She was.
What was she going to say?
“Um…” she repeated.
She stopped speaking again.
His entire face, bathed in moonlight, smiled.
Seeing it, Belle’s mind went completely blank again as her belly did a weird, not unpleasant in the slightest, flip.
“Why are you here?” he asked quietly.
She felt her head give a tiny jerk and then tilt.
“Here?” she parroted.
“In the study,” he explained. “Away from the party.” He hesitated and his voice was deeper when he went on, “Away from Miles.”
Well, one thing she knew, she couldn’t tell him his brother was driving her up the wall and she was breaking up with him that very next day.
“Um…” she said yet again then her mind kicked in gear. “I needed a break. I’m not a people person.”
Now why did she tell him that?
It sounded rude and it made her sound like an idiot.
A rude idiot.
Even though it was true.
He seemed to get even closer when he remarked, “I guessed that.”
She was stunned and a little disappointed. She thought she’d been pretty good at hiding it.
“You did?”
She heard his soft chuckle. It was a delicious sound. Just as delicious as it was the first time she heard it and that made her belly do a weird, intensely pleasant flip too.
“Yes, Belle. You’re definitely not a people person,” he told her.
For some reason she didn’t like him thinking that so she decided to explain. “No, it’s just a lot of people, all together, at once. Normally I’m okay, you know, on a one-on-one basis.”
“Like now?” he asked.
No, she was definitely not okay standing in a moonlit room with Magnetic James Bennett chatting one-on-one.
“Kind of,” she semi-fibbed (all right, so it was an out and out lie).
He studied her a moment and then moved away. She watched as he put the glass he’d been holding on the desk then turned back to her.
Her body locked as his strong fingers curled just above her elbow. She felt them there, so hot on her skin she thought they were going to leave burn marks.
As she was thinking this, he moved to her side and propelled her forward.
She took two steps then froze, rooted to the spot.
Her head tilted to look at him and she queried, “Where are we going?”