He has to look up at me, squinting slightly from the morning sun at my back. “Hey. Time to sit down and talk?”
“Of course,” I say as I move to sit beside him. I hold the bag I’m carrying out to him. “Croissant?”
“I had breakfast on the plane,” he says with a shake of his head as he turns it to look at me. With his arms still splayed out across the back of the bench, I can feel his heat radiating and have to make myself not scoot into him to snuggle.
“Take a red-eye here?”
“Nope. Took Dominik Carlson’s private Gulfstream. He gave me the keys, told me to take it for a spin.”
I give a tiny blink of surprise and shake my head. “That was generous.”
“Indeed.”
Turning away from Bishop, I place the pastry bag and cup of coffee on the seat next to me before turning back—so much so that my knees bump into him and I don’t care. I keep them there, pressed against his leg. He pulls his arms in and shifts a little more to face me head on.
Staring face to face, eye to eye, no time for lies.
“I missed you,” I tell him bluntly. “Even though you weren’t in Phoenix when I left, the minute I got to New York I was really missing you. Even more so than when you were on the road trip.”
Bishop chuckles, his expression amused. “Here I was thinking I had to chase you down to make you realize how much you really care for me and need to come back to Phoenix.”
“Oh, I care for you,” I tell him softly. “But I’m not sure I want to go back. I’m horribly embarrassed, and Bishop…I brought Nanette down on this organization. It’s all my fault.”
“You know this story will die down in the news,” he tells me as he leans in a bit closer. “It’s gossip. Tomorrow there will be a juicier story.”
“I know,” I say glumly.
“And you do realize that it’s absolutely ludicrous to blame all of this on yourself,” he continues, punctuating just how serious he is by putting a hand to my face, curling his fingers around the back of my head so I would never dare to look away from him. “This is all one hundred percent on Nanette. She’s manipulative, narcissistic, and I’m going to make an official diagnosis that she’s a little bit sociopathic. There was nothing you could have done to know what she was going to do or to even prevent it.”
All of that sounds good and well to me. I truly want to believe what he’s said, but there’s still that one thing that really sent me scurrying away.
“The truth is out about our relationship,” I murmur in a small voice. “There is no need to extend this charade anymore. So there’s no need—”
“Just stop it,” he commands, giving me a small shake with his hand. “Did you already forget that just moments ago you said you cared for me?”
“I didn’t forget that,” I reply softly. “But I also didn’t hear the words back from you, nor did you say that you missed me too.”
“I’m getting to that,” he says with a lopsided grin, dropping his hand from my face. “But first we need to put all this bad shit behind us, babe. I’ve done it, but you’re still struggling with that. Can you do it?”
“Just put it all behind us? Just that simple?”
He beams the most beautiful smile at me and it makes my heart sing. He sticks a hand out for me to shake. “Hi. My name is Bishop Scott. I read The Count of Monte Cristo in high school and really enjoyed it. What did you think of it?”
I gape as I look from his hand to his face back to his hand, and then settle on his face. “You just want to…what? Start over?”
“Fuck no I don’t want to start over,” he barks with a chortle. “That would mean I’d have to court you all over again and I don’t have time for that. I want you to get on that fancy Gulfstream plane—which has a bed by the way—and let’s get our asses back to Phoenix. I want to start the next step of our life together. And I want that, Brooke—sweet, beautiful, lovely Brooke—because I’ve fallen in love with you over the course of our charade…which, by the way, you know your dad knew it was all bullshit, right?”
“Wait a minute,” I say as I tuck a chunk of my hair behind my ear. I tilt my head and lean a bit closer. “Say that again?”
“Your dad was on to us from the start?” he teases.
“The other part,” I correct him with a demure smile.
“Oh,” he drawls as if it just dawns on him what I’m asking. “You mean the part that I’ve fallen in love with you?”