Clearly, I needed to flush the mimosas from my system before I said something truly stupid.
I pushed a glass against the dispenser and watched as it filled, heart thumping from what I’d almost let slip.Get it together, Maureen. You just need to make it an hour, and then he’ll drive away.I opened the fridge to grab a snack before deciding against it. Even though I’d only managed a few bites at lunch, I wasn’t hungry. I shoved the door closed.
And came face-to-face with Will.
He’d been finishing a phone call in the adjacent laundry room, and his eyes went wide when he saw me. The galley-style kitchen of Marley’s home blocked us from the view of the others. Their voices seemed a million miles away.
We stood frozen. I hadn’t expected to be alone with him again. Not after last night. I watched the slow slide of his throat as he gulped. Locking eyes with me, he inched closer.
“Hi,” he murmured.
The awareness of him I’d been fighting all morning became a concentrated force in the room, invading my body. I shuddered lightly as the woodsy scent of his cologne drew out the memory of his nose grazing delicately along my cheek. Horrifyingly, the water I’d just poured started slipping through my fingers. Will acted fast, reaching a hand out to steady it. I blinked as our fingers touched in the place we both held the glass.
“I’ve got it,” he said, breaking our contact as he put the glass on the counter. “Sorry I startled you.”
“You didn’t.” I recovered my senses, stepping back to put a foot of distance between us. “I’m just, uh, clumsy.”
“No, you’re not,” he whispered. My breath hitched, gaze landing on his dark stubble as he scrubbed a hand roughly overhis face. I cursed inwardly. Why did he have to be even hotter than he was four years ago?
I didn’t plan on waiting around to find out. He sighed and moved aside as I motioned to get by him. As I passed, I asked in a low tone, “You knew I’d be here this weekend, didn’t you?”
He looked up, pausing significantly before responding. “It’s why I came.”
“To see me?”
“To talk to you. To say the things you wouldn’t let me say last night.” He angled his forearms to grip the counter. “Even if you hated me, I wanted to try.”
“To explain why you lied about being engaged?”
“I didn’t exactly lie.” I glared at him, and he held up his hands, letting out a nervous cough. “Okay, yes, to explain about that.”
I thought about how I’d denied him last night. It had felt good getting that power back. Pushing my palms into my rear pockets, I straightened to my full height, meeting him chest to chest. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“That woman—Rosalyn—was she lying when she said you were engaged?”
“No. But there’s more—”
“And that night we spent together, when I poured my heart out about my mom and my life and opened myself up to you, were you engaged then?”
He glanced down at the floor.
I snorted. “There’s nothing to say here, Will. I don’t want to hear it.”
I turned away. He spoke under his breath, stopping me. “I wanted to talk to you…to make sure you knew how much our night together meant to me. How much I think about it. Think about you. I don’t want you to…”
“Don’t want me to what?”
“I don’t want you to regret it. Because I don’t.” He pushed out an unsteady breath. “And even if it makes me an asshole, I don’t want you to hate me.”
I frowned. “You don’t get to decide that.”
He winced. I studied him and thought about why I didn’t want to hear any explanations for his actions. Was it really to prove I didn’t care? Or was it because I feared he could somehow find the right words to make me forgive him? I couldn’t risk it.
I leaned back to look through the doorway into the living room. James was in the middle of another lengthy story, and it appeared no one had noticed our absence yet.
Will would be in my life, at least on the edge of it, for the foreseeable future. And judging by my body’s electric response to him, I had a lot of work to do to maintain my resolve. I couldn’t allow myself to be manipulated again. I shivered as the memory of seeing him in that hotel lobby washed over me. The shock. The embarrassment.
