Page 63 of Faking It with my Small Town Billionaire

Maybe I’m just not cut out for this relationship malarkey. Maybe that’s the reason I’ve remained single for all this time.

No. That’s just been bad timing.

Possibly, but clearly, I suck at it. The relationship part, not the timing. Or hey, maybe both.

After another refill of my glass, I return to the porch and think about the most profound sentence of the entire conversation.

He loves you, Lily. Anyone with a heartbeat can see that.

I have a heartbeat, and I didn’t see it. Or have I been walking around with my eyes closed?

No, the word you’re looking for is denial.

The thing is, as I sit here, sipping more wine and gazing out onto the lake and the setting sun, I think I love him, too. No. That’s wrong. I know I love him. I don’t really know how long I’ve known. I just do. And yet I might have just ruined any chance of a happy future together. Orson hasn’t called for a couple of hours. Maybe he’s given up, and who can blame him?

I don’t know how long I sat there, falling back into my earlier trancelike state, but the sound of crunching tires on the gravel at the front of the cabin brings me back sharply. No one knows I’m up here, and other than my sisters and me, no one else should be on this property. Besides, it’s a bit late in the evening for visitors.

Pushing myself up from my chair, I walk to the end of the porch and lean over the railing just as Orson climbs out of his car.

“Oh, Lord,” I murmur as my heart thumps against my chest. It’s part fear of what’s going to happen and part excitement at seeing him again.

I don’t know how they got his number, but clearly one of those two told him where I was, and I’m betting it was Ellie.

He has a pizza in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. I probably shouldn’t tell him how much I’ve already drunk in the last forty-eight hours.

“Hi,” he says as he approaches the railing.

“Hi,” I say meekly, already feeling my face going red.

“Are you hungry?” He lifts the pizza as he walks around to the front of the porch.

I nod.

“Good. You can eat while I talk.”

Okay then.

Once I’ve retrieved a glass for his wine, I sit back down beside him on the porch bench. The pizza sits on the table in front of us.

“Good Lord, that’s quite a view!” Orson exclaims, looking over the lake at the last slither of fiery sun that burns on the horizon. “I can see why you chose to be here.” He looks down at me and smiles.

“Why are you being so nice to me? I made a huge mistake.”

“I know,” he says in a tone that conveys that he doesn’t really care.

“So?”

“You think I’ve never made mistakes, Lily? You think you’re the only one on the planet who’s thought one thing was something else entirely?”

I shrug as I lift a piece of the pie out of the box. I can’t really argue with that, can I?

“Besides, I have to take some of the blame for all of this. If I had just told you how I really felt when I knew, you would have been left with no doubt in your mind how much I wanted to be with you.”

“You can’t take the blame for me jumping to ridiculous conclusions, Orson,” I say. “Besides, I shouldn’t even be reading your emails. I was in the wrong on every level.”

“Do you really want to know who Charlotte is?” he asks, a smile dancing at the corner of his mouth.

I shake my head. “Not now. I know she’s probably your aunt or something.”

---