to leave her in these mountains she loved?
“Your family’s there.” She stroked her knuckles down my cheek. It had been over a week since I’d shaved, and my stubble had moved into beard territory.
“They are.”
She swallowed, her eyebrows knitting.
“Tell me what you’re thinking, Georgia. Don’t make me guess.” My grip tightened on her slightly, as if I could keep her from slipping away.
Still, she stayed silent, her turbulent thoughts manifesting in the subtle tightening of her jaw.
Maybe she needs you to go first. Right. Time to tell her just how deep I was in this, how willing I was to make it work, and how unwilling I was to let her go.
“Look, Georgia, I’m wild about—”
“I think we should just call this what it really is,” she blurted.
We spoke at the same time, her words halting mine.
“And what is it?” I asked slowly.
“A fling.” She nodded.
My jaw snapped shut, my teeth clicking with the force. A fling? What the hell? I’d had my share of flings. This was not one of them.
“We’re attracted to each other, working in close quarters… It was bound to happen, and don’t get me wrong. I’m glad it did.” She lifted her brows and her cheeks pinkened. “Really, really glad it did.”
“Me too…”
“Good. I’d hate to feel like this was all one-sided,” she muttered.
“Trust me, it’s not.” And if it was, I was the one on the heavily invested side, which was a first.
“Okay, then. Let’s keep it simple. I’m not ready for anything big. I can’t just jump from one serious relationship right to the next. That’s not who I want to be.” Her nose crinkled. “Even if I did just dive from Damian’s bed to yours—which is much better, by the way. Everything about you is better.” Her gaze skimmed my face. “So much better it’s scary.”
“You don’t have to be scared.” I didn’t bother pointing out that it had been over a year since she’d been in Ellsworth’s bed, because that wasn’t what this was about, not really. Her mother. She didn’t want to be her mother. “We can keep this as simple as you need.”
In that second, staring into those crystal blue eyes, I realized I was head over fucking heels in love with Georgia Stanton. Her mind, her compassion, her strength, her grace and grit—I loved everything about her. But I also knew she wasn’t ready for my love.
“Simple,” she repeated, shifting in my lap but clinging to my shoulders as a tentative smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Simple is good.”
“Simple it is.” For now. What I needed was time.
“Okay. Good. Then we agree.” She pressed a quick kiss to my lips, then slid off my lap. “Oh, you were asking about the original manuscript for The Diplomat’s Daughter, right?”
“Right.” I nodded, feeling more than a little off-balance. We’d agreed that this would be simple? Or was there more inferred?
“I pulled it out of the upstairs closet,” she said, taking a shirt box from off the office bookshelves and putting it on an empty patch of desk. “She has all her originals up there.”
“Thank you.” I knew what she was trusting me with, and on any other day I would have been ecstatic to dig further into the oddest literary puzzle I’d ever stumbled onto, but my head wasn’t quite in the game.
“I have a phone call with the lawyers to finalize Gran’s foundation in a few minutes, so I’ll leave you to it.” She came around the desk and kissed me, quick and hard, before walking toward the door.
“Georgia?” I called out just before she reached the foyer.
“Hmm?” She turned and lifted her brows, so damned beautiful that my heart actually ached.
“What exactly did we just agree to?” I asked. “Between us?”
“A book-writing fling,” she answered with a smile, like it was obvious. “Simple, no strings, and over when you finish the book.” She shrugged. “Right?”
Over when the book was finished.
My hands curled into fists over the arms of the chair. “Sure. Right.”
Her phone rang, and she tugged the device from her back pocket. “See you when you hit your word count.” She flashed me a smile, answered the call, and closed the door all in one smooth motion.
Now our relationship was on the same deadline as the book, and sure, I’d always planned on leaving after I finished, but being with Georgia had changed things…at least for me.
Shit. The one thing I needed to win her over was time, and I was closer to finishing than