Page 176 of The Nanny and the Beefcake
The man nodded. “My car’s parked on the street across from the diner. I’ll be there if you decide to take me up on the offer. Good race, Raz,” Doug said, extending his hand.
Raz shook it. “Yeah, same to you, mate,” he answered, and he meant it.
What was going on with him? Was it the energy of the vortex messing with his mind?
Doug set off for his car, and Libby gestured for them to walk. “I’m not sure what I should do, Raz,” she said, twisting the green beads of her bracelet.
He stared at her wrist. “I didn’t even notice you had that on.”
She stopped next to the Rocky Mountain oyster food tent and gazed at the delicate green orbs. “This bracelet was a gift from my brothers. Green is supposed to bring luck. I wore it the day I had the fake interview with the Derricks, and then, well, you know what happened next.”
Yeah, his life got turned upside down thanks to a vibrator-wielding crazy lady who’d stolen his heart with the bang of her gong.
He couldn’t let her leave with Doug.
“I don’t think—” he began as she started talking.
“I think I should go with Doug.”
Twenty-Six
Erasmus
Libby’s wordshit like a punch to the gut.
“You want to go with Doug?” he repeated.
She held his gaze. “We didn’t plan for what would happen if I won the race.”
He glanced away, wanting to punch himself in his big fat gob. “That was the cocky beefcake in me. I should have known that if anyone could beat me, it would be you.”
She toyed with the beads. “When I passed you and Doug on the trail, I started thinking about how we got here and how this started—how we started.”
“Lopsided chi and your missing O, courtesy of yours truly,” he offered, his heart breaking into pieces inside his chest.
She smiled up at him. “And don’t forget sixteen vibrators.”
He reached down to touch her face but pulled back. “I could never forget, plum.”
He couldn’t. She’d woven herself into the tapestry of his soul.
She swallowed, and he observed the muscles in her throat constrict. “We’ve both been clear about how we view relationships. And it’s just sex. And not even real sex—benchmark sex.”
“Just sex,” he repeated. A few months ago, he wouldn’t have thought twice about sleeping with a woman. But he’d experienced a shift these last several weeks, and what was once disposable now felt indispensable.
“Then we’d know if the like cures like experiment worked. We should want to know, don’t you think?” she asked.
No, for the love of all that’s good and holy, hell no! Forget knowing and stay with me.
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” he muttered instead.
Lie. Lie. Lie.
“I don’t even know if anything will happen with Doug. He might not be interested in me like that. He may want to talk about yoga,” she replied, but he knew better.
“Believe me, the guy is into you. Who wouldn’t be? You’re…”
The best thing that’s happened to Sebastian and me in years, and I don’t think we can survive without you. I don’t want to survive without you.
