Dropping The Ball - A New Year’s Billionaire Romance - Weston Parker Page 0,44
pants as much as ever, but now I’m going to be watching you even closer.”
“You’re not only going to be seeing a sick girl if you look at me now?”
I shook my head, grinning as I dropped a kiss on her forehead and backed away a little. “I still only see you, and you’re going to be the end of me.”
We went for a long walk after dinner, ending up at the Christmas tree. I didn’t let go of her hand once, and as I watched her illuminated by the multi-colored lights with a soft smile on her face. I tugged her closer to me to rest my head on top of hers.
She came around me instead, looping her arms around my neck. “Thank you for keeping your promise.”
“Thank you for trusting me with your secret.” Our mouths met in a stupid but lingering kiss that only ended when I heard a snapshot being taken from our left. Fuck. I knew I shouldn’t have kissed her right here.
Moving faster than I ever had, I pulled her behind me and prepared to square off with whoever the fuck had just taken a picture. Jesus. Relax. You don’t even know if the picture was of you yet.
When I saw the photographer with his camera pointed directly at us, rage unlike anything I’d ever known swept through me. I stepped forward to grab that camera and crush it on his fucking face, but Rylee’s hand on my arm stopped me.
“That’s Nathan Biles from the Times,” she said softly, then added a little louder. “It’s no biggie. So what if I have a new boyfriend, Nathan? No one cares.”
“I fucking care,” he grumbled, and unease gripped my gut.
“He’s always looking into my life,” she said to me, wrapping her fingers around my forearm and pulling me away from him. “I turned him down once and he’s still butt-hurt by it. That’s probably all this is. Let’s not do anything to provoke him, okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed, but I didn’t like it that he’d just happened to show up where we were.
Not one little fucking bit.
Chapter 16
RYLEE
“Bart cleared us for hand-holding and kisses on the cheek, not full-on making out in public,” Carter said once I’d dragged him into an ice-cream shop for dessert. I refused to let that incident with Nathan ruin our date, even if I was shaken by it too. “I need to give him a call.”
“Just tell him I kissed you out of the blue when I saw Nathan.” I shrugged. “You can’t get in trouble if I’m the one who did something I shouldn’t have.”
“I’m not pinning it on you.” His shoulders were still rigid with tension, but there was light in his eyes when he looked at me. “You’re definitely not the only one who did something they shouldn’t have. We both gave in to our baser instincts. It was stupid, but at least you know now how much I still want you.”
It’d been terrifying to make myself that vulnerable to him, but I was relieved that he knew the truth now. I still very much wanted to take things further between us, but I hadn’t wanted to do it without him knowing what he was potentially getting himself into.
His reaction had been better than I’d even dared to hope for, and the kiss had been just as fervent as the previous ones. It was safe to say that he wasn’t one of those guys who was scared of the damaged girls. If anything, he seemed even more intense now than before. It made me want him even more.
“We don’t even know if Nathan will publish that picture,” I said. “If you need to tell Bart, tell him tomorrow? Or am I being a super bad influence right now?”
“You’re being a super bad influence right now,” he said, “but I kind of like it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter. I still need to give him a heads-up.”
Remembering what I’d promised Jules if my relationship with Carter got in the way of him doing his job, I nodded when he pulled out his phone.
He tapped out a quick text before flashing me a grin. “See? That wasn’t so bad. I’ll include a full update in my briefing tomorrow morning, but for now, I just needed to make sure he knew.”
“Do you think he’s going to pull you off my detail now?” My heart clenched painfully at the thought, but Carter shook his head.