Page 93 of Last Chance Cowboy
“Oh.”
“Sorry. It’s a really busy week.”
“Okay. Then maybe this weekend.”
“I’ll be busy then too.”
He lifted his brows. “Busy?”
“Yes. I…You seem really nice. But I am doing kind of a major life change thing here. Just started this business, moved across the country, my mother died, you know. And I’m not really looking for a relationship right now.”
“A dinner date isn’t a relationship,” he pointed out.
Dammit. He was right.
“I’m not really open to dating. Even casually. And I’m sorry. It’s not you, not really. It’s me. I’m just… I’m doing a really particular thing right now. In my journey toward… self-love.” She wanted to punch herself in her own face. Everything she was saying sounded stupid. Very, very stupid. But she didn’t want to be mean to him, and she also couldn’t say that she was seeing somebody else. Not with Marlowe standing right there.
“All right,” he said, clearly completely shocked to be let down like this. She was trying to be nice, but she was definitely being definitive. Very clearly closing a door, and she wondered if that had ever happened to him in his whole life.
He was handsome, she knew he was rich. He had influence in town, and so did his whole family.
It was very likely that no woman had ever dared reject him. Even while he was being nice, she could see that he was… Insulted. Fair enough. If somebody did that to her, she would probably feel a little bit insulted, too. Shehadstrung him along a little bit by not doing this.
But Zane…
She thought of the way he’d been yesterday. Possessive. Insistent. Of the way that it had ended with him putting her up on the counter and taking her over and over again. And then last night at her house, it had been sweeter, slower, and more like making love, and she liked all of it.
But she had promised herself to him. Not even a dinnerdate with another man. That didn’t feel quite so much like a crush, but it was a promise that she had made either way.
She had to keep that promise.
“I guess… I’ll probably find a different bakery,” he said.
She winced. “Fair.”
Jackson ended up leaving without buying anything, again fair, though she had to ponder the reality that he’d actually wanted her and not her sweet rolls. Was that flattering? It would be more flattering if she wanted to bang him, she supposed.
Zane wanted her sweet rolls and her —
She was distracted by movement out of the corner of her eye.
Marlowe was slowly creeping across the dining room until she was standing right beside Cara, her expression far too keen. “What was happening there?”
“I’m just not interested in him,” Cara said.
“I thought you wanted some experiences? I thought you wanted to go on a date?”
“I don’t feel anything for him,” she said.
Which was true. One hundred percent, completely true. Initially, she’d thought that maybe she could, but now she knew. She knew exactly the kind of chemistry that she could have with a man, and why would she pursue something that was any less than that? Zane and his possessiveness aside.
She felt warm and scratchy just thinking about that, especially with Marlowe standing there.
“Sometimes you don’t know if you feel chemistry with somebody until you go on a date with them.” Marlowe pointed out.
Cara gave her a sly look. “Is that how it was with you and Cody?”
It was Marlowe’s turn to turn pink. Cara knew full well that wasn’t how it had been with Cody. Marlowe and Codyhad hooked up in a guest cabin after two full conversations before Marlowe was even legally divorced from Cara’s brother, who had already blown their marriage up, but that was immaterial. It was just to reiterate that Marlowe had not moved slowly in any capacity with Cody and hadn’t needed a single date to establish chemistry with him.
