Shut it down, Whitley. Keep your distance. End the scene.
I remind myself to breathe and force a smirk instead of stepping back into her. To get my wits about me and refocus on if the twenty or so members of the wedding party across the green are still watching. The ones I caught sight of while Saylor and I were having our cupcake war.
And they are definitely watching.
“C’mon. Let’s go.” I grab her hand and steer her from where curious eyes continue to stare. To wonder. To judge. And I want them to question how the woman they knew her to be, the one Ryder explained to me as being so proper and reserved over the past six years, has enough of a wild streak in her to chase a man through a posh resort and have a food fight with him.
Not just any man, though. Me.
But my desire to head back to the villa has a helluva lot more to do with me than with her right now. I need to work. Because work has always allowed me to forget about Saylor, and God, how I need to forget about her right now. Because with her within arm’s length, with her taste on my lips, with the warmth of her body still heating my skin, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to keep the one promise I made to myself when I agreed to come here: leave her better off than how I found her.
“Hayes?” Her voice is confused, the amusement it was rich with now gone. It takes me a second to realize she had no idea we were being watched. And I’m so goddamn self-absorbed, so mad at myself for wanting to do the right thing, that I forgot to tell her.
“Sorry. We had company.” I stop on the path and turn to look at her to make sure she heard me.
“What? Wh—oh.” Realization hits her eyes, a healthy dose of hurt too, as I let her assume the sole reason I kissed her was because there was an audience and not because I wanted to. She clears her throat and lifts her chin in a show of false bravado. “Yes. I know. I saw them.”
She’s lying. She wanted the kiss just as much as I did. The twirl of her finger around her hair and the stiffening of her body prove she did, but for some reason I don’t elaborate or correct her line of thinking.
Instead I stand there like an asshole as she forces a smile to save herself the embarrassment over thinking what happened was out of mutual desire. And that she threw herself into the kiss—and fuck me, how she threw herself into the kiss—for no other reason than to help sell our fake relationship to the wedding party.
That in itself is comical because we both wanted it. There’s no denying that. And yet I don’t correct her. I don’t confess how sleeping in the villa last night with her in the bedroom directly across from mine was the sweetest kind of torture. Or explain how rehearsing the scene this morning didn’t make me wonder about and want her in every way imaginable. And I definitely don’t tell her how badly I want to drag her up against me right now and kiss her all over again.
But I don’t say a word because the next time I touch her, I don’t think I’m going to be able to stop with just a kiss. And I’m not sure it’s smart to open up that door until I can figure out what in the hell I’m going to do about keeping that damn promise I made myself.
“C’mon,” I murmur, turning around before I can see that wounded pride in her eyes again. The one I put there. “I’ve got stuff I need to do before . . . I booked you a private massage in the spa room down from our villa.” I glance at my watch to emphasize she’s going to be late. Hate myself for pawning her off so I can have a minute—or sixty—to get my head straight.
“I don’t wa . . .” Blue eyes full of unanswered questions meet mine and the words die on her lips.
“It’s that way.” I point. “See you in a bit.”
I walk off down the path, like the asshole I am. I tell myself not to stop and turn back. Not to grab her hand or open the door of the villa, lick that frosting off her chest, and slide down the slippery slope that would follow.
And it would surely follow. No doubt in my mind there.
But it’s not meant to be. Can’t happen. I’m here to make sure she’s okay and pulling her into any part of my crazy life would lead to anything but okay. So why do my hands falter as I slide the key card in the door? Because ten years have passed. Because I’m a different man now than I was then, and she is without doubt a different woman. She’s stronger. Independent. She’s Saylor.
So why couldn’t something work now?
Fuck. That’s the shit I can’t be thinking. The one thing I came here telling myself wasn’t going to happen. Because what was supposed to happen was that we were going to live in the same villa for a few days and remember old times. I was hoping to help her restore her confidence, prove a point to the Layton groupies, and then walk away when the time was up as friends—something few and far between for me these days.