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He smiles wryly. “I don’t want an out.”

I smile, nodding. Growing more aware that I am still sitting here naked with this man I just met. “So, finance?”

He nods.

“Do you like it?” I ask, smiling.

“Love it,” he says quickly.

My eyebrows perk up. “Really?” I grimace. “It seems so restrictive. Boring and kind of like … redundant?”

He scowls. “And what do you do?”

I shrug. “I’m a painter. Actually, the reason I am staying here is because I was supposed to be in an art show at the gallery next door tonight, showing off a piece.”

“What happened?”

I groan. “I didn’t reply to the email, so I lost the spot, and it was so stupid because I totally meant to.”

He runs a hand over his hair. “And what do you do for money?”

I drop my jaw. “What kind of question is that?” I ask, offended.

“A logical one?”

I scoff, suddenly feeling even more confused by this match. “Honestly, it’s none of your business, but my parents fund my grad school and apartment, and everything. But you and me … we are opposites. I thought my mother was trying to match me up with the man of my dreams … turns out …”

His eyes narrow. “What does your mother have to do with this?”

I wrap my hair into a bun on the top of my head, securing it with a hair tie. “She filled out the application or whatever. And she must have lied. I go for artists, for philosophers, for writers — not business men who order steak and wear loafers. Not men who aren’t emotionally available.”

“Are you fucking with me?” he asks, setting down his empty glass.

I shake my head. “No. I mean, you say hardly two words at dinner, fuck me senseless and then get all closed up again. I want a man who wears more than a hard-on, I want a man who wears his heart on his sleeve too.”

Neil is reaching for his pants, and pulls them on. “I don’t think you know what you want, Imogen.”

I blanch as he buttons his shirt. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I blink rapidly, confused as to why this has to spiral so fast. “I like you, Neil. You make me feel …”

He pauses, looking at me. “What?”

I look up at him. His deep brown eyes searching mine. “Everything.”

He steps toward me where I still sit on the edge of the bed. “Do you like that?”

I take a deep breathe. Do I like that? “What kind of question is that?”

“Yes or no. Do you like it when I’m with you or not?”

“I …” I don’t know what to say. And this never happens. Yes, I like it, but also Neil unnerves me. Makes me doubt everything. “We just met.”

“Whatever your mom put on the application,” he says, reaching for his coat, “must have been a lie.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I asked for a career-oriented woman who know what she wants. Do you even want to be a wife?”

I nearly spit out my drink. “A wife?”

6

NEIL

The way she looks at me makes me feel like a fucking fool.

She is clearly all wrong for me— just look at her. So beautiful it’s as if she was plucked out of a painting herself.

A muse in her own right, and way too enchanting for a stick-in-the-mud like me.

She repeats herself and it sends a dagger to my heart. “A wife? Really? That’s what my mom said? I mean, I’m … I never … we just…”

I need to get out of here. Now.

“No explanation necessary. I get it.”

“Neil, wait,” she says, wrapping a sheet around her.

I turn back, my heart tightening as I look at this woman who has my head spinning. “What?”

“You and me … we’re opposites, but … I swear…”

“Swear what?” I ask. Truth is, I feel something deep, something so damn real it scares me. I haven’t felt this way since Margene.

I may have just met Imogen but I knew the moment she sat down at the table that she was the one for me. Her eyes, her laugh — they way she made me feel. Like together we could fight the odds. Like together we might have that real, intangible, once in a lifetime thing: love at first sight.

But when I look into her eyes I see she is already backing away, shaking her head — is she scared?

“I swear I must have read this all wrong,” she says, looking at me in disbelief.

I want to tell her she didn’t. That she read this right. I want to tell her how I feel, what I am thinking — that I maybe be self-controlled but one night with her makes me want to be reckless, to throw caution to the wind, to turn a new leaf and make her mine. If I could, I know she would wrap her arms round me, I know she would be mine — but instead I feel my chest tighten, my shoulders stiffening … my vulnerability pulling me away.


Tags: Frankie Love Romance