Page 123 of The Book Club Boyfriend
She shifts again, curling on her side to face me. “Okay, full honesty.”
“Hit me.”
“I’m terrified.”
That knocks something loose in my chest. I meet her eyes. “Of what?”
“Of how easy this feels,” she says softly. “Like I should still be mad at you. Like I shouldn’t… trust this again. But I do. And that makes me feel like a walking red flag.”
I reach for her hand, thread my fingers through hers.
“I’m scared too,” I admit. “I don’t know what this is supposed to look like. But I know I want to find out. With you.”
She lets out a shaky breath, then mutters, “You’re really hot when you’re sincere.”
I grin. “Don’t tell anyone. I’ve got a reputation to protect.”
She settles in closer, head on my chest, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
We lie there in the quiet, her fingers tracing lazy lines across my ribs, my hand wrapped around her waist.
And for the first time in a long time, my brain shuts up.
No noise. No second-guessing. Just this.
Her.
Us.
I press a kiss to the top of her head.
She murmurs something I almost don’t catch. “If I fall asleep here, you’re not allowed to say ‘I told you so.’”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
But I do smile to myself in the dark and hold her a little tighter.
Because she’s here.
Because she stayed.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
That’s My Girl
Chase
NINE MONTHS LATER
She walks into the bookstore like she owns the place.
And, well—tonight, she kind of does.
Scarlett’s in this deep green dress that hugs her in all the right places, hair pulled back, smile wide but slightly nervous in a way only I’d notice. The crowd erupts the second she appears—readers, bloggers, publishing people, book club members in matching T-shirts that sayI Read Romance and Tackle People Who Don’t.
Man, she’s ridiculous.
And completely incredible.
