Chapter 12 Holly
Holly
“But I can't pretend anymore—”
“Evan.” My voice comes out in a shudder.
His eyes drop to his jacket around my shoulders. For a second he just stares at it. Then he reaches up, fingers finding the lapels, and pulls them tighter around me.
His hands linger there, thumbs brushing the wool.
“Holly,” he says again, his hands sliding from the lapels to my shoulders. Holding me steady. Or maybe holding himself steady.
“I can't pretend that watching you work doesn't make me forget what I'm supposed to be doing. I can't pretend that seeing you across a room doesn't change my entire day. I can't pretend this is fake when it's the most real thing I've felt in years.”
“What if this is just—” I swallow hard. “What if we're confusing the performance with actual feelings?”
“Are you?”
“I don't know. That's what scares me.”
He reaches for one hand, wraps his fingers around mine.
“What else scares you?” he asks.
“That if we do this and it goes wrong, we lose what we have now. This ... friendship. Partnership. Whatever this is.”
“What if it goes right?”
“That scares me too.” I’m being more honest than I meant to be. “What if I'm just someone convenient? You needed a date, I was there—”
“Holly.” He takes my other hand, both hands clasped between us now. “Nothing about you is convenient. You challenge everything I thought I knew. You saw parts of me I'd forgotten existed. You made my family's legacy feel like a gift instead of a burden.”
I step closer and suddenly I understand why people say 'falling'—it's exactly this vertigo, this sweet surrender to gravity.
“This could ruin everything,” I whisper.
“What if it doesn't?” His forehead touches mine. “Holly—”
“Your family events, my work with the foundation—”
“Are excuses.” His breath skims my cheek. “Tell me you don't feel this.”
“I—” My entire vocabulary reduces to three words on repeat: closer, more, please.
“I can't.”
“Then stop arguing with me,” he says.
“I'm not arguing.”
He lifts our joined hands, presses them against his chest. I can feel his heart racing under my palms.
“Not anymore,” he says.
I lean forward and kiss him.
I’m hyperaware and utterly lost at the same time—like my consciousness has split between memorizing every second and forgetting my own name. His lips are soft, almost still. Then I press closer and everything changes. He releases my hands to reach up and frame my face.
Oh. Oh, this is what I’ve been wanting.
EVAN
She kisses me and for one second, I’m too stunned to move.
Then she presses closer, and every reason I’ve had for keeping my distance dissolves.
I cradle her face, tilting to deepen the kiss. She grabs my shirt, pulling me closer, and the city noise fades. The cold disappears. There's just Holly, kissing me like she's been thinking about it as long as I have.
When we break apart to catch our breath, I can’t stop staring at her mouth.
“That was—” she starts.
“Not enough,” I finish.
Her hands are still twisted in my shirt. My hands are still cradling her face.
“We should stop,” she says.
“Why?”
“Because—” She pauses. “I can't think of a reason.”
“Good.” But I don't kiss her again yet. “Holly, are you sure? Because if we do this—”
“Everything changes, I know.”
“Everything’s already changed. You’ve been driving me insane for weeks.”
“Just weeks?”
“Since the beginning.”
Her eyes search mine. I’m not sure if she believes me.
“You bite your lip when you’re concentrating. Right here.” I brush the spot with my thumb. “You touch your collarbone when you’re nervous. You get this tiny crease right here”—I touch a fingertip between her eyebrows—”when someone’s being difficult but you’re too polite to say so.”
“You noticed that?”
“I notice everything about you.”
She releases her grip on my shirt and wraps her arms around me in a warm hug. We stand in the embrace.
“I wanted to kiss you all last weekend,” I say. “I kept watching you—so in your element, so certain about what you wanted. I was aching to be part of what you wanted.”
“Why didn’t you? Kiss me?”
“We had rules. An arrangement.” I tighten my arms around her. “I didn’t know if you wanted me to break them.”
“I did. I do.” She squeezes me back.
I lean down, press my lips to her hair.
“We're in so much trouble,” she says.
“I know.”
“I mean it. This is—we're going to—”
“Holly.” I pull her closer still. “I know.”
The city sprawls below us, oblivious. Inside, the gala continues without us.
“We should go back,” she says without any conviction.
“We should.”
Neither of us moves.
But then she steps out of our embrace, just enough to look up at me.
“One more,” she says. Her eyes linger on my lips before she meets my gaze again. “Just to be certain this is a terrible idea we won't regret.”
She pulls me down and we kiss with all the urgency we’ve both been holding back. I lift her barely off her feet and she gasps against my mouth, then wraps her arms tighter around my neck, rises higher on her toes, and opens her mouth against mine in a way that makes me groan.