Fool Me Forever (The Confidence Game 2)

The relief of hearing that put space between his ribs, and he could inhale a little easier. “I could help you decide.” But only if she could accept that sometimes you could do the most good when you were strategically a little bad.

“You don’t need to pitch me.”

“You’re stubborn. You have a problem with trust, and my advice wasn’t always as good as it could’ve been.”

He needed to make the pitch of his life. No PowerPoint deck or Excel spreadsheet, no sexy little pivot chart or 3D pie graph was going to help. Lenny was half a room away hugging her unhappiness.

He waggled his fingers to get her to come closer, and this time she did. He made sure to keep the table between them because what he most wanted was to touch her, and he hadn’t earned the permission for that.

When he did, he was never letting her go.

He pointed at the tulips. “I should’ve bought you flowers more often, even though you didn’t want them the first time I did. These flowers are to apologize for being a lousy

fake boyfriend.”

She frowned. “You weren’t.”

“If I’d been a decent fake boyfriend, I wouldn’t have let you get hurt, and I’d have kept tabs on Easton. You’d have known he was cruising for a fall.”

For that, he got a deepening of her frown plus a headshake that fluffed her hair. “That’s not what fake boyfriends do,” she said.

“I’m not your average fake.” Though for a while, he’d been too busy faking to understand what he’d found in Lenny, and too reluctant to press for more for fear of being wrong for her. He didn’t think that way anymore. They could be good together. So very good. “I fucked up. I let Cookie Jar hurt you, and then I hurt you. I never meant for that to happen. I never wanted to lose you.”

Her indecision was in the slump of her shoulders and the way she turned her face away. His offer might not be good enough. He still wasn’t 100 percent certain he was good enough. But nothing added up if he didn’t try to bluff it out. Slowly, carefully. Giving her everything she needed to trust him.

“I want the chance to find out what your favorite flowers are and bring them for you often. If that would be okay with you.”

She lifted her head and met his eyes. It wasn’t quite an answer; still, he hadn’t lost her.

He tapped the chocolates. “You like these, even when you pretend not to. I want to be able to spoil you with the things you like. This was the biggest box they make.”

The worried expression she wore stayed put.

He pointed at the glasses. “You might feel the need to throw things. It can help. I want you to have enough ammunition. I might not always do exactly right by you, but I’ll always take responsibility for cleaning up the mess.”

Her first smile. Not all the way to her eyes, but it was a start.

He put his hands on the Dixie cups and moved them around. “Pick a cup.”

She folded her arms. “I accept your apology. I accepted it the moment I heard your voice. Easton wasn’t your responsibility. He wasn’t mine, either. And if I’d have listened to you about him, about other things, I could’ve saved myself some heartache.”

This was progress, but it might still be a false start. It was a big thing he was about to ask. It had to be positioned just right if it had any chance of succeeding. “Pick a cup, please.”

Reluctantly, she lifted the middle one. Under it was a tiny data stick. “Pick another one.”

“That’s not how this is meant to work.”

He had no idea how this was supposed to work, but he loved her, and he’d do anything to get another chance to prove it. “I’m improvising. I didn’t know I had that in me until I met you.”

That made her laugh softly. She lifted the cup on his left. Under it was a key. He lifted the last cup, and under it was a tiny light globe.

She shook her head, flicked a hand in an I-have-no-idea-what-this-is-about gesture.

He pointed to the key. “This kicks over a sweet Mercedes Coup.” Then the data stick. “The ownership papers are on there. You’re now the proud owner of an amazing vintage car. The globe is our invitation from Baiba to visit Ossovia and watch them strike ground on the new electricity grid.”

She looked from the table to his face in surprise. “You can’t give me a car.”

“It either sits in an impound for years unclaimed, or it goes to work for you through D4D.”