I find that I like the disheveled look of him a little too much.
His family begins to filter out, saying goodbyes, many of them having quite a distance to drive to get back home to prepare for the week ahead. Gaige doesn’t seem as eager to leave, helping his dad and brother clean off tables on the patio as I sit with Lala.
She hasn’t continued the line of questioning, but there isn’t much about my life the entire family didn’t ask about at lunch. She seems content to just sit in the sun and soak up the rays.
After another half hour, Gaige finally approaches, squatting in front of his grandmother with a soft smile on his lips. It’s clear how much he adores the woman, and that same loving look is in her eyes as well when she cups her wrinkled hand on his golden cheek.
“Thank you for sharing Leighton with us today,” she whispers.
He kisses her palm. “You’re welcome, but we’re going to head out. I need some time alone with her.”
“Treat her like the lady she is.”
“Always,” he promises before wrapping her in a hug.
Lala’s eyes squeeze tight, and she grunts with the effort she uses to hold him tight. She’s reluctant to let him go, winking at me when he steps back.
“Don’t be a stranger,” she says to me before we walk away.
“I won’t,” I tell her, knowing it’s a lie, and hating myself a little for it.
My hand grows clammy in his, much the way my body began to feel when we were at the table earlier. It was too easy to let myself start believing in the lies we were telling just by smiling and pretending to be this happy couple that was falling in love.
I know love and devotion when I see it.
Not only were we fooling an entire family and a precious ninety-year-old woman, but I was also starting to fool myself, and that spoke of the dangerous situation I was in.
My heart never gets involved. I don’t give it time. My life is dedicated to my work and goals.
We’re stopped on the way out, saying goodbye to his mom, dad, and Tyler. A look passes between Gaige and his dad, one I don’t have any hope of understanding, but it’s not really my place to start analyzing what the Ward men have going on. I’ll never see the oldest one again. This was a business transaction of sorts, both parts of it—today and the one back in Texas—leaving me feeling dirty and in need of a shower.
I want to pull away from him as we walk to his car, but I have a feeling Caroline Ward is watching us from the window, no doubt with a smile on her face, thinking her son is finally going to settle down, the consummate bachelor hanging up his playboy ways.
I don’t pull away even though I know I should. I live in the moment, in the fantasy for just a few seconds longer and lean into his shoulder, my throat threatening to close with each step closer we take toward his car. He releases my hand, his arm going around my waist, and he holds me to him. Right there in the middle of his parents’ yard, Gaige Ward pulls me against his chest and lets me live in his world, allows me to picture the loving family I’ve always wanted but never had. He lets me own the sweet jokes and endless teasing that only people who truly care about each other can get away with, and then he tilts my head up, pressing a sweet kiss to my lips, his thumbs tracing my jaw.
“Thank you for today,” I tell him.
I have to turn around. Looking at him is going to draw the tears, and I can’t explain them.
This isn’t a relationship. He laid it out that night at Paragon. Hell, I made the rule about no sex while working. I’ve known him two weeks, and half of that time I thought he was married. Fantasies and well-placed lies have a way of getting inside of your head and altering reality. That’s all that this is, and I’d do well to remember that.
He opens the car door when I stand at it, quickly making his way around to the driver’s side, and although he cranks it, he doesn’t put it in gear and drive away from the curb.
He turns in his seat to face me, and it takes a moment for me to school my face so when I look at him, he doesn’t read every emotion I’m trying to hide. I give him a small smile when I meet his gaze.
“Are we going to talk about the weird mood you’re in? And don’t tell me it’s because you’re tired or because you have a headache.”