Page 52 of Best Mistake Ever
I want to cry. What a mess this situation is. How can I have fallen for the one person I’m not able to have?
‘Thanks, Dee. I’m starting to feel an awful lot better about being in this place now,’ he says, closing the gap between us so he can reach forward and push my sodden hair away from where it’s sticking to my face. ‘I don’t think I’ve enjoyed myself so much in years.’
There’s a strange, soft look in his eyes now as he gazes at me. He’s such a handsome man and there’s so much character in his face, I feel like I could look at it for ever and not get bored.
I can’t look away; I’m trapped by my attraction to him. It’s like a magnet pulling me in.
Heat radiates from his naked torso towards me and I shiver a little, but not with cold. With nerves. Because this feels like a significant moment. It’s make or break. Whatever happens next will change my life in a way I’m not prepared for.
He moves infinitesimally closer to me and my entire body rushes with an electric sort of need.
‘I have to tell you something,’ he says.
Oh God. I can feel the weight of what I think is coming bearing down on me.
The way he’s looking at me is giving me chills. Good chills, but also scary ones. Because I know he’s about to say something he really shouldn’t. I can’t let him. It wouldn’t be fair.
‘I think I’m falling for you.’
No.
No.
It’s the one thing I’ve been wanting to hear coming from his mouth since the first moment I saw him. But not like this. Not when he thinks I’m my sister.
I want to cry.
How did I let this happen? What an idiot I’ve been. Because I’ve fallen for him too, of course. Deeply. Totally.
But I can’t do this to him. How could I ever explain it without sounding like a crazy person? I’m a fraud. This whole situation is a lie. But I can never tell him that because it might destroy him all over again and I can’t bear the thought of being the person that does that to him.
‘I’m not…’
‘Not what? Not into this?’
‘No. That’s not what I?—’
‘Then what?’
‘I don’t know how to?—’
‘Is it because you’re working for me? That I’m technically your boss? Because we can fix that. I’ll step away from the running of the hotel and get Cara to manage things and I’ll concentrate on the cider making. It’s what I’m most interested in doing anyway. Or if you wanted, you could run it with me, as a partner. We could look into getting a business loan together?—’
‘No!’ I blurt, feeling all sense of control slipping away from me.
‘No, it’s not about that? Or no, you don’t want me to make cider for a living?’
‘Neither.’
‘Then what? What’s the problem? I feel like we have something good going on here. Did I imagine it?’
‘No. You didn’t imagine it.’
‘I knew it.’
But he doesn’t move; he’s waiting for me to make the first move this time.
But I can’t. I shouldn’t. I mustn’t.
