She gave a groan and covered her face with her hands.
Now what?
She dug in her purse for
her phone, her hand shaking. “Paige? I think I might be in trouble.”
“You’re pregnant?”
“Why does ‘trouble’ always have to mean pregnant?”
“I don’t know. It just came out. Tell me what’s wrong. You’ve dropped red wine on his white sofa? You deleted his book by accident?”
“I’m in love with him. And if you say ‘I told you so,’ I’m hanging up.”
Paige didn’t say that. “Is there any chance he might feel the same way?”
“No chance.”
“Are you sure?”
Eva thought about his determination never to fall in love again. “I’m sure. It’s definitely not on his bucket list.”
Her chest ached. Her brain ached.
Lucas was right. Love wasn’t a fairy tale. It was messy and painful.
“Does he know how you feel?”
“Not yet. But I’m not exactly good at hiding my feelings, as you know. I’m not sure what I should do.”
There was a pause. “You can end the job if you want to. Make an excuse that we’re busy and we need you.”
“No. If I do a job, then I see it through. This job is worth a lot to us.” But that wasn’t the whole reason. She wanted him to finish his book. She knew how important that was to him, and if her being here helped him do that then she’d stay. “I’m already in love, so staying isn’t going to make that part any worse. The only thing that worries me is that he’ll find out.”
“Would that be such a bad thing?”
“It would be pretty awkward. Damn.” She slumped on the side of the bath.
She’d wanted to love deeply, and now she did.
What she hadn’t wanted was to fall in love with a man who wasn’t interested in risking his heart a second time.
That was the ultimate twist.
That, she thought, was her idea of a horror story.
Eighteen
Less is more, unless it’s love or chocolate.
—Eva
If she was sensible, she probably would have tried to distance herself.
She believed it was possible to fall in love more than once, but what if it never happened? What if this was the only experience of real love she was going to have in her lifetime? In case it was, she wanted to make the most of it. But every moment they spent together was tinged with poignancy, sharpened with an edge of sadness, because she knew it was going to end.
Now that he had a completed draft, some of the urgency left him and he reduced his crazy work sessions where he sometimes didn’t seem to come up for air.