Page 35 of One Wrong Move

“Why would I?” he says with an easy drawl. “It looked like fun. Some of the points, anyway. Staying out all night was cute. You’ve never pulled an all-nighter?”

I bring down my hands and find him taking another long sip of his wine. “No, I haven’t.”

“Well, that one could be easily arranged.” He reaches for the pita bread that’s been set between us and tugs off a piece. The rest of our meal is massacred on the table, grilled and half-eaten. Delicious. “Number thirteen is especially intriguing.”

“Number thirteen,” I repeat, and my blood turns to ice. “Is that the one…”

“It is,” he says. “Sleep with someone who is wrong for you.”

Another blush creeps up my cheeks, but I just level a finger at him. “That list was not meant to be read by anyone.”

“Mm-hmm. Want it to go in the box, too?” he asks casually, like it’s no big deal if I tell him off for teasing. If I set a boundary that he’ll keep without a care.

But I just reach for my glass of wine. “No. It’s okay. It’s a pretty outrageous list, after all. I just want to… do things outside of my comfort zone.”

“Mm-hmm. Like, trying to burn down my kitchen.”

“Definitely outside of my comfort zone.”

He watches me with heavy-lidded eyes. There’s a calculation in them I recognize, though I’ve only seen him look like that a few times in the past. When he and Dean used to talk about business or investments.

“Do you feel like you were firmly in your comfort zone before?”

“In a way,” I say, digging my teeth into my lower lip. “I just felt like I woke up one day and realized… I hadn’t made any decisions for myself in years. You know? I turned twenty-eight. Only two years left to thirty… and, somehow, I skipped having all of those wild experiences that people talk about enjoying in their twenties. Or, I stopped having them at some point.” I shake my head as if I can shake off the feeling. “I never interned at a great museum. Never lived abroad. I just slotted right into Dean’s life and let him… Sorry. That’s in the box.”

“Don’t apologize,” Nate says. “It’s your choice, that box.”

“My choice?”

“Yes. Whether or not we open it.”

I nod and run a finger along the wooden edge of the low-rise table between us. “I just want to be in charge of my future, I guess. Take back control of it. But the problem is, I don’t really know what I want my future to hold. Ergo… the list.”

“Ergo,” he says, a smile lurking in the corner of his mouth. “I get it. It makes sense.”

“I’m glad you think that, because it barely makes sense to me. But it’s the best thing I could think of,” I say.

He nods. Shifts against the pillows and looks at me like he’s holding back a secret. I narrow my eyes at him. “What are you thinking now?”

“Nothing,” he says. “Just that I think you should dress in athletic gear on Sunday and meet me at noon in the living room.”

My heart rate ratchets up. He’s not judging me for the list. He’s… participating in it? And I don’t know if it’s a sign of how starved I’ve been for company, for approval, for someone who genuinely listens to me, but I can’t help smiling at him. And teasing him.

“Hey, while number thirteen might technically apply to us, that’s not happening.”

He chuckles. “If that’s what I was aiming for, would I ask you to wear workout clothes?”

“I don’t know what a rich playboy prefers in bed. Maybe athleticism is required.”

“Oh, it is,” he says, looking down at his glass of wine. “But clothes most definitely are not.”

Something tightens in my chest. “What are we doing, then?”

“If we’re not having sex?” He says the word in such a nonchalant drawl, that it makes me look away. Down to my own wine glass. “We’re checking another item off your list.”

“Which one?”

“That’s a surprise,” he says.

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