twirling Aunt Louise, making jokes with Weston, and pulling Hadley in close for a few extra whirls around the dance floor. Life wouldn’t be like this back in Harbor City—after all, it wasn’t like people in his income bracket were known for having barn dances. Still, Will could carry it off.
“I think you won the bet,” Hadley said as the music stopped. “You’re practically a cowboy.”
He tipped his hat at her. “Thank ya, darlin’.”
Then he dipped his head down and kissed her. For a second, the rest of the world disappeared and it was just the two of them again, fitting together like they were made for each other. By the time they stepped apart, her heart was going a million miles an hour.
“Your sister called you.”
Hadley blinked several times, trying to come back down to reality. “She did?”
“Yep.” He lowered his mouth to her ear. “But don’t worry, we’ll be finishing that later.”
As tempting as it was to make later right now, Hadley knew their time was coming. Right now, she was actually looking forward to getting in on some family time with her mom and sister doing God knows what beyond a whole lot of togetherness.
…
Will took a glass of sun tea, the condensation on the outside of the glass cool on his fingers, and stood off to the side watching Hadley talk with her mom and Adalyn. He was already thinking about taking her to his favorite diner in Harbor City, the one with these phenomenal shakes and a dog that very much was not allowed to hang out in the booths but did anyway. Then there would be the dates they’d have in the Holt Enterprises suite at Ice Knights Arena.
Considering how much she hollered during his just-for-fun rugby matches, there was no way she’d be calm during a hockey game. He couldn’t wait to see her get all riled up. Of course, he’d take her to the Black Hearts Gallery to check out the new artists that the gallery owner Everly always managed to find. He’d want Hadley’s opinion because she’d be looking at the art every day when she moved into his penthouse, and he really wanted her to love it.
Was he getting ahead of himself? Definitely, but he was a man who always had a vision and a gut feeling about things. That whole Hadley-is-a-gold-digger thing? That was just the exception that proved the rule.
For the first time in about as long as he could remember, that always-there edginess that acted as an early warning signal for the bad shit about to come seemed too quiet. He wasn’t that kid he’d been when his parents died and left him and Web in the care of their no-time-for-kids grandmother. Nor was he the guy who had been so distracted by the empty space in his life that he’d let Mia fill it before he realized that she was really only there for his money. He knew Hadley was different. How? The alarm bells in his head had finally quieted. If anyone had told him a week ago that he’d feel like this, he would have laughed his ass off. Now, he’d never been more glad to be wrong, even if it was unsettling as hell.
As he was contemplating how weird life was turning out to be, Weston came over and poured himself a glass of sun tea.
He glanced between Will and Hadley. “Stare any harder and people are going to think you two are actually a thing.”
Of course her brother picked just the moment Will had taken a drink to lay it down that he and Hadley had been faking everyone out—right up until they weren’t. Shock made his throat malfunction and the tea go down the wrong pipe. He ended up spluttering for breath while Hadley’s mountain of a brother smacked him hard between the shoulder blades.
Weston chuckled. “There’s no reason to freak out; she spilled the beans last night.”
“She failed to mention that to me.”
Hadley’s brother took a long drink of iced tea. “Must have slipped her mind when she told you about how she’s finally starting up her own consulting business.”
Something scratched against the back of Will’s brain, that you’re-about-to-get-fucked-over alert. When he’d explained his “assumptions” to Hadley, she’d acted as if she’d understood that always-on-edge feeling that a person just couldn’t shake and what it meant when he said it wasn’t there with her.
But what if what she’d really picked up on was a vulnerability that he hadn’t meant to