He gave her his best version of lecherous. “Just one really big stick.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “I set you up perfectly for that, didn’t I?”
The waiter came to refill their water glasses just as she asked, “Are the rest of your brothers like you? Big and tough on the outside, but gentle romantics on the inside?”
As the waiter left, Chase pretended she’d just wounded him, his hand over his chest. “I once picked up a novel on my sister’s bed that used the words velvet-covered steel to talk about the guy’s junk. I’m pretty sure what you just said reduced me to a velvet-covered marshmallow. Our waiter may never look at me the same way again. He’s probably calling the club now so they can kick me out of it.”
Chloe laughed again, loud enough that a few heads turned to admire the beautiful couple in the corner. “Being a nice person doesn’t in any way change the fact that you’re all man.”
“That statement would have had a heck of a lot more impact if you weren’t half-giggling as you said it,” he informed her, half-joking, half-serious.
Still giggling, she said, “Sorry. Although, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to get the words velvet-covered marshmallow—or the image of it—out of my head.”
“I plan on making damn sure they’re gone later tonight,” he promised, heat flickering in his eyes along with the laughter.
“So, back to your family. Are any of your other big, strapping brothers closet romantics?”
She couldn’t help it—she loved hearing about his brothers and sisters, imagining how nice it would be to always know that they were there for you. To laugh with. To joke with. Even to argue with.
“It will just be our little secret.”
Chase shook his head. “I’m pretty sure screwing anything that moves doesn’t qualify as romantic. Apart from Marcus. He’s the only one who doesn’t play that way anymore, although he definitely used to before he met his girlfriend.”
“Screwing anything that moves.” Chloe worked to tamp down on the sudden twisting in her gut and tried to keep her voice light. “As long as everyone knows the score, I guess that’s okay.”
But Chase instantly saw through her. “I’m not going to lie to you. I used to be one of those guys.”
She swallowed, hating the thought of Chase so much as looking at another woman. Kissing another woman. Touching another woman. Making love to another woman.
Her stomach lurched and she abruptly put down her fork. “Okay. Thanks for being honest.”
He reached across the table, taking her hand in his. “I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t want to be that guy anymore.”
She wanted so desperately to believe him. But she knew first-hand that it wasn’t that easy. “But isn’t it exactly what you’ve been doing with me?”
“No.”
“Yes,” she countered. “We met, I moved, we had sex.”
“You’re different, Chloe. You’re special.”
Angry at herself for how badly she wanted the fairytale to come true, she said, “How can you possibly know that? In the four days since we met, you and I have had sex nearly every moment that we’ve been alone. That fits the criteria pretty perfectly, doesn’t it? Odds are pretty darn high that you’ll move on to your next shoot and find another woman who can’t get enough of you.”
She could see that flicker of frustration on his face. The same one that had him taking her up against the front door a couple of hours ago.
Why did she keep pushing him like this? Why couldn’t she just accept that he meant what he said about her?
But she knew why, knew that deep down she was afraid she was the same twenty-two-year-old girl who had fallen for her ex’s lines, his pretty words, for a warmth she’d so desperately wanted to believe was there...and ended up marrying a man who didn’t know—or like her—at all.
Chloe didn’t know what she expected Chase to say, if she’d thought he would drag her into the back of the restaurant to teach her another lesson about just how good they were together, but she definitely didn’t expect him to reach into his jacket pocket, pull out an envelope, and put it on the table.
She looked at it, then up at him just as he said, “I didn’t fall in love with you because you’re so lovely it hurts to look at you. I didn’t fall in love with you because you make love like a dream. All of that is just a bonus.”
She swallowed hard. Those three sentences had just made the top ten things any man had ever said to her.
Her hands trembled as she picked up the envelope.
She could tell there were pictures inside it. And she was afraid to look at them.
Not because she was worried about not looking pretty...but because she’d learned over the past few days that Chase saw everything.
Especially the things people were trying their hardest to hide.
Finally, she slipped a finger beneath the flap and pulled out the small stack of photos.
She was laughing in the photo on top of the stack. Her mouth was wide open, her head was thrown back as she looked at something on Amanda’s phone.
“She was showing me one of those funny auto-correct lists. A woman had texted her husband ‘I’m pregnant’ and he wrote back ‘I’m leaving you’ when what he meant to say was ‘I’m leaving now’ because he wanted to come home and celebrate with her.”