Page 25 of Seeking Happily Ever After

Charlotte swallowed hard and looked away. “Everyone has a side they sleep on. What’s yours?”

“I don’t believe in sides,” he said. “You pick.”

She shook her head.Everyonehad a side. “I sleep on the left.”

“Works for me.” Nick moved to the corner of the room where the crib was set up and Amelia was fast asleep. He tucked a blanket around her and bent to kiss her on the forehead. Charlotte’s heart fluttered in her chest, watching the sweet interaction, but she forced herself to look away and climb into the bed. On the left side.

She laid on her side and stared at the wall, forcing herself to relax enough so she could sleep, although she had no idea how she was going to manage that. She felt the mattress dip as Nick, too, climbed into bed. Damon’s accusation at dinner, that they were attracted to each other, kept replaying in her head on repeat. Neither of them had denied it. She didn’t know about Nick, but she’d be straight-up lying if she said she wasn’t attracted to him. It had been a slow build, but it was definitely growing in intensity with every second that went by. And the fact that he was only inches away, half naked, in the same bed, wasn’t helping.

Maybe it would be best to just address it. Get it out of the way so they could just stop dancing around it and move on?

It couldn’t hurt.

Well, at least it couldn’t make things any more awkward than they already were.

Char took a breath, rolled over to her other side, and almost smacked directly into Nick’s face.

Why was he so close?

“Oh, you’re right here.”

“Am I too far over?”

She couldn’t help it, Charlotte burst out laughing and immediately clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle the sound when she remembered the baby was sleeping only a few feet away.

“Oops.”

“She can sleep through anything.” Nick was grinning too, and he’d made no move to give her space.

Did he want to be close to her, too?

If she’d wanted to, all she had to do was lean in an inch or so and her lips would be on his.

If she wanted to.

And did she want to?

Easy answer.

Yes.

Her entire body thrummed with his nearness and the fact that they were lying in a bed together. And of course there was the small detail that he was half naked.

Oh yes. She wanted to.

The desire surprised her. Not because she wasn’t attracted to Nick; she was. But because there’d been a time not all that long ago when she couldn’t have possibly considered that she’d ever be attracted to another man again. Not in a serious way. And definitely not in a way that she’d actually want to do something about. Billy had destroyed her self-esteem and turned her into a person she didn’t recognize, and frankly, one she didn’t like all that much.

But she’d worked through a lot. Lauren was an amazing therapist, and Char wasn’t the same woman who’d returned to Glacier Falls with her tail tucked between her legs. Not even close. In fact, she wasn’t even the same woman she was before she’d moved to be with Billy.

She was stronger. She was smarter and, most importantly, she was becoming the type of woman who was true to herself and was finally giving herself permission to live the life she deserved.

Which was exactly why she was currently in Nick Newton’s bed, only inches away from him, staring very directly into his sexy, dark eyes.

“Can you even see without your glasses?”

His lips twitched up in a smile. “I can see you perfectly. I’m nearsighted.” The hand he’d had tucked under the pillow came out and one finger touched her nose lightly. “See? That’s your nose.”

She laughed. “You could see my nose a mile away. It’s huge.”

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