But how was he supposed to bring it up when there wasn’t a guarantee they’d click? It could wait until their date on Friday.
While in the car between visits, Constance would pull out her textbooks and study. Every so often he’d glance in her direction and watch her. She had this quiet serenity about her that he’d only recently started to notice.
She couldn’t be more different from Brielle.
Constance must have felt his eyes on her because she lifted her eyes from her book and stared at him. “What?”
He shrugged and stared out the window. “Nothing.” When he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, she was still focused on him. “Our last stop is the country club.”
The book in her lap snapped shut. “Okay.”
“You never told me what happened on your date.”
“Nope I didn’t.”
He gave her a side-eyed stare. “You can tell me, you know.”
She snickered. “Do you honestly want to hear me tell you how Shane held my hand over dinner and rubbed his thumb across my knuckles?”
James stiffened, his jaw clenched. Shoot. She was right. If he had to listen to her recount everything that happened, he didn’t know if he’d be able to talk to Shane until he came to terms with it.
“…or how he walked me to my front door and kissed—”
“Nope. Nope, you’re right. I don’t want to know.”
A smile spread across her face. “Good. Because it didn’t happen.”
His head snapped around and he stared at her for a moment before returning his attention to the road. “It didn’t?”
She folded her arms and turned away from him, focusing on the landscape out the window. “I canceled our date and that’s when I came to see you.”
“Why?”
Constance let out a huff but didn’t meet his curious gaze. “Everything I said at your clinic was true. What would you have done? Would you have gone on a date with someone when all you could think about was someone else?” She peeked at him. “You know, it’s funny. I used to think that you had a thing for my sister.”
And just like that, he felt like the air had been sucked right out of his lungs. He could tell her right now that she’d hit the nail on the head. He could confess that he’d spent a lot of his formative years with Brielle.
Only, Brielle had all but threatened him if he even so much as whispered a word about their past.
And what would it accomplish? To tell her that he’d dated her sister first—a woman who was so different from her—could be unsettling. With how much he hated the idea of her going ononedate with Shane, deep down he knew she wouldn’t be thrilled about knowing this little tidbit of information.
Suddenly Brielle’s threat made more sense. If Constance found out about Brielle, their relationship could suffer as well.
He cleared his throat and forced a chuckle. “That’s funny.”
“Is it?”
“Sure is.” His grip on the steering wheel tightened and relaxed. “We were friends in high school, but you knew that already.”
“Yeah,” she murmured quietly. “So you’ve never had feelings for her? I’d understand if you did.”
James glanced at her, noting the worry lines on her forehead and the way her mouth had tightened into a thin line. There wasn’t any harm in keeping this kind of information from her. Nothing would change based on her knowing or not knowing. But a bold-faced lie would be harder to hide. “I might have had a little crush on her, but you know the rules.”
Her features scrunched and her frown deepened. “What rules?”
“When you were younger. Your sister couldn’t date until Adeline was hitched.” Once again his stomach tightened uncomfortably. Right here. This was the best time to bring it up. But if he did, he’d have to tell her why he was so against her keeping their possible relationship a secret. Everything would come out and he’d already fibbed.
Sacrifices would have to be made.