Page 54 of The Last Kiss

“Well, they aren’t now, are they?” Forcing a smile, I reach forward to kiss his lips. “Thank you for another lovely evening.”

“Thank you,” he whispers against my mouth and it awakens something hungry and needy inside of me.

I don’t want to walk away from him, but I have to. He’s a stranger in a hotel room. Nothing else.

“I’ll do you a deal.” He catches my chin and makes me look at him.

“Uh huh.” He’s the breaker of deals. He promised me breakfast and my stomach is grumbling.

“We meet one more time. One more chance for fate to tell us that this is meant to be something other than anonymity in a hotel room, and you tell me your name.”

My mouth flaps open. “But…”

“No buts. I have a feeling here.” He lightly punches his stomach and I feel it in my own, it’s a hollow pit of expectation. “It tells me that to walk away from you is wrong, but I can sense the boundaries you have in place.” He lightly pushes his index finger in the space above my heart. “The first moment I met you, I could see them.”

“Don’t.” I push his hand away. He’s too close to my bitter truth.

“Next time you tell me your name. Next time you let me in.”

“I have let you in.”

He shakes his head, lips turned down. “No, you haven’t.”

“What if I can’t?”

He shrugs. Bloody Frenchman.

“Okay. Next time.” I agree knowing that there can’t be a next time.

Time is ticking along. I can feel it within me, using the same force as the hand on the clock at Waterloo keeps moving. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

“Next time, ma petite. I think you will be mine.”

He kisses me again as the awful truth awakens inside of me and no matter how much I try to push it back down I can’t quite manage it.

I am already.

This man with the hands, the eyebrows that talk. The achingly beautiful seriousness that shifts into a breath-taking smile with the rush of a breeze.

Yeah. I could live for another hundred years, be the oldest woman alive and I’d still be thinking of him living under my skin, the warmth of him against the warmth of me.

Yep. I really am a fool.

13

Fate is a mean mistress

“Come on, Jules.” Flynn gives me his best puppy dog eyes across the space of our conjoined desks. “One glass of wine.”

“I told you already, I can’t.”

“Give me one good reason.” He holds a finger up, pouty lips sulking at the edges.

“I’ve given you five already.”

Flynn smirks. “Tell me again. You give me five and I will stop asking.”

“One. I have to go and get Paige’s birthday present, which I’ve left until the last minute. Two, it’s unprofessional in a workplace to go for drinks that constitute a date.” He opens his mouth up, but I stop him with my hand. “Three, I’ve got all this digital stuff to do. I’ve got to show it to Rebecca next week for her approval for me to show the board. I’m running late with it. I’ll be working all evening. And four, I just don’t like you in that way.”