Page 130 of Charming Deception

It doesn’t even matter if I touch her or not, or if I fantasize about touching her or not. That much is becoming disturbingly obvious.

It doesn’t matter what I think or what I plan or what I do.

I want her.

The truth is, Megan Hudson is everything I want in a woman.

She’s as cute as she is fucking beautiful.

As luscious as she is sweet.

As clever and multilayered as she is real.

How can I be falling in love with someone I’ve never even kissed?

Someone I had zero intention of falling in love with?

I’ve definitely never done that before. I’ve never even been in love. Never allowed myself to fall in love. That’s never been more clear to me than right now.

And I never imagined it happening like this.

Everything is backward.

I met her, talked to her, before I knew who she was, or she knew who I was.

I hired her before I knew where her talents really lay.

I asked her to be my fiancée before I dated her.

And I started feeling things for her, long before it should’ve been possible to feel them.

This falling in reverse…

I’ve never felt anything like it.

I try to remind myself I barely know her. That I haven’t known her that long.

But it doesn’t make a damn difference to that fucking arrow lodged in my heart.

Chapter 29

Jameson

I ride the elevator up to the admin floor of the Vance Bayshore resort’s main tower and step into the silent foyer outside my sister’s office, because of course, she’s working late. When I texted her to find out where I could find her, she had her bodyguard, Peter, text me back.

I nod at him now. Formerly one of our grandfather’s bodyguards, Peter stands faithfully outside Savannah’s door, ever watchful.

He draws the door open for me and I have to resist the urge to open it myself, to relieve him of the burden. The man looks older every time I see him. He’s still sturdy, still looks like the decorated military vet he is, but his hands have started to shake sometime in recent months.

I wonder, as I walk into my sister’s office, if she’s even noticed.

But of course she has. She adores the man.

Peter closes the door behind me for privacy. I find Savannah hovering over a barrage of paperwork on her desk, where I imagine she spends the bulk of her days. And nights.

I don’t tend to work late myself. My approach is to work as little as possible to get the job done. But tonight, instead of going to bed with Megan, I made an excuse about needing to take care of some business—which was a generous bending of the truth—and came here.

I just couldn’t bring myself to get into bed with her.

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