Page 80 of Kiss Me Now
“Miss Lily?”
“Yes, honey?”
“You’re not mad?”
“Of course not. Why would I be mad when you’re so clearly in love with my grandson?”
I gasped. “I am not!”
“You are. Or very close to it. Otherwise, he wouldn’t make you so mad.”
This delusion was worse than her being angry. I hated the idea of dooming her to disappointment. I didn’t want to go around destroying any of her illusions about Ian, but I didn’t want her clinging to the vain hope that he and I would end up together, either. It seemed a poor way to repay all her kindness.
“We won’t work, Miss Lily. Our val—priorities are too different.” I caught myself before accusing him of having poor values. “Night and day different. City and country different. If it makes you feel better, I admit he’s as handsome as you said he was, and he’s definitely charming, but we don’t have enough in common to work.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Charming is a word for men who are all flash and no substance, and that’s not Ian. Why don’t you tell me what really happened this weekend? And don’t tiptoe around me. How many times do I have to remind you I’m eighty? I don’t break easily, so you can stop treating me like I’m fragile. Just spit it out, girl. Can’t fix it if I don’t know what’s broke.”
“There’s nothing to fix.” I hesitated, still unsure if I wanted to lay out the whole story, but there wasn’t one thing Miss Lily hadn’t worn me down about that she wanted me to do yet.
“Are you realizing it’s easier to tell me now since I’ll get it out of you eventually?” she asked, her eyes twinkling.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Smart woman. Now spill.”
“Well, you know Ian and I had a rough start,” I began.
“A rare miscalculation on my part,” she acknowledged.
“The thing is, I thought we’d gotten past that. But I told him I didn’t think us dating made much sense because his career is in DC, and I’m never going back. I didn’t see the point. Still, I just...”
“Found yourself thinking about my rogue of a grandson anyway?”
That wrung a smile from me. “Something like that. I was worried that spending all that time in cutthroat DC politics had maybe...” I didn’t want to say “corrupted” him and offend Miss Lily. “Had maybe jaded him too much.”
“Too much for what?”
“Me, basically. He spends all his time in an environment that I had to leave or be consumed by. But then we’d hang out, and it was so simple and easy. And I thought I was wrong. I kept waiting for him to come back so I could explore it more and see.”
“You waited for him to come back after you told him to stay away?”
“He told you about that?”
“Of course. To be fair, he was trying to make sure I left you alone and didn’t meddle.”
“It wasn’t that I told him to go away, exactly.” I toed the dirt, remembering the conversation on my porch. “It was more that I told him to talk to me from his side of the creek and kicked the bridge down between us.”
“I do love a good metaphor,” she said. “But you changed your mind?”
“At first. I went out to DC to meet him on his turf since he’d kept coming to mine.” I hesitated, searching for the most diplomatic way to say the next part. “I know you love Ian, and I’m not trying to badmouth him, but the thing is, it turns out he was more interested in me as a witness to a case he’s working on than anything else.”
Miss Lily’s gaze sharpened. “That doesn’t sound like Ian at all.”
I shrugged. I couldn’t tell her anything else without it sounding like a character assassination.
“Keep going,” she said. “I’m not going to get mad at you for reporting facts as you see them. I know you’re fair-minded. But it would save me the trouble of digging the details out of Ian. Come on to the house for some sweet tea, and we’ll talk it through.”
It was the last thing I wanted to do, but there was no way I’d hurt Miss Lily’s feelings. I’d give back my million-plus dollars first.
