glance over my shoulder at the space to make sure it was all still intact after sitting out here all night. I should have been looking where I was going, because I bumped into a solid form in the doorway. Ryan had been standing there, watching me.
“Woah,” he laughed, his hands catching me by the arms, steadying me.
Walking while looking in the other direction was not one of my advanced-level skills, evidently.
I spun, and suddenly I was two inches away from him, his hands on my arms and our faces close enough that I could feel his breath on my forehead. All the rushing blood and butterflies I’d managed to banish while we’d been setting up tables came slamming back into me, making me feel giddy and warm.
“Sorry. Thanks,” I breathed. My mind spun deliriously, but at the same time, a calm overtook me—a focused calm that had me staring at Ryan’s lips, feeling them pull me near despite my best intentions.
He stared at me, his blue eyes darkening and something in his face changing from a question to an answer.
His hands slid from my arms to my waist, his big fingers wrapping around me, his thumbs slipping low over my belly. Warmth spread through me at his touch, and those intense blue eyes burned as they stared into mine.
As if in a dream, he angled his head down slowly until our lips were centimeters apart.
I didn’t breathe. I didn’t move. I didn’t think.
Until I did.
I took a step back, forcing my body out of his reach, away from the magnetic pull of his orbit. This was not some fantasy. Ryan was my sister’s boyfriend, and my sister had been hurt enough. Plus, I was about as far from my sister as a guy could get. No one was interested in us both. It didn’t happen. Which meant I was definitely losing my mind.
I narrowed my eyes at Ryan. He hadn’t been about to kiss me, clearly. Had he? What the hell was happening?
I took a deep breath. “I’m uh …” I could barely form words. I shook my head. “Okay, well. Thanks,” I pushed past him out the door and seated myself on the tractor. I needed to escape, get some space to think and regain control of my traitorous body. I’d just started the engine when I felt the whole machine jolt beneath me. Ryan had jumped into the cart and he was grinning again.
With no idea what the hell had just happened, I engaged the gas and drove us back to the barn. We spent the next hour loading chairs and running them across the lawn in the tractor. Neither of us mentioned the strange moment in the doorway or said anything else, and I pointedly kept my eyes and body focused in one direction to keep from crashing into him again.
By the time we finished up and Ryan told me he’d meet me in the kitchen to bake the cake after he took a quick run, I had almost convinced myself I’d imagined the whole thing.
And I hoped I had, because if I hadn’t imagined it, that meant I’d almost kissed my sister’s boyfriend, and my sister didn’t need anyone else in her life being shitty at the moment. It would also mean her boyfriend had almost kissed me.
And that was pretty shitty too.
Chapter Seven
Ryan
Iran along the road leading back out of the Manchester property, my mind reeling. On one hand—the primal side of me that had just been close to kissing a woman I had a very chemical attraction to—I was stoked.
Being close to Tess was heady and exciting, and imagining her body beneath my hands, her sharp wit and sparkling eyes close to me, it only made me want so much more of her. There was something intense and old and complicated in the air around me and Tess, something demanding to be explored.
But on the other hand, I’d made a commitment to her sister. And while the relationship was fake, my promise was not. I was a man of my word in a world where those seemed pretty rare. I wanted to be a man of honor, even if everyone else in the world thought that was old fashioned.
Even if our game of pretend was stupid, there was something in it for me. And blowing this would mean potentially blowing my chance at reinvigorating my flagging career, and gaining the financial security I needed to take care of my father. And exposing Juliet to the ugly rumors and speculation that had surrounded her since her sudden divorce. That didn’t seem very honorable.
