Sadie and Andrew are close, unlike my sister and me. It never really bothered me, but I feel a hint of envy over their relationship. Bell is surrounded by family, and it’s about to grow by one more. My Sunday afternoon plans? Brunch with a college friend I only keep in touch with because she works in my industry, not because I like her, followed by spending a few hours in the office.
“All right,” Andrew says. “But just tonight, not Sunday. Bell has gymnastics tomorrow afternoon.”
“Thank you,” Bell says, her voice an octave too high, then takes Sadie’s hand and pulls. “Come on.”
“Whoa,” Andrew says. “No goodbye kiss? Since when?”
Bell runs into Andrew’s open arms and hugs his neck. “I’ll take a picture of the nursery on Aunt Sadie’s phone and send it to you.”
“Don’t forget,” he warns.
She kisses his cheek and turns to stare at me. Neither of us speaks. I’m the adult, but it’s not like I can just shake her hand with a ‘nice to meet you’ or ‘let’s do lunch sometime’ so I just look back at her.
“Say goodbye to Amelia,” Andrew says to her.
“Bye, ’Mila.”
“Ameel-ee-a,” Andrew corrects.
“That’s what I said. ’Mila.”
She continues to stare at me like she did on our way to the restaurant. I can’t quite read her expression, and my discomfort is at an all-time high. To my extreme embarrassment, I put out my hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Are you going to kiss my dad?”
I cover my mouth, stunned by the absolute last question I expected. “Excuse me?”
“Jesus, Bell,” Andrew says, his words uncharacteristically clipped. “How many times have I told you not to—”
His chastisement is drowned out by Sadie’s fit of laughter. “Andrew and Amelia,” she sings.
“Kissing in a tree,” Bell picks up, her eyes lighting with excitement. “K-i-s-s—”
“For Christ’s sake, Sadie,” Andrew says. “Don’t encourage her.”
“Fine, fine. Hey—avec is on the way to your train, Andrew,” she says. “Maybe you could walk Amelia back.”
“That’s not necessary,” I say.
“But it’s on the way,” Sadie points out. “What are you going to do, walk a few feet behind him?”
Aha. Sadie knows. Andrew and I no longer need to keep this secret from her. But Bell’s presence, while surprisingly welcome, makes me more conscious of Andrew’s real life. It makes me awkward. She’s a real person now, something I can’t ignore.
Sadie smiles, takes Bell’s hand, and pulls her away. “We’ll get a cab to our station. See you tomorrow, Andrew.”
Once we’re alone, I look at Andrew. “Did you tell her?”
“No.” Andrew crosses his arms. “It was Nathan.”
“He knows?”
“He thinks he does, and he definitely said something to her. That’s why she invited you.”
I twist my lips. “But then why would she leave us alone?”
“Isn’t it obvious? To give us time together.”
“I doubt it. She wouldn’t be that cool about her boss and her brother. Correction—her man-hating boss, and her heartbroken brother.”
He quirks his lips into what’s becoming his signature smile. “I’m not heartbroken.”
“You aren’t?” I ask, turning to face him. “I thought we had a pact.”
“Are you heartbroken?”
I am a lot of things where Reggie is concerned—angry, embarrassed, regretful. Do I miss him, though? No. Maybe, sometimes, the idea of him. The husband I thought I would have. “No.”
“Are you . . .” He shuffles a step toward me. “Man-hating?”
I let my gaze drift from his galaxy-blue eyes down his slightly stubbly throat to the collar of his t-shirt. “All men, as a unit, yes. Individually, though, exceptions can be made.”
“Hate me or love me, fate has put us together again with nowhere to be. What should we do?”
“Maybe you have nowhere to be. I have to go back to the office.” I turn on my heel, but he catches my elbow.
“You’re not going to back to the office.”
I try unsuccessfully to wriggle out of his grip. With his warm hand on me, and halfway under his spell, I can’t remember why I’m not supposed to spend another night with him. I just know it’s better that I don’t. “Yes. I am.”
He pulls me to him so his face hovers over mine. “No . . . you’re not.”
“I have work to do.”
“And I have you to do.”
I smirk. “Very cute. But—”
He cuts me off with a kiss so quick, it’s over before I realize it’s happening. He smiles. “I know what I said about—”
“Don’t,” I say, taking my arm back. If he tries to renege on our no-strings deal, I definitely won’t be able to take him home tonight, and there’s a side of me that’s fighting for it.
“Don’t what?” After a moment, he glances off to the side and then back. “I was going to say . . . I know I made a big thing about the Tahitian vanilla, but I might’ve changed my mind.” He smiles a little. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”
If he’s trying to tell me something else, I won’t hear it. “I was serious about not seeing you again.”
“I know you were. That’s why I’m here—to change your mind.”
I watch his lips as he talks to avoid his mesmerizing eyes, but they’re just as hard to resist. Those lips can kiss. They can suck. They can tip me over the edge. I don’t want to get even close to the edge, though. It hurts when you fall. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“I’m aware of that.”
He knows this is against the rules. So do I. Yet I’m here, considering another night.
“I kept picturing that gorgeous body of yours,” he says. “You know it’s beautiful, right? Even if you’d had a piece of bread at dinner, you’d still have a smoking-hot body.”
“Why are you bringing that up?” I ask.
“I’m not.” He looks me over. “Was dinner okay, though?”
“That restaurant wouldn’t be my first choice, but—”
“Not that. Bell.”
“Oh.” Seeing Andrew in his element, any doubts I might’ve had about his character, due to his gender, were squashed. It also means I can’t ignore the fact that there are other people involved. I look away as I admit, “It was fine. Better than fine. I had a good time.”
“I don’t know where she’s getting that kissing stuff, but it’s freaking me out.”
I furrow my brows and turn quickly back to him. “Maybe she’s confused. About you being a single dad. It’s confusing even for me.”
He tilts his head. “Is it? Why?”
“You’re kind of a rare breed. I can’t exactly put my finger on it.”
Tentatively, he slips an arm around my waist and tugs me against his body. I let him. “Try,” he says.
“You might not like it.”
“I don’t care.”
I’ve known Andrew as a man, a one-night stand. Now I know him as something else, someone who normally wouldn’t appeal to me. “Kids are foreign to me. I’m not really into them. I never thought you being a dad could make you somehow . . .”
Suddenly, I realize I’ve been tracing the outline of his flower-cluster tattoo through his t-shirt. I stop.
“What does it make me?” he asks.
“Sexier.” I sigh and look into his eyes. What’s left of my resolve melts. “It makes you sexier.”
“Seeing you with Bell was sexy as hell, Amelia.”
I widen my eyes, shocked. “But I tried to shake her hand. I’m not that kind of woman—I . . . I made a complete ass out of myself.”
He chuckles. “You did better than you realize. I don’t think you can do wrong now that she knows how you feel about Frozen.”
“Picking a favorite Disney movie is a lot of pressure.”
“She loves Beauty and the B
east. So how about we go back to your place and I’ll play the beast, you be the beauty, some inanimate objects sing, and then we fuck. That’s how the fairytale goes, right?”
I smirk, but something pulls deep in my stomach at his bluntness. And from the look on his face, he knows exactly what he’s doing to me. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
“In all seriousness,” he says, “I came here tonight determined to see you again. I’ve been sexually frustrated since I left you. But watching you with Bell . . . that was new for me. And it feels weird.”
“Bad weird?”