Page 41 of The Undercover Billionaire's Baby

“Everyone keeps saying your mom was this force. She brought people together. She lit up their lives. Well, you do that too. You’ve got to see that. These folks aren’t here because they love running so much. Or, maybe the tourists are, but the rest, it’s all you. They all came out because they love you. Your shop. Because they believe in you. They know you can do this.”

Lana looked up at me, radiant. Glowing. “You think so?”

“I know so. This is a special place, and you’re part of that. You make it special, just like your mom did. You bring people together. You make this town what it is.”

The last of the morning’s clouds blew off the sun. Golden light bathed the beach and Lana’s red hair. I’d never seen her so beautiful as she was in that moment, caught in her instant of realization. I could see in her eyes, she saw it at last: the love all around her, and her bright future. How proud her mom must be, wherever she was. A slow smile lit her face, wide and delighted.

“Mom would’ve loved this, a day like today.”

“And your big relaunch. She’d love that too, that you found your own way. That you did this yourself.”

“With you,” said Lana. Her warm hand found mine.

“I was just here for it. Along for the ride. Mrs. Schneiderman wouldn’t have called out her knitters for me.”

Lana’s smile widened as she let herself bask. Let herself feel it, sweet victory. The sun caught her eyes, their honey-gold depths. The scatter of freckles across her snub nose. She was lit up from the inside out, happiness sparkling in her eyes, in her smile. I took her other hand without even thinking, and pulled her toward me. She gasped, then she laughed. She turned up her chin, her lips slightly parted.

I knew I shouldn’t kiss her. I knew in my head. All the reasons I shouldn’t were as true as they’d ever been: I’d lied. I was leaving. This wasn’t my life. But those reasons felt distant. What felt real was her. What felt real was us, and this day, this moment. Her eyes and her lips. Her smile, almost shy. My heartbeat said kiss her, and I obeyed.

It took an instant to lean in, for her to rise up. For our lips to meet, and for me to taste her — her strawberry lip balm, and her underneath. We fit like we were meant for this, our lips and our bodies, her chest grazing mine, our hands linked together. No kiss had ever felt so certain, so right.

A thought hit me half-formed, if I could live in this moment… Pause the world right here with Lana in my arms, and we’d never have to think about what to do next. Then another thought struck me, wild and reckless. How could it matter? It didn’t. It couldn’t. Whatever came next, we’d survive it, and thrive. We were too perfect not too, too made for this.

Then Lana kissed me again, and I stopped thinking at all. We hung in the golden light, in that perfect moment, and I knew I didn’t want to be anywhere else.

CHAPTER 17

LANA

We were down by the beach club, Alice and me, with our feet up on our shabby deckchairs. We’d dragged them down here for one reason alone: the birch beer float stand outside the beach club. I sipped my float and savored its sweetness, the fizz of the bubbles tickling my nose.

“Whatever they serve up there can’t be better than this.”

“Where, the beach club?” Alice craned to see. There wasn’t much to see from our lowly vantage, but we could hear kids shrieking and splashing in the pool. “I kind of feel bad for them, behind their fence. It’s all concrete up there, no actual beach. Why even bother coming all the way out here if we’re not going to get into that kiss?”

“Well, I think— what?” I blinked at the sudden change in direction. Alice smacked my arm.

“You and Brad! I’ve been waiting all week for this, so come on. Details!”

I felt my cheeks color. “Did everyone see?”

“No. The first hot dogs got done around then. Most people were eating, or waiting to eat. But I saw. I saw.” She nudged me in the ribs. “Don’t try to tell me it was just some impulse. You’re together now, right?”

I looked down at the sand. “I— I don’t know.”

“How can you not know? Haven’t you talked? You literally live together, so what have you been doing?”

What had we been doing? The same things we always did. Getting up early to beat the work crew. Going out jogging, or to the beach. Planning my relaunch into the night. It had been three days since the run, since our kiss. It hadn’t happened again, but there’d been this tension, this electrical tingle when we passed in the hall. He’d turn one way, I’d turn the other, and there’d be this moment where it all felt right there: he could reach for me. I could tilt my chin up. Then it would be like it had on the beach, that moment when the whole world was me and Brad…

Alice snapped her fingers. “Hey. Earth to Lana.”

“We’ve talked,” I said. “Just not about that.”

“What else is there to talk about? Work stuff? The weather?”

I laughed, because yeah. We’d been keeping it light. I had tried a time or two to edge up on the kiss, but whenever I did, I felt the ground tremble. What if, for Brad, once had been enough? What if it hadn’t been? If he wanted more? I couldn’t leave the shop for him, but what about his life? He’d have to get back to it… or, could he stay? He had plenty of work here, but was it enough? Would I be enough for him, to start a new life here?

“The kiss was, uh…”

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