Addie had warned her she was too tender hearted. The fact her friend would be sad at being correct didn’t make the situation any better.
Lillie stroked Jim’s face, running her fingers through his hair and enjoying the rasp of his morning beard against her palm. She wanted to lean in and kiss him, but then he might wake up and make love to her, like he had last night after he’d shared about his loss.
So tender and caring and…
And if he did it again, she really didn’t think she could stop herself from blurting out her terrible secret.
She was the biggest fool in Vegas, and that was saying something.
It was no use. She eased from underneath him. Jim complained softly, but didn’t wake.
Lillie tugged on his shirt because she couldn’t bear not having his scent around her. She wondered if she swiped the garment, how long it would continue to smell like him after she was gone.
She opened her computer, heading straight to her email. Her IM pinged immediately with a message from Addie. Lillie stared at it, debating if her friend had a tracking device that let her know exactly when to administer a swift kick.
How are you doing, bb?
Was there even an answer to that? You’re right, I’m not cut out to have a fling
There was silence for a moment as her bestie figured out what she was talking about.
Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry
It’s okay. I’ll be okay
Do you want me to do anything? Do you need me to call anyone, or get on a plane and kick some butt? Because I’m there for you. I really really am. You deserve to be happy, bb
And right then and there, Lillie’s heart skipped. She popped up from her computer and paced the room.
Holy cow. Addie was right.
She did deserve to be happy. There was no reason why she shouldn’t simply figure out a way to take all the happiness she’d experienced this past week and make it a forever thing.
It wasn’t as if she were heading off to meet the love of her life. Ritual and routine be damned. If she hadn’t found Jim, then she would’ve been fine going along with tradition.
But she had found Jim.
Only…she had no confirmation he felt the same way about her. Was she going to throw away her future and potentially piss off some important bigwigs, and her parents, on the off-chance the big grizzly wanted her for more than just a fling?
No question. Damn right she was going to take a shot at it.
She raced back to the computer and signed off so rapidly she was sure Addie would send text messages every five minutes until she responded.
And Lillie would tell her more, once she made it safely onto a plane.
Because while she didn’t know for sure that Jim wanted her, she now knew what it was like to fall in love, and she wasn’t going to give that up for anything in the world.
If it turned out after all was said and done, Jim simply wanted a fling? She’d pull up her big-girl panties and accept…
Little mental sirens went off instantly. Awoooo, awoooo, bullshit warning.
Nope, she wasn’t going to accept anything except Jim falling one hundred percent and completely head-over-heels in love with her. No matter how long it took, and that was the truth.
But in the meantime, she had a contract to dissolve. She’d reached a fork in the road, and it was time she chose the path she followed.
She made a quick call to the front desk to order a taxi. Then she went to work, hacking into the plane registry she’d accessed five days ago. Because she needed transportation, stat, to get where she was going. Even if her methods were a touch on the illegal side.
Five minutes later, she slipped on her shoes and coat, grabbing the small bag Jim had bought her. She had her finger hovering over the call button for the elevator when she realized there was one more task to complete. She darted back into the room to grab a notepad.
Nothing. How could a grown man who claimed to be a workaholic have absolutely nothing in the place to use to leave a note?
Desperate, she grabbed the empty pizza boxes from their dinner, flipped one over and used coloured lip balm to write a message.
Something I need to do. Gone for 2 days at least. I know your race starts tomorrow. Have fun with Damon. Contact you when I can.
There was so much more she wanted to say, but she was out of lip balm and out of time. She dropped her message on the coffee table and fled the apartment before he woke up and stopped her.
Because her vanishing for a short while was the only solution.
She was gone.
Jim curled upright, wondering how in the hell she managed it every morning, but this time round his puzzlement was tinged with amusement instead of frustration.
He hadn’t woken in a cold sweat from being alone in bed. It was as if her presence had remained with him, helping him know someone cared.
It was time to move on.
Damon had expressed his concerns about Lillie, but the biggest thing he’d been right about was the secrecy. It was time for their secret-keeping to be over. Jim was going to find out everything there was to know about Lillie, because he intended to have her around for a long, long time.