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I look up into his beautiful blue eyes. “You do?” I’m so scared of getting hurt, just like when my parents died, like when my grandma died. I was only nineteen. She’d raised me.
“You’re all I can think about. I’m falling in love with you. I know it’s unprofessional and all that stuff we’ve talked about before, but I’m past caring. I can’t hide my feelings from you anymore.”
My heart is pounding at this point. I’ve been so focused on my career up until this point in my life that no guy has told me anything like this before. I’ve never given any guy that chance before. But Kaison is worth it. But I need to know the truth before I allow myself to fall much farther than I have so far.
“You’re sure you’re not thinking about starting something up with her?”
“With Blair?” He scoffs. “No. Not after all she’s put me through. Although she’d probably want that.”
Now I’m curious. “What has she done?”
“She’s my ex-girlfriend.”
“The one you told me about? Who cheated with your roommate?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
This is so much worse than I’d originally thought. He says he doesn’t want her, but he was going to propose to her at one point. He was in love with this girl. “After all that, she came back and flirted with you? That doesn’t tempt you a little bit to explore where things might go with her?”
“Ariana,” he says gently. “I told you I don’t want her. She cheated on me. Whatever we had between us is dead and has been for years.”
That does make me feel a bit better, but I still don’t like it.
“Why did she come back? Was she trying to get back together with you?” I ask, afraid to hear the answer.
“She said she was, but I suspect that she was lying.”
“What gave you that impression?” I ask.
“She asked for money.”
“She had a lot of nerve,” I say. “So she cheated on you and then shows up years later without an apology and hits you up for cash?”
“Basically. Like I said, I’m not interested in anything with her.” He gets another forkful of pie. “I told security I don’t want her to be allowed on the property again,” he says before eating.
“How did she get in to begin with?” I ask.
“Believe me,” he says after he swallows, “Blair has a way of getting what she wants. She probably sweet-talked the security guards.”
I believe him, but that’s part of the problem. It means I don’t want to push him away as much as I did before.
And that might be the scariest part of all.
26
KAISON
After saying goodnight to Ariana, I get a ding on my phone. It’s an email from her with her book attached. I go back to my room and open the book on my laptop. I’d brought it up last night after finishing work for the day so I could get some words in on my latest book. I’m hoping to hit one of the bestseller lists with this one so I’m putting my all into it.
But tonight is about Ariana. I settle into my bed with my laptop and stack a few pillows behind me. Her book opens at a darling little bookshop with her two characters colliding and books flying everywhere. It’s cute, like something from a movie.
Her characters are snarky and have a chemistry that sizzles off the page.
I end up staying up until I finish the entire book. By then, it’s later than I care to admit, and I snap my laptop closed and crash out for the night.
* * *
Lidia makes breakfast burritos that are to die for the next morning. Ariana comes down to find me sitting at the table with one on my plate.