Lost In Me (Here and Now 1)

The way he just looked at me has my heart pounding triple-time in my chest. Or is that anxiety over what we found on my computer this morning, fear that I’ve screwed up a good thing?

Max escapes Mom’s grasp and then he’s spinning me around and grinning at me.

“Pardon me for a moment,” he tells Maggie. “I need to kiss my fiancée.” He presses his mouth to mine in a kiss that’s sweet and tender and sizzles all the way down to my toes. Before I can kiss him back, he’s pulling away.

“Hello there,” I whisper.

His eyes have gone smoky. He brushes my hair off my shoulders. “I didn’t know we were looking at wedding venues.”

I settle my hands on his shoulders awkwardly, not sure what else to do with them. After last night, it’s funny that I would feel unsure about touching him, but it’s not natural to me yet. In my mind, Max is still more crush than fiancé.

“Mom insisted.” I watch him carefully. “Does that make you uncomfortable?”

“We aren’t in any rush.” He smiles. “Well, you aren’t. Personally, the sooner I have you sleeping in my bed, the better. Speaking of which, how’d you sleep?” His voice drops, low and husky. He may not have Nate’s river-bottom bass, but sweet Jesus, Max does husky well.

“Okay.” I force a smile. After he dropped me off at home last night, my conscience kept me up tossing and turning, and my four-thirty alarm came too soon. “What about you?”

He presses a kiss to the crook of my neck. “I would have slept better with you in my arms, but I managed okay.” He inhales audibly. “God, you smell so good. What are you wearing?”

That makes me smile. “I think you’re smelling sugar cookies and cinnamon muffins. Lizzy and I did a little baking this morning. Making you hungry?”

“Hmm. I’m hungry, all right.” He snakes a hand under my shirt and brushes my navel with his thumb, and my mind flashes on the image from the gossip site—me pressed against the side of the building, Nate’s hand creeping up my skirt.

I try not to tense. God. This is ridiculous. How

can I feel so guilty when I don’t even know if I’ve done anything wrong? Right. Because there’s an innocent explanation to all of this.

“Mom’s having girls’ night at her house tonight. She wants to talk wedding plans.”

“You should.” He pulls his hand from my shirt and smooths the fabric back in place, but his expression is unreadable. “You’ve been working too hard lately. Not spending enough time with your sisters.”

So I’m told. Why didn’t he encourage me to spend more time with them back before the accident, when I was alienating Liz? Then again, I’ve probably been busy with the business and all the exercising. Not to mention a very serious boyfriend and a hottie on the side.

“Want to come with me? Mom wouldn’t mind you crashing her dinner.”

“I wish I could, but I have a late client again.”

A late client. The same woman as last night? I bite back the question. I have no right to be suspicious of Max. Quite the opposite.

“The bride can enter from the stairs,” Mom’s saying. “Guests right there where you two are standing. It would be small but intimate.”

“What are you thinking?” Max asks me quietly. “You seem distracted.”

I force a smile. We’re supposed to be deciding where we’re going to exchange vows, and I’m too busy trying to figure out what I’ve done to pay any attention. “I’m just wondering when you can come by my place so we can pick up where we left off last night?”

“What do you think, Max?” Mom asks from the back. “Should we try to do this in October? Imagine the colorful leaves floating past on the river.”

He never takes his eyes from mine. “The sooner the better.”

“Great!” She claps her hands gleefully. “Maggie, pull out the calendar for October. Let’s set a date!”

“LISTEN.” MAX squeezes my hand and tugs me toward the side room and away from Mom and Granny, who are chattering with Maggie over the calendar.

It’s done. We set a date. I have six weeks before I marry Max.

This is the room William uses for special collections. The first collection shown in here was of some shockingly intimate portraits of Maggie, but the artist kept it under wraps, so no one knew what he was showing until the opening. Asher bought them all that night, and rumor has it he burned them in a bonfire behind his house.

I don’t know what happened between Maggie and the painter, but it sure looked like he’d put her secrets on display. As I scan the walls, now covered with a collection of Maggie’s mosaics, I wonder what that would be like—your biggest secrets, your biggest shame on display to the world. Would it be painful, the shock of it? Or would there be an element of relief to know you didn’t have to work so hard to hide anymore?