Page 28 of Fighting the Pull

Touché again, dammit.

It was me watching him carefully this time, before I said, “If we do this, there’s nothing to it. No favor to be paid back later. No marker to be called. This is just you being a decent person and helping me get though a family dinner. Because Fliss didn’t lie. They’re a tough go.”

He held up his hand, palm toward me. “No favor. No marker.” He dropped his hand. “And just to say, I’m normally a decent guy so I got you.”

We’d see about that.

I gave in. “Fine.”

He smiled.

Damn.

“What time should I come get you?” he asked.

“I’m supposed to be there at six thirty, so…six forty-five?”

He started laughing. It looked good on him and sounded better.

But he shook his head. “No, sweetheart. You don’t understand how this goes. We’re gonna show at six thirty on the dot. The more time we have to rub their noses in our budding love, the better. Trust me.”

His words gave me a shiver.

“So, again, what time?” he prompted.

“Six fifteen. They live close.”

“Great.”

“Great,” I parroted.

He meant his, I didn’t mean mine.

“It’s gonna be fantastic,” he promised.

I didn’t believe him for a second.

Don’t get me wrong, it was going to be magnificent, pitching up to my childhood home on the arm of Hale Wheeler.

It was just that Hale Wheeler was proving to be a wildcard.

And I might be a risktaker.

But there were some risks every sane girl knew to avoid.

And if she was smart, a man like Hale always took the number one spot on that list.

CHAPTER5

JUST THE RIGHT THING

Elsa

Hale’s car took me home, whereupon I ran up the stairs, changed clothes, then ran down them and walked quickly to the studio.

While there, I downloaded Hale’s interview from the cloud and watched it in its entirety, marking segments I wanted to cut to my reaction, a long shot, or where I wanted to look for some photo I owned of him or some member of his family that we could run over him speaking about them.

I then spent a good deal of time packing stuff to be ready for when Chuck, Zoey, Fliss and Carole showed the next morning to help move us to our new space. It was a lot to ask of them on a Sunday, and I didn’t want them to have to fill boxes, just lug them.

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