Page 44 of The Thing About My Secret Billionaire

He takes a step back to allow me to drop in a dishwasher tablet. “It’s what Grandma and Grandpa alwaysused to say when it was time to bring them in for the night.” But it feels silly now.

I press the button, close the dishwasher door and turn around to find Miller’s hand right up by my face.

“Oof.” My heart takes off like a startled rabbit and I jump back, crashing into the vibrating dishwasher.

“Sorry,” he says, his face barely a foot away from mine. “Didn’t mean to make you jump. I just noticed you still had a piece of this in your hair.”

He produces a single stalk of hay, like a conjurer wowing a child by pretending to pull a coin from their ear.

Our eyes meet, but don’t lock. They wander over each other’s faces, both searching, looking for something, maybe for who the other person is, or maybe for who we really are ourselves.

My pulse races from the surprise of him being so close and maybe from the surprise of him being here with me at all.

The air between us hums with the buzz of standing just a foot or so away from someone who’s basically a stranger but who feels anything but. His strong jaw and plump, cushiony lips seem somehow familiar, like the universe is trying to remind me of something I’ve forgotten.

I expect him to step back and throw the hay into the trash. But he doesn’t. He stays where he is. And with every microsecond he remains there, my heart rate increases a little more, my skin tingles a little more, my body heats a little more.

Instead of dropping his hand, Miller reaches for the piece of hair that’s fallen across my face.

“This always escapes your ponytail, huh?” His voice is low and throaty, his lips curvinginto a smile.

“You noticed that?” Why would he notice that? Has he been watching me as closely as I’ve been watching him?

“Of course.” Miller’s eyes now follow his finger as it lifts the stray hair and hooks it behind my ear, brushing—but barely—the skin at my temple.

Goose bumps shoot down the side of my neck from the slight contact. They are so violent and so sudden that he must be able to see them.

What the hell is going on? Why is my body reacting so much to this man? Why did my brain react to him so much while he was sitting across the kitchen table from me? What is it about him that fascinates every part of me so much?

He leans closer and his lips part, his breath reaching my cheek now. It’s warm, with saltiness from the soup and fruitiness from the wine.

When the backs of his fingers stroke my cheek, my eyelids become heavy and I lean slightly into his touch.

Is he going to kiss me?

If he is, I’m going to let him.

I’m going to let this man kiss me, and it’s a truly terrible idea.

I don’t have the time or headspace for any kind of involvement. Between trying to get this place solvent and fighting for the promotion back in Chicago, I barely have enough gray matter to go around without being distracted by these startlingly kissable lips that are attached to a startlingly intriguing man.

But in this moment my body wants it more than anything in the world and, for the first time in a long time, I’m going to let it have what it wants. I’m going to let it choose its own adventure.

My inner thighs tingle as we lean into each other until the tips of our noses brush.

The shock of a knocking and tapping noise jolts my entire body and sends us both leaping apart, my heart pounding like an explosion has rocked the ground under me.

“What the fuck is that?” Miller asks.

“Oh, Jesus. It’s Dave.” I clutch my thumping chest and look over my shoulder to see the donkey’s nose nudging the window open.

“Shit.” Miller pushes his hand through his almost-dry hair. “I wondered what the hell was going on.”

“Me too.” Though I’m more perplexed by what was just going on between us than by there being a donkey at the window.

“He gets out somehow and comes for snacks,” I explain, desperate to return the atmosphere to a more normal,less likely to burst into flames if anyone lit a matchstate. “He learned to open the window years ago. Grandpa gave him a carrot the first time, so he just kept doing it.”

“I’ll go get the rest of them inside,” Miller says.