Made for You (The Best Mistake 2)
Page 109
“Do you plan to?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Can’t say that I’d thought much about it. Thought I’d give myself a break from women for a while.”
Her shoulders slumped in relief. “Then what’s she doing here?”
“She flew in from Austin to discuss an investment opportunity.”
Brynn’s eyes narrowed. “Your hand was on her waist. And she’s pretty.”
“My hand was on her waist because she almost tripped in her ridiculously high heels. And you have one minute.”
She licked her lips and gave him a pleading smile. “Can we please just go up to your room for a second?”
“Brynn, if the low-cut shirt didn’t soften me up, that pleading smile’s sure as hell not going to work either. Spit it out. What do you want? Another fuck?”
She heard someone behind them gasp.
“No, I just want…”
“You’ve got another itch you want me to scratch? You wanna go bungee jumping, or swim with sharks, and you need a partner who won’t tattle on you after?”
“I quit my job.”
His head snapped back slightly. Aha. That got him. “Quit, like another month of playtime, or quit for good?”
“For good,” she said, feeling oddly proud of something so wildly irresponsible.
“Why?”
“It wasn’t making me happy.”
He faked an appalled expression. “What about your list? However will you be mentioned in ten premiere medical journals before the age of thirty-five if you quit now?”
Brynn’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve been reading my list.”
“Lists. Plural. I’ve been reading those notebooks since you started stashing them under your mattress. Makes for great shitter read.”
She didn’t let herself get riled. “You know, it really wasn’t fair to give me a time limit if you were going to hog all of the talking time.”
For a second she thought he might smile. Or at least relax. Instead his jaw tensed. “Fine, twenty-second extension. Go.”
Twenty seconds. It was enough.
Brynn took a deep breath. “I want to do this. For real.”
“What’s this?”
“Us. You and me. Out in public.”
He started to move past her. “Pass.”
She grabbed his sleeve, panic clutching at her throat at his quick dismissal. “You can’t pass! I came all the way to Chicago to tell you that!”
“So it was a couple hundred bucks out of your savings account. Maybe you can go shopping while you’re here or something so it’s not a total waste. Find something classy and boring for your next hotshot job and statue boyfriend.”
“Please,” she said hoarsely. “Don’t tell me I’m too late. You didn’t give me any time to think before you told me…you know.”
“That I’d loved you? Please. You had plenty of time. You had more than fifteen Goddamn years to figure it out.”