Page 26 of Kiss Me, Darling

This all sounded lovely. Sometimes when I looked back on my childhood it felt like there was a lot of noise. Loneliness, if I was being honest. My parents both worked hard and most of my memories of them came from breakfasts and dinners. I spent periods of time with my grandmother. A few weeks in the summer or afternoons when there wasn’t a good childcare option. In many ways she was the person I felt closest too. The one I could tell my secrets and ask questions I knew would get answers.

I missed her so much.

It was part of why I loved Grandma Kaine and was looking forward to seeing her tomorrow. When Scott left I threw myself into work. It’s what I knew to do. But now I realized this ache in my chest that had been growing all day was my desire to see Grandma Kaine.

* * *

The other giftOlivia and London brought with them was pasta and wine from their favorite Italian restaurant on the island. I spread my work out on the kitchen counter, nibbled at the mouth watering food, and slowly sipped away the rest of the afternoon.

Tessa told me not to work, but that was like telling a fish to live without water. I wasn’t a workaholic. Ilovedour work. I couldn’t think of much that was more fun than making these projects come to life, watching our teams create and work together toward a common goal.

So without Scott here and no real way to leave the house, work was my best option. My phone lit up about an hour later.

“Why are you working?” Tessa groaned.

“How do you know what I’m doing?”

“You’re accessing the VPN and changing data in the spreadsheets. There! I can see you typing right now! Stop it!”

I picked my hands up off the keyboard, laughing. “I should have known you’d notice.”

“Why aren’t you at the beach?”

“Stalker?” I reminded her.

“Oh yeah.”

“But we did take the boat out yesterday and that was a lot of fun.” I kind of wanted to go back to the sandbar. I was a little scared something else giant and terrifying would swim by, but Chris was right. It was like a treasure hunt and treasure hunts were fun.

“Alone with Scott?”

“Yep.”

“And how are things going? Are my favorite boss and my other favorite boss making up?”

“Does that mean you don’t like Lily?”

She shushed me. “Be quiet. She’s sitting across from me in the office. She’ll hear you!”

Lily just finished shooting a movie and usually took some time off. If she was in the office she either had a new idea or she wrote something while on set. “Tell her I said hello.”

“Lucy says hi.” There was a pause. I could just make out low voices and laughter. “Lily says to check her file. There’s a new script waiting for you to read. She thinks you’ll have lots of notes.”

Excitement surged through me. A new project! Something I could read at night when I was missing sharing my bed with Scott.

Don’t get me wrong. I still thought it was best we kept our distance until we worked everything out. But that didn’t mean I didn’t miss him. Or his warm body. Or his strong arms.

A new script could keep me company.

But I quickly (very quickly) learned this was not to be the case. As I slid into bed, a little tipsy on the wine I drank all by my lonesome, and opened Lily’s script on my tablet, I was met with one of the sexiest opening scenes I’d ever read.

Like, page melting hot. I was surprised my tablet didn’t burst into flames. It was explicit, yes, but there was something more to it. Theintensityof the characters, the desperation. I didn’t really know anything about them, but by the end of the scene I knew they had to get together.

And hopefully have a lot more smokin’ hot sex in the process.

Part of what made it so good was that it also felt real. I knew I’d had that same kind of need for Scott. Especially those early days when I thought my crush was one-sided. The minute I realized he wanted me as much as I wanted him?Boom!

Just like what Lily wrote.

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