Page 4 of Love Me Tomorrow

Temptation.

Goddamn temptation.

“Give me your hand.”

It’s all he says but spoken in that rough New Orleans drawl of his, it’s both a request and a command all at once.

Flustered, my gaze shoots over to the crew, to all the cameras trained in our direction. The lights are damn near blinding but there’s no mistaking the way Joe sits on the literal edge of his seat, looking enraptured by the scene unfolding before him.

One thing is clear: no one is going to help me out of this.

It didn’t occur to me until just now how very public this experience will be. And I’m no idiot: Joe Devonsson will gleefully air this moment all over America in just a few short months, rubbing his hands together in anticipation of skyrocketing ratings. Then everyone will know, just by looking at my face, that I feel like I’ve been pummeled by an eighteen-wheeler.

I lower my voice, my hands balled into tight fists down by my sides to keep them from visibly trembling. “You shouldn’t be here.”

His sharp jaw clenches tight. “I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.”

I’m short on breath. I want to blame it on the too-tight dress. I want to blame it on the California weather, but it’s late November and the air is cool, for once, without even a hint of humidity. I want to blame my lightheadedness on anythingbutthe man standing a hand’s width away, looking like the Prince of Darkness.

For a little over a year now, our relationship has been casual. Friends, no matter how often I found myself looking at him a little too long or secretly admiring the wide breadth of his shoulders or finding reasons to meet up with him that shouldn’t have existed after he’d dated Amelie.

And now he’shere.

Standing less than two feet away and stealing all my damn air.

My chin angles north with false bravado. “You can’t stay.”

Catching me completely off guard, he steps in close, demolishing the distance between us, and hooks an inked finger under my chin. My chest caves with need, lust, awareness. Although I’ll never admit it out loud, my knees quiver, too.Quiver!Like I’m some sort of teenage girl faced with her first crush, instead of a thirty-four-year-old woman who knows her own mind and manages thirteen restaurants all over New Orleans.

I should move away. Shove him back. Demand that the producers kick him off thepremises.

He doesn’t give me the chance to do any of those things.

Moving methodically, like he’s expecting me to scramble backward, he lowers his head and grazes his cheek against mine. I feel the bristles of his beard, the softness of his lips as they find the shell of my ear. His hand leaves my chin to clasp the back of my neck with a familiarity that reaches into my soul and twists, hard.

“No more running, Rose.” The warmth of his breath elicits a shiver down my spine, my surname sounding like nothing less than a forbidden endearment dripping off his tongue. “Give me a chance. Giveusa chance.”

But there are no chances, not for us.

He lets me go and it’s a miracle I remain standing on my own two feet, my legs feel so weak. A small smile plays on his full lips—a mouth I’ve never once kissed—before he turns away, heading up the walkway to the mansion.

My fingers curl, nails biting sharply into my palm.

He’s my kryptonite. My weakness. And the one man who is decidedly off-limits to me—forever.

This . . .flirtationthat we have going on? It has to end.

Tonight.

Ignoring the cameras and the knowledge that one day this moment will broadcast all over the country, I squeeze my eyes and make a decision: I need to let him go. I need to let him go and move on and let myself fall in love . . .

With someone who isn’t Owen Harvey.

1

Owen

New Orleans, Louisiana

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