Page 44 of The Best Thing He Never Wanted

“Liked the sound of it,” he said. “The way you say it.” He paused. “Darling. Whole word. All the letters.”

“That is how it’s spelled.”

“Not where I’m from.” His mouth seemed to be losing the war with a smile. “Where I’m from, it’s darlin’. We cut loose the G. Can’t afford the whole word, I guess.”

“Say it, then.”

He watched her for a moment, apparently weighing whether he really would. And then, low, unhurried, and without any of the armor he kept on everything else, he said it. “Darlin’.”

Oh.

It went straight down her spine and out through the soles of her feet, and she was fairly certain her face did something about it, because his eyebrows went up half an inch.

“It doesn’t—” She cleared her throat, tried to recover some dignity, and failed. “I … No. That doesn’t sound the same at all.”

“No?”

“No. Not remotely. Mine was a courtesy. Yours is a…” She gestured helplessly at the whole of him. At the gravel in his voice. At whatever the man had just done to her entire nervous system. “It’s not fair, is what it is. You can’t just say it like that with no warning.”

He leaned a fraction closer. “Darlin’,” he said again, because he was, she was discovering, a terrible man.

“Stop it.”

“You started it.” But he was full-on smiling now. “You told me to say it.” He took another sip of whiskey, still watching her. “Tell you what. You use the whole word. I’ll use mine. That seems fair. Two versions of the same thing.”

“Two versions of the same thing,” she agreed and refused to examine how much she liked the sound of that. That she kept darling, and he kept darlin’.

It had started out as part of a lie told to two strangers at a concert, and it would sadly end here tonight, but it had gained a truth somewhere in between—one she’d hold close for a long time.

~ ~ ~

Blane’s smile slowly faded. He had no business liking the sound of two versions of the same thing as much as he did. The trouble was, there didn’t even get to be one version of it for much longer. Time was ticking down, and there wasn’t going to be another reprieve. No discovery that she had one more day. Bea was leaving in the morning. Early.

He sat beside her with his whiskey almost gone and watched the minutes disappear. He didn’t want to move, and he knew damn well that meant he had to. Her car was coming at five-fifteen. She needed sleep, and he wasn’t going to be the reason she didn’t get it.

She shifted beside him and gave him a sad smile.

“We should get you upstairs.”

“I know.” She made no attempt to move.

His hand found hers. Funny how quickly that had started to feel familiar. Her soft fingers curled around his, and somehow that gave him what he needed to get to his feet.

Bea started toward the bar, but he held on to her hand. “Where are you going?”

“I need to pay.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “I’ll call down later. Have them add it to my bill.”

She glanced toward the bartender. Blane caught the man’s eye and gestured to let him know.

“All right.” She squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”

They walked out through the lobby together and stopped at the elevators. Blane jabbed the button, and Bea pointed toward the indicators above the doors. Both elevators were sitting on twelve again.

“Still a conspiracy.”

“Looks that way.” Tonight, he’d have been more than happy if the damn things decided to stay up there. But they didn’t; they both arrived on the ground floor far too soon.