Page 86 of No Words

“Hello,” he said, grinning as the bacon on the eight-burner Viking range behind him sizzled.

“Hi.” I couldn’t keep from grinning back. “I think your bacon’s burning.”

“Let it. I like it crispy.”

“Well, I don’t. What, exactly, is all this?”

“What’s what?”

“This?” I gestured at the breakfast tray he’d been making for me, set with a yellow cloth napkin and a vase full of bougainvillea he’d clearly snipped from the vines out by the pool. I recognized the explosive pink. “Is this all because you still feel guilty about what you said to that reporter about my books?”

“Well,” he said. “No. This is because I think you’re very good in bed, and I’m hoping that if I keep you well fed, you’ll continue to have sex with me.”

“Interesting. What aboutThe Moment, then?”

He raised an eyebrow. “The Moment?”

“Yes.” I hopped up onto the kitchen counter. “I found a copy last night when I was on my way to the bathroom—youdo seem to have an awful lot of copies of your own books in this house. Have you ever considered donating some of them?—so I finished it.”

Now he raised both eyebrows. “And?”

“And I can’t believe you finally gave one of your books a happy ending.”

He switched off the burner beneath the bacon, then regarded me seriously. “I didn’t intend to. I wanted to kill Johnny. He deserved to die.”

“Did he? I don’t think so. What did he do that was so wrong?”

“He killed the thing that Melanie loved most in all the world.”

“No,” I said. I realized we weren’t actually discussing Melanie and Johnny anymore. “He only thought he did. And he didn’t mean to. And he was very sorry for it, and he tried to make it up to her as best he could. Maybe that’s why, in the end, you let him live.”

“Maybe.” Will gave me a piece of bacon. It was hot, but it was delicious.

“And in the end, Melanie forgave Johnny.”

“Yes, but only after it was revealed that not only was her husband alive, he was also an abusive brute.”

“True. But Johnny was the one who helped her see that. She escaped him all on her own.”

“She did.” Will began tracing a line with his finger down my collarbone and toward the opening of my jumpsuit, sending delighted shivers down my spine.

“Do you really think my eyes are like twin blue ponds, fathoms deep?”

“Yes, but they’re not the parts of you I’m most interested in. Do you remember when you screamed at me in front of everyone I know for not allowing my characters to have happy endings?”

I scoffed. “Of course I remember it. It was yesterday. And I didn’t scream at you.”

“I don’t know what other word to call it. In any case, that’s when I began to realize that you were quite unlike any other woman I’d ever met, and that I was, in fact, more than simply physically attracted to you. I’d have felt resentful about it if you hadn’t been right—and if you didn’t have such a nice arse.”

He then illustrated his affection for this part of my body by cupping his hands around it and scooping me up by it.

It took a long time to make—and eat—breakfast, because we kept stopping for kisses—and other things. It was revolting (not the breakfast. Naturally, he was an amazing cook), but the way we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. I wanted to throw up at how juvenile we were behaving. Which eventually reminded me:

“When is your sister coming home from her sleepover?” I asked, a few hours later.

“That’s an odd thing to be thinking of at this particular moment.” We were back in bed after having showered together. We’d both made sure we were squeaky clean on all areas of our bodies. “And why would it be so terrible? Chloe loves you.”

“I know. But I mean, I wouldn’t want her to walk in on us. That would be awkward.”