Page 60 of Kiss and Tell

“Connor, what happened last night…” I braced myself. “That was a one time thing.”

His eyes went wide.

“I’m sorry if you thought differently,” I hurried to continue, trying to get all my words in before the inevitable outburst. “But the two of us… it’s just not going to happen.” I stared out the window at the setting sun. “Last night was wonderful and I don’t regret it, but we were hours away from home with no one around who knew us. Now that we’re back home, we have to go back to the way things were. No one can know what happened.”

Connor was silent. I chanced a glance at him.

His lips were pressed together so hard they had turned white. A muscle in his jaw clenched. I waited, steeling myself.

He nodded once.

“Got it,” he said shortly.

“Connor, you can’t…” I chewed on my lip. “You can’t tell anyone. Okay? Not Walt, not Jessie. No one. Because if word got out—”

“I said I got it.”

The words were clipped and rough. Connor settled back into the driver’s seat and gripped the wheel with both hands, leather squeaking under his grip.

“You should get going,” he said. “It’s getting late.”

Nodding slowly, I stepped out of the car clutching my overnight bag. The beginnings of tears threatened to sting my eyes. I blinked rapidly to clear them. I leaned down and looked back into the car. Connor was staring straight ahead. It was hard to breathe around the lump in my throat.

“I’ll see you next week?” I said, turning the statement into a question without meaning to. “The meeting is scheduled in your calendar.”

“Sure,” he said. “Next week.” The words were no longer so rough. Connor now just sounded exhausted, worn out.

I opened my mouth to say something, but there was nothing else to say. Any further words from me would just continue to hurt him.

I shut the car door and walked up to my apartment. Connor waited in the car until I was inside, then rolled out.

I went home alone, just like I told him I would.

My apartment had never felt emptier.

Nineteen

The grim expressionon Connor’s face when I’d shut the door haunted me for the entire week.

The last thing I’d wanted to do was hurt him. But I hadn’t expected him to think anything had changed.

Wasn’t he the ex-rock star? Wasn’t he used to one night stands? Why would he think our tryst could be anything other than that?

He had been cheerier than usual that next morning, enough so that I had noticed and made a mental note of it. Maybe I should have known something was up.

But I’d been telling Connor for weeks that I couldn’t risk the rumors that might start if people thought the two of us were together. Just because I’d given in to our explosive chemistry for one night didn’t change that.

“…with the project, is that right, Ms. Browning?”

I looked up from my notepad, my pen hovering above the page. I hadn’t heard a single word or taken a single note the entire meeting. My coworkers, my boss, Peter, and a few higher ups looked at me expectantly from around the conference room table. I furiously tried to recall what had just been said.

“Yes, things are going well,” I said, hoping it was the right answer.

“Glad to hear it,” one of the executives said. “This is an important contract. There’s the potential for more work after this one.”

“There is?” I asked. “With the same client, you mean?”

“Walter mentioned he brought his younger brother on board to help with the project,” the executive said. “You’ve been working with him, yes?”