Page 39 of #Awestruck

“What do you mean? I like how you look.” His gaze lingered on me, following the contours of my body until he again met my eyes. My skin burned everywhere his gaze touched me.

“Yeah, men say they want someone low-maintenance, but they’re always drooling over the Barbies. Would you have talked to me at Tinsley’s party if I hadn’t been all done up?”

His body seemed to be moving closer to mine. My internal temperature rose about forty degrees. Had the walls started closing in? Or was he edging his way over to me?

“I didn’t talk to you because of how you looked. I talked to you because of what you were saying about the game. That you’re a knockout just happened to be icing on the cake.”

The flush started, and I was glad it was dim where we stood—hopefully he wouldn’t see it happening. I didn’t need him to start counting all the times he made me blush.

What I did need was to leave. Now. But he was blocking my only exit, because I was not Batgirl and couldn’t do a flying leap off his balcony. “Could you open the door so I could go?”

He put his hand on the doorknob and paused. “Are you coming to the game tomorrow?”

I was having a hard time concentrating. His nearness was throwing off my ability to think clearly. “There’s no way I would miss out on my luxury box. My family are season ticket holders. We always go to all the home games and watch the others on TV.”

“Isn’t it weird to think we’ve been in the same place at the same time so often? Maybe this is fate.”

His intense, blue-flamed gaze was going to make me come apart and confess everything to him. “Yeah. Weird. I’ll talk to you later.”

Finally getting the hint, he opened the door and stuck out his head, making sure the coast was clear. When he nodded, I had to duck under his arm and brush against that delicious chest of his to get out of his room.

I hurried down the hallway without looking back.

He was wrong. None of this was fate. It was a deliberate choice on my part.

And it wasn’t really personal anymore.

It was just business.

CHAPTER TWELVE

This entire day had emotionally drained me. I was relieved that now I could go home, put on some pajamas, and sleep until noon the next day.

I’d just finished getting ready for bed when there was a knock on my door. It was late. What kind of sociopath just stopped by without calling or texting first? I tiptoed over to the peephole and saw my older sister. Maybe if I just stayed quiet she’d go away.

She banged on the door again. She was going to start waking up neighbors, and I would get yelled at. “I know you’re in there! Open up, Ashton!”

“What are you doing here?” I asked, opening the door slightly. She barged her way in, throwing her purse on my sofa.

“Do you even know how busy I am right now? I don’t want to be here, either, but you’re not answering texts and not picking up when any of us call!” Aubrey crossed her arms and glared at me.

There was a reason for that. I had no idea what to say to any of them. I wasn’t in the habit of lying to my family. I shut the door behind me. “Do you want something to drink?”

“No, I don’t want something to drink! I want you to tell me how you’re engaged to a guy who you were calling Satan just a few days ago!”

She sat down hard on the sofa, next to her purse. Everything in her body language said she wasn’t going to move until she got the full story.

So I told her about the party, the basketball game, and the dinner and how he’d apologized. I told her the paparazzo following us had made a mistake, assuming we were getting engaged when we weren’t, and that Evan had asked me to play along for the sake of his contract renewal.

She wore her scaryI’m going to crucify you in courtexpression. “Nope. I’m not buying it. There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” I poured myself a glass of water and took a big gulp. Her intense attorney glare was making me nervous.

“The whole truth would be good.”

“Is this where I slam my hand on the counter and say you can’t handle the truth?”

But my sister did not appreciate my joke. “Out with it.”

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