Page 110 of Just for Tonight

That’s practically kismet.

I book it for the weekend. I know that Mackenzie will get an alert when a booking is made.

I sit waiting for my phone to ring.

It does not.

It is charged. It has a signal. (I check. Twice.) The booking is confirmed, and yet, my phone does not ring.

I shouldn’t be surprised that Mackenzie’s decided to be smart. Her brilliance is a big part of what I like about her.

She has accepted my refusal to get more involved. I shouldn’t be surprised that she’s listened to me.

Against all reason and rationality, I’m disappointed.

I hear nothing all week from Mackenzie. Crickets. I halfway expect her to be at the townhouse when I arrive – after dropping Abbie off at Daphne’s place – but no. The place is as silent as a tomb.

It feels extra empty. I go through it all, out of some compulsion to prove that I’m right. But I’m wrong. She’s not there. No one is there.

I order a pizza and consider the merit of calling her.

Then what? Grovel?

It says something for my mood that I’m considering the plan.

The doorbell rings but instead of the pizza delivery guy, it’s Mackenzie. I know because she lets herself in before I can answer the door. I stop cold in the foyer and she flicks the door shut with her fingertips. She looks decisive. Purposeful. Extremely sexy.

“I need to tell you something that you don’t want to hear,” she says. “I need to be the asshole here, by your own definition, just in case that’s what makes everything work out.”

“Am I supposed to understand what that means?”

“No. Not yet. You’re supposed to listen until you do.” She takes a breath and I realize she’s more nervous than I’ve ever seen her before. Then her gaze collides with mine and I almost take a step back from the power of her will. “I’m here to make this crystal clear.”

“Okay.”

“I want more, and I want more from you. I don’t want a fling. I don’t want just sex. I don’t even want a bear on demand. I want to find out if we can have a thing. I want to date. I want to have a relationship that has one eye on the future, and I want it with you.”

Her words make my heart go crazy, but I know my limits. “You want the impossible.”

“No. What I want is absolutely possible, if you want it half as much as I do.”

“What if I don’t?”

“Then I think you’re lying out of some misguided plan to protect me from you.” I would argue that but her voice softens. “I’m falling in love with you, Jake Cavendish. I’m falling hard and fast, like I’ve never fallen before, and if I follow my instinct, the way you advise me to do, then I’ll end up marrying you.”

“No. Bad idea.”

“Brilliant idea.”

“You can’t know…”

“You’re right. I don’t know. I can’t know. You can’t know. The difference here is that I want to find out. I want to take a chance on you and I want you to take a chance on me. And maybe six months or a year from now, we’ll have to cede that it can’t work. But I don’t think we can know for sure until we try – and here’s the thing. It might work brilliantly.”

More than half of me is on her side, but I still argue. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“And I don’t want to be hurt. You said you would do anything for a woman if you loved her, and I believe you. You’re moving mountains for people you don’t even like, ensuring that Candace has an assured future and giving Madison a chance at her dream.”

“Just fulfilling my duty as executor.”