Playing With Her Heart (Caught Up In Love #4)(60)
Author: Lauren Blakely

I shake my head and laugh. “God forbid.” I watch him as he tucks his shirt into his jeans. “I’m really glad you came here last night.”

He smiles softly. “Me too.”

“I mean it,” I say in a firm voice, as if I’m giving a speech. But one that comes straight from the heart. “I don’t know what I would have done without you. I was lost. I was totally lost, and I had no idea how much I needed you until you walked through my door. I’m so glad you found me.”

“You weren’t that hard to find. I knew your address,” he says and cups my chin tenderly.

I shake my head, giving him a fierce stare, my eyes blazing. “I know, but that’s not what I mean. What I mean is thank you for not giving up on me.” I grab his shirt and grip it tightly for emphasis. “Thank you for knowing me better than I knew myself. Thank you for not letting me slip away. Because I am so in love with you. I am so completely in love with you.”

He pulls me close, and wraps me in his arms. “That’s why I didn’t you let slip away. Because you’re worth it. You’re worth everything to me.” Then he bends down to kiss me on the forehead. “But I need to go. I have a meeting.”

“On a Sunday?”

He nods. “Yes. Amazingly, I still have to work on Sundays. My lawyer and I are meeting with some producers about doing Twelfth Night in London soon.”

“Really?”

“They happen to like their Shakespeare across the pond.”

“Does that mean you’ll be leaving New York soon?” I ask, and my heart’s beating faster now. I don’t want him to leave when this is starting.

“I don’t know. That’s what the meeting is about. But if I go to London, I’ll return,” he says, and curves his hand around my neck. “I won’t be able to stay away from you, Jill.”

I loop my arms around him. “I feel the same, but I still don’t want you to go.”

“Would you rather I stay here and do the film?”

I sneer. “No.”

“Maybe I’ll just do nothing then for a few months. Take some time off. Sit in the park and feed breadcrumbs to the pigeons.”

I laugh. “As if you could do nothing.” He buttons the second-to-last button on his white shirt. He has one-day stubble on his jawline, and it’s so sexy. I’ve never seen him in the morning after he’s gone without shaving.

Then I remember something I read in the trades about Twelfth Night. “Hey, isn’t that actress Joyelle Kristy supposed to be interested in doing the play? I saw her at the gala the other night.”

“I’ll find out in my meetings today. When will I see you tonight? I believe we have unfinished business,” he says, then kisses my neck and I shiver.

“We do. Can I come over after I see my brother?”

“Yes.”

I run a hand through his hair. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“This is kind of awkward, but I figured we should just get it out of the way.”

“Why yes. I do require the extra large condoms,” he says.

I swat his arm playfully. “Hey! How did you know what I was going to ask?”

“Lucky guess.”

“But it’s on that subject,” I say tentatively at first, but then I just rip off the Band-Aid. “Here’s the deal. I haven’t been with anyone in years, as you know. And I’m clean. And I’m also on the pill. So what I’m asking is—”

He answers quickly. “Yes. I’m clean. So are you saying?” He lets his voice trail off.

I nod. “I don’t want any barriers.”

He presses me against his body. “God, how am I going to get through these meetings today?”

* * *

I fling a hand over my eyes dramatically when I walk into Wendy’s Diner and see Chris.

“Don’t even tell me. No. Don’t even tell me you are actually playing Qbert on your phone.”

My brother gives me a sheepish grin, tosses his phone onto the table and stands up to wrap me in a huge hug. “What can I say? I like Qbert. And I have to keep up my skills so I can always stay ahead of McKenna.”

“As if anyone can ever beat you in a game,” I say, and then hug him back harder. “I miss you, you knucklehead. Why do you have to live so freaking far away?”

We pull apart, and I sit down across from him. Chris flashes me his signature smile, all gleaming white teeth and twinkling green eyes. He shrugs. “I hate the cold. Speaking of, what the hell? How do you survive in this weather? It’s like thirty degrees out.”

“That’s nothing. Some days, it gets as cold as—gasp—five degrees.”

He pretends to shiver. “Brutal. Can’t believe I ever lived here.”

“Want pancakes?”

“Always.”

We order, and spend the next thirty minutes catching up. I learn that things are going so fabulously with McKenna that he’s even taught her dog to surf and he shows me a picture of the blond lab-husky mix riding a wave on a banana yellow surfboard.

“Damn. And I thought it was impressive when you built that tree house when we were twelve. But a surfing dog?”

“I know,” he jokes. “Some days I amaze myself.”

“So how’s your woman?”

He blushes for a second or two, and I point a finger at him. “You still haven’t gotten over that blushing thing you do?”

“You do it too!”

“Yeah, but I’m a girl.”

“Don’t make me put you in a choke hold.”

“Ha. I learned how to get out of them like a ninja.”

“Yeah, you learned from the best. Me. Anyway, she’s great. I’m crazy about her.”

“I’m so glad you found her.”

When we finish with breakfast, I take a deep breath. I can’t just tell Davis all my secrets. I have to be open with my family. With my brother. Because I want to have the kind of relationship with him where I’m not harboring lies and secrets.

“There’s something I want to tell you.”

Then I tell him all the things I never said to him when I was seventeen. His eyes widen with shock when he learns of the letter I received, then he drops his head into his hands when he hears that I kept it with me for years, in its own secret little chamber by my bed. He wraps an arm around me as I share how I felt about myself for all that time. He shakes his head over and over.