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She’d never felt anything like this before. This intense. This gripping.

She had had a deep and near-fatal crush on her best friend’s older brother when she was in school—which had resulted in the most intense humiliation she had experienced up until that point—but that was all.

There had been greater humiliation in her life following that. But there had never been a more intense attraction to a man.

Until now.

It almost made her giddy.

Because who was this girl, the one sitting there staring at this stranger, suddenly overwhelmed by the desire to cross the space and kiss him?

She stood up.

Was she actually going to do it?

He didn’t say anything, but she knew that he saw her.

He was staring at her the way she was staring at him.

Did he think she was beautiful?

She was dressed in a long floral dress that touched her ankles; it didn’t show a hint of skin. She knew that men liked skin.

Normally, she wouldn’t do this. Normally, she would say something, or...apologize for being there, when he was clearly there, and hadn’t meant to run across her. She wouldn’t stand there, staring, taking in every detail of him that she could see from that distance.

And for a moment, she let herself get lost.

She didn’t know him.

He didn’t know her.

They were alone together in the woods, and she was...

She wanted to be brave. Was she that brave?

She took a step toward him, and he just stood there, his expression fixed.

She tried to take in a shuddering breath.

He shifted, and her eyes went to his hands. They were large hands. Masculine and rough.

What would it be like to be held by a man like that?

What would it be like to feel desired by him?

Her mouth went dry.

A few months ago she had decided that she was going to change everything. That was when she had accepted the job offer in Boston. After months of trying to find something, anything that would make the most of the skills she had as a property manager. After Quinn had gotten engaged to Levi, and she had realized that her little sister was doing things that Rory herself was never going to. Not at the rate she was living. Or not living.

Shrouded in fantasy, driven by need, she took another step toward him.

Then two things happened.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, a reminder she had a meeting with her sister. And she saw herself. Really saw herself and what she’d been contemplating.

She was about to walk up to this man—this stranger who could be a serial killer for all she knew—and kiss him.

She’d heard it said before that the character in a book or movie didn’t know what genre they were in. Truth be told, neither did she. If she were in a romance novel, it would be reasonable to go and kiss him.