Page 77 of Holly Jolly Cake Fight
Laurin
I LOVE YOU.
“You don’t mean that,” she whispered. “You don’t know me.”
“Of course I do, bonbon. What do you think I was doing this last month when I was watching your old episodes?”
She tightened her lips, letting them swish back and forth while she debated how silly she’d look being truthful, but how bad could it be? “Learning your competition?”
Laurin laughed boldly and tossed the paper plate aside to scoop her up and spin her. “Je t’aime, bonbon. Je t’aime tellement. I was learning you. I was making sure that you were the person I wanted to fight for. And you are.” He kissed her hard, leaning back so she had no choice but to fall into him.
And she kissed him back. She couldn’t help it.
But when she pulled back, he said, “I’m fighting for you, Candace. You’re going to win that competition — ah ah ah, don’t fight me on this — and I’m going to win you.”
“You’re crazy!” she protested breathlessly, but that only got his eyes twinkling and his grin flashing.
“Crazy in love. You will be, too. You’re not there yet, but you will be.” He leaned forward this time, dipping her in a swoon, kissing her more gently, savoring each one.
Lulling her.
And she was apparently one to be lulled, because by the time their lips parted again, she was clutching his shirt and craning forward for one last taste.
“Why did you leave me like that?”
She frowned and looked down to where she held him as though she wasn’t going to leave this time. As though she was scared that he would try to escape.
She shook her head, refusing to answer.
“I’m not going to be mad at you, no matter what you say.”
“I know,” she said, her voice weak. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
He finally set her back on her feet, but only to hug her close, to rock her and rest her cheek on his chest. “I know why. And I understand. And I won’t be mad. But I need you to say it.”
She turned her head so his flannel could muffle her confession of, “I can’t give everything up for you.”
“What are you giving up for me?”
She reared back, scowling. Whether he was right or not, he didn’t need to call her out. “Look, I know my life seems pretty danged awful and-and-and maybe it is, but that doesn’t mean I havenothing—”
Laurin silenced her with a hard, quick kiss. “No, bonbon, I mean what have I asked you to give up? How could you possiblyknow what I want you to do when you won’t talk to me about what we can do?”
“Because what can we do? Your entire life is here, and it’s so much bigger than mine!”
“You’re practically a household name.”
“And that’s all I am is a name,” Candace said bitterly, no matter how hard she wanted to reign in her irritation. It was no more Laurin’s fault that he was so deeply rooted here that there wasn’t an inch to bend than it was Candace’s fault she was little more than a kite with a string waiting to be pulled. “It doesn’t matter how much we talk about it, because at the end of the day, you have everything and I have nothing. There will never be a meeting in the middle. I’ll just become . . .” She turned her gaze up to the trees above. The leaves had fallen, the canopy leaving behind only the ugliest pines on the face of the earth. She swallowed and said, “I’ll just become yours.”
He closed the gap between them once again to stroke her cheek. “Would that really be so terrible? I could give you a happy life here.”
She flinched at that. Blood pounded in her ears. It was everything she ever wanted to hear, but all it did was trigger every warning bell within herself. “And then you’re going to leave me.”
“I won’t.”
“Everyone does.”
“I haven’t.”
