Page 26 of Certified Heartthrob

“Should we get something to eat? Or maybe ice cream?” she asked, shivering in her coat. The fall cold had officially set in and was especially sharp that night. I stared back at her without an ounce of interest. She tried again. “A drink?”

“Now you’re talking.”

She laughed as we turned in the direction of the nearest bar, and I was surprised to see none other than Mark come around the corner. We both froze, Jada looking back and forth between us.

“I’ll go grab us a seat,” she said, sensing the tension.

“Um...hey.” I smiled awkwardly as she took off ahead of us.

“I’m glad I ran into you,” he replied. “I was hoping I would.”

My brow wrinkled with confusion. “You went on a random walk and hoped you’d just happen to bump into me?”

“Actually, I called your secretary, and she mentioned you and Jada had an appointment here this evening,” he admitted.

“Good to know she’s added ‘helping people stalk me more efficiently’ to her job duties,” I snapped. “Anyway, why would you want to see me? I thought everything was settled between us.”

He shifted and stared down at his feet for a moment. “I wanted to apologize.”

“You don’t have to,” I fired back quickly, swallowing down my disappointment that he wouldn’t admit to something more. “You agreed to leave us alone. That’s enough.”

“No, Camille. You were right about me needing to give someone a fair chance,” he continued. “To see where dating might lead if I really gave it a fair chance. And I’m happy to report...I set my sights on someone to do just that.”

“Oh?”

He nodded. “Mmm-hmm. And I owe you a token of my appreciation. Can I buy you a drink?”

“I’m supposed to be with my sister. But congratulations. She’s a lucky girl, I guess.”

“If you don’t want me barging in on your sister time, how about tomorrow night?” he proposed, his face full of hope. When I didn’t answer, he persisted. “Come on. I was hoping we could settle on friendship as part of our truce. What do you say? Friends?”

It was hard to look him in the eye after that. Last I checked, friends didn’t have sex all over their living room. But I was burning with curiosity over just who he had landed on to give a fair chance. Or was it jealousy? I didn’t know, but it was clear he wasn’t going to give up.

“Fine,” I huffed. “Tomorrow night. One drink. Although I don’t see why you insist on us being friends, or why you couldn’t have just texted me.”

It would have been easier to refuse him over the phone. A hell of a lot easier than with him standing right in front of me, looking better than ever. But why did I care what he looked like? Thanks to me, he would no doubt soon be someone’s boyfriend.

“Because I enjoy hanging out with you,” he offered, with his most charming smile—one that slayed me and made me instantly hate whoever his new love interest was.

“I gotta go. See you tomorrow, I guess.”

I pushed past him and walked as fast as I could to the front of the bar where Jada was waiting. I stopped with my hand on the knob and looked back to see him still standing there, just watching me. It only infuriated me more.

“You could have invited him along,” Jada said when I sat down.

“He wanted to destroy our family’s business,” I reminded her. “I wasn’t about to invite him to come have a drink with us.” I left out the part about how that hadn’t stopped me from agreeing to have a drink with him alone the next night, and that we may have slept together a time or two. His vendetta against us hadn’t stopped any of that from happening, but as far as Jada was concerned, it was reason enough to leave him literally standing out in the cold.

I was on pins and needles for the next twenty-four hours, reminding myself over and over that meeting up with Mark was just a friendly gesture. Absolutely nothing else could or would happen between us, especially not now that he was already seeing someone.

I was dying to know if he’d found whoever she was on our app and convinced myself that maybe I could talk him into letting us spin the whole thing into a new marketing ploy.Former cynic set on destroying Heartstring to prove love didn’t exist ends up meeting his soulmate on the app.That’d probably surpass the media attention my brother had received over his arrangement turned real-life engagement, complete with a wife and a baby.

My bitterness didn’t stop me from putting on my best push-up bra and a low-cut shirt that showed off all my cleavage. The least I could do was throw him a little reminder of what he had passed up.

I put on a fresh coat of lip gloss and grabbed my purse to head out the door, but when I opened it...Mark was standing there with his fist in the air like he was about to knock.

“Oh. What are you doing here?”

“Picking you up,” he replied, sliding his hands into his pockets.

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