Page 150 of Ace My Heart

“You know what, Mel?” Brad muttered next to my ear, as Joel and I continued to stare at each other. “You didn’t make a mistakethis time.” Brad stood up. “And our Uber is approaching, Amanda. Time for us to go.”

I stood too, heading over to Amanda and grabbing her hand. We walked to the front door like that.

“Want to get brunch tomorrow?” I asked as I opened the door for her.

She nodded with a small smile. “Yeah, that would be great, Mel.”

I kissed her cheek, before turning to Brad and wrapping my arms around his waist. He squeezed me briefly, before holding me away from him. “Don’t be a stranger again, okay?”

I nodded. “Okay, I promise.”

Joel and I watched as their Uber turned out of the driveway. Once it was gone, I spun, flinging myself into his arms.

“What’s gotten into you?” he growled in my ear. I smiled and planted a kiss on his collarbone.

“I’m just happy, that’s all,” I replied, snuggling closer to him. ‘Thanks for making me talk to them.”

“Stink, they’re your best friends. It was agony knowing that I … that maybe you weren’t talking to them because of me.”

I rubbed my nose against the hollow in his throat. “You are perfect, Joel Herbert.”

He chuckled, his lips in my hair. The evening air was cool, but Joel was warm, and it felt so nice to be in his arms.

“Hey,” I said, leaning back so I could see into his eyes.

He grinned down at me. “Yes?”

“Something’s been bugging me.”

“What’s that, Stinky?” Joel asked. I didn’t even flinch when he called me Stinky anymore. I actually kind of liked it. To be honest though – I’d kind of liked it all along.

“Whatwereyou doing for those few hours when you left Julie’s house the night you found out about Shaun?” I asked.

Joel’s grin slipped, but only slightly. “Well, I was wandering around the streets of Melbourne, worrying about your ankle, worrying that if Iseemedlike I was worrying about it too much,you’d realise that it was about more than just your career … that it was about how much I fucking loved you.”

I looked up at him in disbelief. “But … you’d literally just found out that you have a half-brother! Didn’t you have better things to be thinking about than me and my stupid ankle?”

Joel lifted a hand to my face and rubbed his thumb across my cheekbone. “Mel, it’s been a very long time since I’ve gone even a minute without thinking about you.”

I held up a hand. “Hang on! You were in love with me back inJanuary? This wasn’t just a recent development?”

Joel chuckled at me. “Melanie Black, I’ve been in love with you since you were eighteen.”

I gaped at him. He laughed. “Dad saw how I felt about you straight away, and he forbade me from making a move. And you were still with Grant … So I settled for teasing you instead – like a stupid kid in the schoolyard who pulls a girls hair when he likes her. You have no idea how relieved I was when you split up with him.

“But then I started to worry that I had ruined any chance I might have had with youbecauseI’d spent all those years teasing you.”

I frowned. “I honestly never had a clue that you felt that way about me. I mean, I’ve known for a while that you wanted my body, but I figured that was just because you’re a sex fiend.”

Joel snickered under his breath and reached down to squeeze my butt. I felt the pulse deep inside me that I hoped I would always feel when he touched me like that.

“Mel, I did always want your body. But I wantedeverythingelse that came with it as well.”

“You hid your true feelings very easily,” I grouched.

“It might have seemed that way to you, but every time you left a room I was in it was all I could do to keep myself from running after you and grabbing hold and never letting go. It’s been even harder since Dad died because I knew that his disapproval wasn’t stopping me anymore.”

I looked up into his stunningly blue eyes. “Well, why didn’t you make a move earlier?”

---