Page 9 of The Love Lie
Again…Shit.
“Here’s your itinerary,” Nina says as she releases some papers from her clipboard. Sam quickly reviews them while Cooper stands beside her, mute. His heart thunders. “We booked a few excursions for you guys while you’re here, but feel free to call the front desk to adjust the plans. Trish, Fred, and I will be in the bungalow next door for a few days, courtesy of thenetwork, so holler if you need anything. Here are your phones out of purgatory and your wallets. Everything else is inside. I’ll be in touch in a few weeks with some follow-up, so don’t lose my number. Otherwise, you’re free.”
Free.
The word clangs around his head like a gong gone wrong, so loud he can’t think. He stands there, immobile from the reverberations.
“No need to be shy now,” Nina says, rolling her eyes as she looks between them. “I saw the aftermath of your dream suite, remember? And an hour ago you just about set the beach on fire, so go, enjoy. It’s not every day you get a free week in paradise.”
She gives them both an encouraging push. Cooper stumbles through the door. Sam does too. They stare at each other as it closes with a gentleclick.
Free.
Free?
He’s never felt more trapped in his life. And that’s before the petite redhead beside him furrows her brow, places both her palms on his chest, and gives him a good, hard shove.
CHAPTER THREE
sam
“What the hell was that kiss?”Sam snaps before she thinks better of it. She’s been playing the good girl all day and she’s over it.
Cooper, for his part, looks shocked as he stumbles backward. It doesn’t last long. One blink and he’s in control again as he leans casually against the wall and crosses his arms over his chest. And dammit if that doesn’t pull his suit jacket taut in all the right places, highlighting the rock-hard muscles practically bulging out of the fabric…rock-hard muscles she had her hands all over earlier that day…rock-hard muscles that held her as if she weighed nothing at all…rock-hard muscles that—
So not the point.
Sam cocks a brow. “Well?”
He smirks as if to say,Challenge accepted, and raises his own brow. “What the hell was thatyes?”
Temporary insanity from hotness overload, not that she’ll admit it to him. She shrugs. “An accident.”
“So was the kiss.”
She scoffs. “So youaccidentallypulled me into your lap and your lipsaccidentallylanded on my mouth and youaccidentallydidn’t let me go for five minutes?”
“Yup,” he states, letting thepreally pop. She narrows her eyes. He grins. “Just like youaccidentallykissed me back.”
Okay, thatwasan accident. She doesn’t know how it happened. One moment she was reaching up to push him away, and the next her fingers were twisting in his jacket and she’d yanked him closer.
It was his fault.
Did he have to look so delicious? Even now, when she wants to wring his neck, she can’t help but admire how the black suit brings out the brilliant emerald of his eyes and how the curve of his cowboy hat highlights the cut edge of his jaw. She wants to rip it right off his head…for more reasons than one.
Gah!
“You knew the plan!” she retorts, launching this fiery ball of blame right back into his court. “You could have given me a minute to course correct before launching yourself at me like some sort of heathen.”
“Aren’t you the one who, quite literally, threw herself into my arms?”
Again with the technical details.She rolls her eyes. “I fainted.”
He barks out a laugh. “Sure, you did.”
“That’s neither here nor there. We’re talking about you, and—”
“And whyarewe talking about me?” His gaze cuts into her like a knife, making her freeze. “I’m pretty sure we should be talking about you. Samantha.”
