Page 93 of Just Like Home

At the moment, he felt like he’d been thrown into the deep end of the pool and his feet kept slipping off the ledge.

“Why is she here?” Charlotte asked.

Cole pushed a hand through his hair and sighed. “I don’t know. To make herself look good? To get under my skin? Her reasons for doing anything have never made sense to me.”

Maybe one day he would tell her the whole story. Maybe one day he’d reveal all the reasons he was the way he was. But today was not that day.

She watched him—studied him, really. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like knowing he was a breath away from being seen.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That you had to go through any of that.”

“Me too.” He stood unmoving, locked up in her eyes. “Look, I don’t blame you if you want to back out of this.”

She lifted her chin. “I made a promise.”

He saw her point. She made a promise, and so did he. He couldn’t back out—she wasn’t going to let him.

“What you did in there with Steve and Hildy, I can’t do that.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and the expression on her face changed. “Wanna bet?”

He looked away. He hadn’t intended to challenge her.

She squared off in front of him. “I’ll show you.”

He tried not to groan.

She took his hand and positioned it on her waist, then lifted his other hand out to the side. “All you’re going to do is move in a box. Left foot moves toward me, like this—” She moved back, forcing him to follow, then stopped. “Now we move to the side one step, like this—” Step by step, she led him in the tracing of an imaginary box on the floor with their feet. Once they returned to where they started, she glanced up at him. “See? Was that so bad?”

It wasn’t, he realized. But not because the dancing had been easy—because his hand on her waist, his other hand wrapped around hers, it had been nice. Really nice.

They stood like that for a long moment, eyes locked, hands touching, when the music in the studio next door began playing again. The same song. The same reminder. The same realization.

Cole took a step back, and Charlotte dropped her hands to her sides. He didn’t want to let her down, but the reminder of his past pain was so vivid it nearly knocked the wind out of him. He couldn’t go through that again, and he couldn’t relive it—in spite of her watchful gaze.

“I saw a video of you dancing with Amelia,” he said. “Maybe she doesn’t need this deal after all.”

Disappointment washed over Charlotte’s face. Inevitable disappointment. Because that’s what Cole did—he disappointed the women in his life, enough to make them leave. What was the point in pretending otherwise?

“Cole—”

“I need some air,” he said. “I’ll see you later.

And he walked out before she could say another word.

27

Charlotte stood in the empty studio for a beat. What was he saying? Was he dropping out after begging for her help?

She didn’t know how to communicate with this man.

Brinley popped her head into the room. “Everything okay?”

She sighed. No. But yes. She was. She had to be. She was in charge. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay,” Brinley said. “I finished up the meeting so I wanted to check in.”

“Thanks for doing that.” Charlotte followed Brinley into the hall and back to the first studio, where a handful of people milled around. Everyone else likely had a better understanding of Cole’s history with Gemma than she did. It irked her that he refused to let her in. She felt like she was on the outside of an inside joke.

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