Page 32 of Runaway Bride's Guide to Love

He’s the man whose ass I was having the most wicked thoughts about just a few minutes ago.

“Cap?” I pause, swallowing the lump in my throat. I know the answer to the question, but I need to hear it from his lips. “What’s your real name?”

He stops his pacing, and my heart immediately hurts when I notice just the slightest bit of sadness in his eyes. “Emmett Collins. Nice to officially meet you, Stella Banks.”

10

emmett

She’s here.The woman I haven’t been able to stop thinking about is here. She tried to beat me with a shoe.

And she’s the little sister of my best friend.

Fucking great…

I remember thinking the night we met that I needed to get my mind out of the gutter because of her vulnerable state. Now I need to quit because Simon will kill me.

Well, he’d pay someone to do it, because God forbid the pretty boy get his hands dirty. Either way I’d end up dead.

But at least my final view would be one of absolute beauty.

After the shoe incident, each of us declared we needed to get our bearings. I went back to the house I’m staying in, which is right next door, to splash some cold water on my face. I told myself no less than twenty times that I needed to make sure all of my thoughts about her stayed friendly and platonic.

Maybe I needed to say it twenty-one times, because as I walk into her house, where she’s currently standing over a pot of pasta she insisted on making, my thoughts are definitely not platonic. Her blonde hair is piled on top of her head. She’s wearing a matching tank top and short set that is so tight it might as well be painted on. I wondered what her body lookedlike under all that fabric the night we met, but even my wildest thoughts didn’t do her justice.

As I take a step closer, I realize just how short she is. Is she even five-foot-three? She was short when she had her heels on, but the closer I get to her, the shorter I realize she is. Where would she come up to on me? How would it look if she looked up at me with her gorgeous blue eyes?

Shit. Maybe I needed a twenty-second time. Clearly I didn’t get the message. Stella Banks is off limits.

For so many reasons.

“Emmett?”

Hearing my actual name from her lips startles me. “Yeah?”

“Did you hear me?”

Shit. How out of it was I? “Sorry. What’d you say?”

“Just wondered if you wanted tomato sauce or Alfredo?”

“Oh.” Yup. I didn’t hear any of that. “How about both?”

She scrunches her nose in the most adorable way. “Both?”

“Have you never had the two together?”

She shakes her head. “No, because that’s not allowed.”

“Says who?”

“Normal people.”

I chuckle. “Oh, Tiger, not only is it allowed, but it’s going to change your life.”

I head to the pantry and take out the bottles of sauce I picked up earlier today. Actually, I was putting away the groceries when Stella arrived. Simon had sent me a detailed list this morning and asked if I could pick them up. Which again, I thought was odd. And that was on top of his message for me to check on her.

It all makes sense now. Then again, it could’ve made a lot more sense if he just would’ve fucking told me she didn’t get married. Would I have pieced it together that his sister was Tiger? Who knows. But still, you’d think since Simon tells me everything from his newborn’s diaper changing schedule to what he thinks about the Roman Empire, he would’ve told me his sister didn’t get married and was traveling to her honeymoonalone. Instead I got the news from Stella jumping on my back, ready to beat me to death with a tennis shoe.

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