Chapter 6 #2
I want him to leave me alone so I can bury this ridiculous crush six feet deep.
It’s childish, wrong, inconvenient in all the ways that matter.
And yet, the more I try to snuff it out, the more it flares.
It’s like he’s lit a match and left it burning in my chest just to watch me squirm.
I keep my eyes on his, crossing my arms over my chest.
“I have an Uber waiting for me, so I should…” I start, attempting to sidestep him, but he steps directly in my path, blocking my way.
“If I let you go in an Uber, I won’t be able to live with myself. Please, allow me this,” he pleads, charm dripping from every word.
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
I stand my ground. “I’m not going to dinner with you. I have an Uber waiting.”
He takes a breath, jaw ticking. “Like I said, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”
“And I don’t care.” The words snap out of me, sharper than I intend. His expression shifts, just slightly, but enough to know I struck a nerve. “You owe me nothing. And I’m perfectly capable of getting there on my own.”
He smirks again, infuriatingly calm, annoyingly amused. “Let me rephrase then,” he says, stepping closer, his voice dipping lower. “There’s no universe where I let you climb into a stranger’s car tonight.”
He lets the silence stretch before finishing, “So. Are you going to walk to the car like a big girl… or are you going to make me carry you?”
“You wouldn’t dare,” I say, lifting my chin like that might mask the heat creeping up my neck.
Calvin’s eyes flick to my mouth, then back to my eyes. It’s brief, but I feel that small glance like a caress all over my body.
“Try me.”
God, he’s infuriating. And worse, he’s strong enough to actually do it. I can already see the headline: Wealthy CEO Charged with Kidnapping His Fiancée’s Sister. Fuck, why does that sound like something I’d read in one of those unhinged dark romance books I refuse to delete from my Kindle?
No. Absolutely not.
“Ugh, you are insufferable.”
“And yet,” he says smoothly, stepping past me to press the elevator call button, “you’re still here. Still arguing. Still not in that Uber.”
The audacity.
I clench my jaw. My options are limited, and the smug look on his face tells me he’s fully aware of it.
“This doesn’t mean you win,” I mutter, stomping into the elevator like the grown-up I absolutely don’t feel like right now.
He steps in after me, close enough that I can smell his cologne, spiced, expensive, intoxicating. It takes everything in me not to lean in and inhale him like I’ve lost my mind.
“Of course not,” he murmurs, lips twitching.
I cross my arms and stare straight ahead. This man is a menace. A gorgeous, infuriating menace. And unfortunately, my ride.
Once in the garage, Calvin opens the back door of his car for me.
As I slide into the luxurious interior, my eyes land on a bouquet of white tulips on the seat next to me.
They’re stunning, and the urge to take a sniff is overwhelming.
But I remind myself they’re not mine, they’re for his fiancée, my sister.
She deserves flowers from her soon-to-be husband, and I shouldn’t be jealous.
So, why does it sting so much? I almost feel foolish, being so into a man that I can never have. Even if he wasn’t involved with Abby, what are the odds of someone like him ending up with someone like me? None is the answer.
Calvin rounds the car and opens the door, picking up the bouquet before sliding in beside me. I frown, glancing at him as he settles in.
“We’re good to go, Jarad,” he says, answering the question I didn’t voice. Of course he has a driver. At least we won’t be completely alone, that’s something.
“Yes, sir,” Jarad replies, starting the car.
I focus on canceling my Uber when Calvin speaks again. “I’ll reimburse you for that.”
“No, thank you,” I shoot back.
“It’s not a problem,”
“Obviously.” I roll my eyes before I can stop myself.
Silence drops between us like a stone. I can feel him looking at me, but I refuse to meet his gaze. Then, without a word, he holds out the bouquet of white tulips to me.
I blink, caught off guard.
“I asked the florist which flower says, ‘I’m sorry for being an ass,’” he says with a small shrug. “Apparently, it’s these.”
I try to keep my frown intact, but it wobbles. I take the flowers carefully, burying my nose in the petals. They smell like spring.
“You didn’t have to do this…” I murmur, a reluctant smile tugging at my lips. No one’s ever given me flowers before.
“I did,” he says quietly. “The last thing I want is for you to feel uncomfortable around me. When you thought I was mad after what happened in the kitchen… that didn’t sit right with me. You didn’t do anything wrong. If anyone crossed a line, it was me.”
He exhales like he’s debating whether to say more. Then seems to think better of it.
I glance over at him, studying the hard lines of his profile, surprisingly softened now by something like regret.
“What do you mean?” I ask, wanting to know, needing to know.
“It doesn’t matter. I know I’ve already said it, but the omelet was superb,” he praises and I beam.
“Thank you. And… thank you for the flowers. I love them,” I say softly, unable to look away from him.
The bouquet sits in my lap. My fingers brush the edge of a petal as silence stretches taut between us again.
Calvin shifts slightly in his seat. There’s still plenty of space between us; the car is big enough to feel like a lounge, but somehow, I feel him right next to me. Like gravity’s playing tricks.
“Let me guess,” he says finally, “your favorite color’s pink.” He is clearly trying to break the silence and ease the awkwardness between us since the kitchen incident, so I let him.
Glancing over at him, I let a cautious smile slip through. “What gave me away?”
He leans in just slightly, his voice low and deliberate. “You wear it like armor.”
That cuts through me. “What makes you say that?”
He studies me for a heartbeat, eyes narrowing just enough to make the moment electric. “Because it’s soft. But there’s something sharp beneath it, something that tells me you wield it like a weapon.”
My fingers tighten around the tulip stem, tracing its fragile curves almost absentmindedly, but my pulse flares under his gaze.
“And?” I press, breath catching.
“And people always underestimate choices like that,” he says. “Until they learn the hard way not to.”
I shouldn’t feel this: exposed, seen, somehow naked under his stare. Not when he’s supposed to be off-limits.
But I do.
A crooked, dangerous smile flickers over my lips. “So… do you analyze everyone’s wardrobe? Or just the women your fiancée’s related to?”
His mouth twitches, just the barest hint of a smirk. “Only the ones who nearly burned down my kitchen.”
I laugh, the sound light but genuine. “I did not,” I snap playfully, chest rising, “and you know it; I’m an excellent cook.”
“That you are.”
Our eyes lock and the world slows, stretching and bending until it feels like time itself is fragile glass ready to shatter.
His gaze sharpens a fraction. “You should stop looking at me like that.”
I swallow hard, heart thudding against my ribs. “Like what?”
“Like you want to ask a question you already know the answer to.”
His words hit me like electricity, leaving me raw and exposed.
I blink. My throat tightens. “Oh.”
It’s the only thing I can manage, barely a whisper. Because this… this can’t be real.
Calvin wants me.
And now that I know it, I can’t unknow it. It’s carved into my skin, pulsing in my veins. There’s no pretending anymore, no safe place to hide the way my body reacts when he so much as looks at me like that.
It was easier when it was just my secret. My shame. At least then I had the illusion of control. At least then I wasn’t betraying her. But this? This is wildfire.
I place the tulips gently between us, like they might absorb the heat radiating off my skin. The soft scent of petals clashes with the sharp tang of adrenaline flooding my body.
“No.” My voice is a thread. I try again, stronger. “This can’t… this won’t happen.”
The words spill out too fast, too brittle. They don’t sound like conviction. They sound like a girl trying to lie to herself in the dark.
He doesn’t argue. Just reclines slightly in his seat, mouth curving ever so slightly.
And then, he hums. A low, almost amused sound that makes my spine go rigid.
“What?” I snap. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” he says. “Just… coming to a realization.”
“And what realization is that?”
He shrugs casually, but his eyes tell a different story, lit with heat, hunger, and restraint pulled tight like a fraying rope.
“That this,” he says slowly, “is already happening.”
My pulse nosedives straight into my stomach.
“It’s not,” I fire back, too fast, but the tremor in my voice betrays me. It betrays everything.
And the way he looks at me in that moment, like he’s already pulled the thread and watched me come undone, makes something in me unravel.
Because he knows.
And now, so do I.
I can’t be this girl.
I am not this girl.
Not the girl who wants what she can’t have, shouldn’t dare to have.
But the arrogance in his voice… it’s like it’s already written. Like my falling into his bed is a foregone conclusion. As though he’s already seen the ending and is just waiting for me to catch up.
I’m seconds away from snapping, from telling him exactly where he can shove that smug confidence, when Jarad’s voice crackles from the front seat.
“We’re here, sir.”
The car slows, turning down a quiet, tree-lined street. Too familiar. My parents’ porch light glows in the distance like a warning flare.
The second the car stops, I bolt. I don’t wait for him to speak. I don’t give him the chance. This can’t be real. This shouldn’t be real.
It was reckless. Inappropriate. Wrong. But it happened, and now the question isn’t ‘what do I do about it?’ It’s ‘how do I stop it from happening again?’ I’ll stay away from him. That’s it. I have to.