Ready to Run (I Do, I Don't 1)

“Sure, I’m an open book,” she said with a friendly grin that she knew from experience put people at ease.

“How would you feel?” he asked.

Jordan blinked. “Sorry?”

He set his beer aside and braced both palms on the counter. “How would you feel if I came to New York? Hunted you down even after you’d ignored all my emails and phone calls? Moved in down the street, stalked all your friends—”

“I’m not stalking—”

“You got any ex-boyfriends, City?”

Jordan nodded. She was thirty years old—of course she’d been through a couple of frogs by now.

“What if I called them up? Dug into all the dirt on what went wrong.”

“It’s different,” she said. “I wasn’t engaged to any of my exes, and—”

“That’s my business,” he snapped. “Mine and those three women. Not yours. Not this town’s—”

Jordan stood up straighter. “That’s what’s bugging you the most, isn’t it? Not that I’m here but that your town’s welcomed me with open arms. That they’re on my side.”

“They don’t even know you.”

“But they’re hardly chasing me off, are they? They’re not telling me to get lost. Why do you think that is, Mr. Elliott?”

His jaw worked in irritation. “Maybe if you hadn’t come in here with your fancy looks and promises of fame—”

“That’s crap. I mean, sure, they’re intrigued by the idea of knowing someone that could be famous, but they don’t want you to do this show for them; they want you

to do it for you.”

“Spare me the psychobabble,” he said. “I care about these people, but it’s not about what they want. It’s about what I want, and I’m telling you that I don’t want to do this show. Why do you want it so damn badly, anyway? You get a promotion if I say yes?”

She opened her mouth to deliver a tart response, only to realize…she had nothing.

Why was she doing this? It was her job, yes. Her boss had told her to, yes. But was that what she was? A puppet who merely did someone else’s bidding?

The truth was even more uncomfortable.

What if she was doing this because she had nothing else to do.

What if she was just going through the motions of her own life?

Jordan shook the thought aside and directed her attention back toward him. This was about Luke, not her. She studied him over the rim of her glass. He was angry, definitely. She didn’t blame him. He was absolutely right that she’d pursued him hard, and if the situations were reversed she would have felt hounded.

But there was something else lurking behind his hazel eyes, and it wasn’t just anger, it wasn’t just resentment.

Pain?

But that didn’t make sense. He’d been the one to leave those women. He was the bad guy here.

And that, right there, was the very reason she didn’t feel that guilty over invading his life. A man who’d left three women at the altar wasn’t the hero of the story.

It bothered her that he dared to play the victim card when, from where she was standing, he was very much the villain.

Wasn’t he?

“If I ask you a question, will you answer honestly?” she asked, breaking the silence.