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I stroke her bare shoulder. “You have to stop blaming yourself for this. I was in this mess long before you, Nova. You didn’t do anything. I was here hiding before you showed up. Had a single picture of me gotten out, this could have happened. It may end up being nothing,” I say to try to comfort her.
“I doubt that.” She lifts her head and treats me to those yellow-green eyes now streaked with red veins. “What was your plan before this?”
“I didn’t really have one, beyond securing my finances and getting a secluded place of my own.” I shrug but keep my arm around her, pinning her to me. “I was going to slowly rejoin the world, see what happened and go from there.”
“Was your plan to leave California?”
I nod, the truth of that hitting me hard. Kissing her on the beach and opening myself up to her was a mistake. I was always going to leave her, and now I made it this much harder on both of us. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Her brows lower, as if my statement is incomprehensible.
I pause. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. You have enough going on. Kissing you was selfish of me.”
“I believe I was the one who kissed you.” She flattens her hands on my chest and searches my eyes. “Do you regret it?”
“Only the part about making things more difficult for both of us.”
“In what way is it more difficult?” she asks, still searching my gaze.
“I never asked you what you wanted, for starters.”
“Meaning if I wanted you?”
“Do you want me?” I didn’t mean for this conversation to go this way.
“Do you want me?”
Again, I smile. She brings it out in me, despite the doomed circumstances. “I thought it was obvious how much I wanted you.”
“Wanted? Past tense?” She leans away, her hand slipping lower on my chest.
I can’t look away from her bewitching gaze. “Want. From the moment I saw you, I wanted you. It’s impossible not to. Everything about you is a temptation. The way you act, the things you say, your kindness and thoughtfulness. Your face, your eyes, your body. It’s the perfect package…but it’s not for me.”
She frowns. “Because I’m famous by association.”
“Because regardless of our attraction, we don’t want the same things.”
She digests my words, and her gaze falls to the side. “I don’t know what I want.”
“You like to design clothes. From what I’ve seen, you’re incredibly talented. You could have a future there if you wanted, I’m sure.”
“Gigi thinks so, too.” She picks a cat hair from my shirt.
“Could you see yourself as a fashion designer?”
She considers my question. “I love designing and seeing my creations brought to life. I was pursuing a degree toward it before I let Justice derail my plans. I guess I could try it professionally. I have the connections to make it happen.”
“See? You’re destined for fame.”
Her eyes finally connect with mine. “And you don’t want that.” She’s not asking.
I answer anyway. “I want solitude. A place in the mountains with lots of land and privacy.”
She leans close to me again. “What would you do in the place in the mountains?”
“Stuff I loved when growing up. My Uncle Mack—he wasn’t really my uncle. He worked for my dad and would join us on hunting trips to my dad’s lodge in Maine. My dad would get sidetracked with work…or maybe he chose to work. Regardless, I was always with Mack. He taught me how to fish, build a fire, and hunt with a bow and a rifle.”
Her lips curl with disgust. “What’d you hunt?”