Page 40 of The Billionaire's Runaway Bride

Is she trying to make up an excuse for Lauren’s absence? I hold in a scoff and accept the serving dish with a steaming pot roast that she’s passing to me.

I let them talk but stay out of the small chitchat for the most part. I don’t have many chances to speak, too busy scarfing down my food. Homecooked food isn’t impossible to find, but it just tastes better here. I can’t get enough of Marian’s cooking, and I bet if Lauren touched more on that aspect of the bed-and-breakfast, the posts would travel even further and get more reservations for the Goldfinch.

After dinner, I turn down the other guests’ invitation to play cards. I’m not fit for company, not theirs. With only one person on my mind, I’m stuck with missing Lauren.

I head upstairs and try to will the morning to come faster. Maybe after a night of distance and a chance to cool down, Lauren will be ready to talk to me again.

It’s a startling discovery, but as I lie there and muse, I realize my fixation with Lauren has changed. At first, I thought it was nothing more than seeing a pretty woman and being bored. What else could I have done up here on the mountain? Work was steady, but easily managed by my employees. Maybe I latched onto the idea of chasing after Lauren because I had so much free time and little to preoccupy myself with.

But that’s not the case now. I’m starting to really feel something for her. Something heavier and more complicated than wanting to sleep with someone different on vacation. A fling to pass the time while I’m away from home.

Lauren has surpassed that. She’s come to matter so much more, that I feel lost and agitated to be deprived of the chance to simply talk to her and see her face.

I feel like an idiot as soon as I accept this new facet of reality.

I really like her. I care about this woman.

And what a dumbass I am for not telling her.

If I admit that I don’t just want her but that I’m growing to really care about her, would that change a thing? Would she even believe me?

I shake my head on the pillow and sigh.

I doubt it. She thinks I’m just another playboy rich guy, and she’s right, or she would be right about the man I was before I got lost on my way here to the bed-and-breakfast. Being around her makes me want to be better. Lauren encourages me to try harder to be a good man, a smarter and more giving person. I might have been a greedy, arrogant ass before, but she’s unearthed a soft side in me. A gentler and more considerate angle of my personality that only she’s privy to.

I sit up, knowing this won’t change. She’s gotten under my skin, and I can’t see her power over me disappearing anytime soon.

Screw this. I’m not going to sit here and wallow.

I stand, pacing as I gather the strength and courage to go to her cottage and confront her. To face her and tell her all that I’ve finally realized.

When I open my bedroom door, I stop short.

Lauren is there. She’s standing still, eyes wide. Her hand is raised and halted in midair, ready to knock.

I can’t speak. Greeting her in the hallway would be too telling. Voices carry up here, and the other couple would know someone’s visiting.

I don’t dare to move, to make a single sound. We stare at each other, in the suspended moment of crackling attraction and desire. I’m tense, but more than that, I’m excited.

She came to me. She broke first. We’re on the same page, wanting to be near the other and unable to sit through this distance wedged between us as we try—and fail—to figure this out. Whatever this is. I know it’s more than lust and desire. I feel something more potent than physically wanting her. I can’t guess what’s going on in her mind, but I am encouraged that she’s come.

I slowly reach for her hand and take it. Her breath hitches as she stares at me, seeming to search my face for an answer. I stroke my thumb over her knuckles, and when she turns her hand more into mine, securing our grip on each other, I take it as the consent she waited to give.

I tug, slightly, a barely there pull on her hand. I don’t yank her in, despite the pounding of my heart and the thinning patience that burns out.

She exhales a long breath and nods.

Yes.

She’s done rejecting me, and I know without a doubt she is worth the wait.

I pull her hand, and she threads her fingers between mine, stepping closer. She gazes at me with such electric need that I focus on not stumbling inside. We’re in, and I coach myself not to screw this up as I close and lock the door behind her.

Chapter 16

Lauren

Caleb reaches behind me and shuts the door. I lean back against it, needing something to support me before I fall with the way my knees keep shaking. It’s not from fear. But the pulsing charge of desire that zips through me from the heat of his stare. I feel and hear the definitive click of the lock he engages on the doorknob, securing our privacy in his suite. It’s a spacious room, but the details blur into nothing because all I can focus on is the way he looks at me and how hot and wet it makes me feel.

---