CHAPTER 6 DANNY
“I didn’t think you’d show,” she says softly. She’s wearing jeans and a white t-shirt and looks like she just stepped out of my dreams.
“I wasn’t sure if I was going to,” I admit. I’m late, something I don’t address, because I met a friend, and we had a glass of whiskey that lasted longer than I’d anticipated. But I also didn’t think she’d show up…yet she’s here. I voice that. “And I didn’t think you would, either.”
“I’m here, Danny.” Her voice is…tired. Strained. Beaten down.
“So am I. Maybe for different reasons. I have a commercial shoot that starts tomorrow.” I’m not sure why I take the jab. Maybe because I’m hurt.
“Oh.” Her eyes turn down to the ground.
I feel like shit for making her feel bad when she’s clearly going through some things, but I can’t be with her when she’s engaged to someone else.
To that end, I close the gap between us and flash my phone at my door to get it to unlock. I turn back to her once I’ve opened the door, and she’s close.
Too close.
So close I can smell her. I can feel her heat. I can grab her into my arms and never let go.
Instead of any of that, I say, “You should go. You’re engaged, and I can’t—"
She interrupts me by pushing me into my room and rising onto her tiptoes to press her lips to mine.
I back up so the door closes behind her. The last thing we need is some hotel security camera catching her kissing me—or worse, someone walking down the hall.
I push back from her even though my body is screaming at me not to. “I’m sorry, Alexis, but I can’t be with somebody who’s wearing another man’s ring on her finger.”
She slips the ring off her finger, sets it on the hotel dresser, and gazes pointedly at me. “It’s not real. You know that.”
“Real or not, you said yes,” I point out.
She huffs out a frustrated breath. She wanders over toward the window and gazes out through the sheer curtain pulled over the window as she speaks rather than facing me.
..rather than facing this conversation. “I knew this was going to ruin things between us. It’s why I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. ”
“Wait a minute. You knew he was going to propose?”
She clears her throat as she turns to face me again. “My father brought it up before the tour.”
I mean…I suppose I appreciate the honesty, but she’s wrestled with this information for an entire six months, and she hasn’t bothered to tell me?
I thought we were closer than that. I thought I meant more to her than that.
Maybe I’ve been a fool all along who was just seeing what he wanted to see.
I clench my jaw instead of responding.
“He told me he wanted me to focus on the tour and we’d revisit the idea when we got back. He wants a merger with D-Three—the company Brooks’s dad owns. And he says the FTC and DOJ are more likely to let a huge merger like this pass through if it’s two families merging together, too.”
“A marriage,” I echo.
“A marriage,” she confirms.
“And you agreed to this?”
She shakes her head. “I told him to find another way to make the merger happen. He told me if I accepted Brooks’s proposal, he’d rewrite my contract.”
“The contract you’ve had since you were sixteen,” I murmur.
“Yeah.” She presses her lips together.
So she was stuck.
Maybe if she talked to me about it, we could’ve found a way out.
Or maybe that’s delusional and we never really had much of a chance in the first place.
“You could’ve told me.”
“I didn’t want to. We were getting to know each other. Falling for each other. I was scared you’d run the other way before you gave us a real chance.”
“I thought you knew me better than that.”
“I do.” She shrugs a little then holds out her hands to indicate this entire situation.
“Because look what you’re doing. You’re ready to run.
I get it, Danny. Really. You’re scared of commitment.
You want no part of infidelity because of what you’ve been through, and I don’t blame you. But this…this isn’t infidelity.”
“It’s a gray area, Alexis, and you’re asking me to compromise my entire belief system.”
“If it’s a gray area, then maybe I’m not,” she counters.
“Does he know you’re here?” I ask.
“Who? Brooks? Or my father?”
“Either.”
“No.” She shakes her head.
I sigh. “That’s what I figured. If you’re keeping me a secret, then how do I know what the fuck to believe about any of this?”
“I was honest with you from the start about what Brooks and I have.”
“And I’m supposed to pin my beliefs on that? Take you at your word when you’ve been keeping this whole engagement thing from me?”
“I thought I had more time,” she practically yells.
“I was going to tell you tomorrow—after we had our night. I just wanted to get to you. I’ve been waiting for this moment for the last six months, and before that…
for the last four years, Danny. Or maybe my entire lifetime.
I just want you. I want this. I want to figure out how we make this work. ”
I speak to my fears when I answer. “And when we’re caught—because you know we’ll be caught, there’s just no way around it with the paparazzi sniffing around your ass constantly—then what? Then I’m cast as the other man. The homewrecker. The man who went after someone else’s girl.”
She freezes as the pieces of this terrible puzzle finally come together.
She knows I’m right.
She walks slowly across the room toward me.
“Then I guess it’s up to you to decide what’s more important to you.
What other people might think if some hypothetical situation actually comes to pass, or what you really feel in here.
” She pats my chest over my heart. “Because I know what I feel, Danny. I know whatever this is between us, it’s explosive.
It’s real. It’s hot and it’s heavy. But if you’re willing to give it all up because of this…
this…this lie, then maybe I was all wrong about you. ”
Her eyes are fixed on mine, and I study hers. I search hers. We haven’t had nearly the amount of time together we deserve, but I can’t deny that the spark is there between us. She’s right. It’s real and hot and heavy and different.
“That’s not fair,” I whisper. “You can’t make it seem like I’m the one giving it up when you’re the one who accepted another man’s marriage proposal.”
“It’s a lie. A sham. I’ll prove it if you don’t believe me.”
Though I’m curious how exactly she’d secure proof, I don’t need it.
She’s right—I believe her. I trust her.
“The engagement is an act for the Alexis Bodega brand, okay? It has nothing to do with the girl in here.” She points to her chest. “It wasn’t Caroline Alexis Bodega who accepted that ring.
It wasn’t the girl behind the brand name.
And I don’t know what to do to make you believe me.
If I have to find some way out of it, I will.
I will do whatever it takes for you to know that you are the man I want to be with.
The only man I want. Maybe the only man I have ever wanted.
I would give up everything just so you know that, Danny. ”
I study her eyes for a few more beats, and then something inside me snaps as I lower my mouth to meet hers.
Maybe I’m compromising my morals for her.
But I’ve already changed who I am because of her, so what’s one more thing added to the list?
It’s nothing at all.
Not when you know you’re in love.