Page 93 of Perfect (mis)Match

“But what if I have something to say toyou?”

“Oh, you’ve said plenty,” I snapped as I leaned my forehead against the door. “I’ve heard enough from you.”

“Piper…come on. Please?”

I was a sucker for a grovel. Maybe I could let him say lots of nice things to me and drop kick him anyway?

I slid the door open and ignored my body’s visceral reaction to seeing him up close.

Yeah, he looked wrung out, despite the expensive suit and bright tie. A shadow of the man I knew, with hollows under his eyes. I hated my reflexive need to wrap my arms around him and tell him everything was going to be okay.

“What do you want?” I demanded.

“Can you come outside with me? I’d like to show you something.”

He sounded uncharacteristically nervous.

“No, Vincent, I can’t. I’m working. Just say what you need to say and go.”

“Please.”

I sighed. “Fine. But you only get three minutes,” I grumbled as I jogged back to grab my keys so I could lock up behind me.

“Let’s take the stairs,” I said. “It’s only four floors.”

It was fourlongflights of stairs, but I wasn’t about to get trapped in the elevator with Vincent. Even just a hint of his cologne would remind me of pressing my nose against his neck and breathing him in, and that was a level of emotional self-sabotage I couldn’t handle. I had to stay as far away from him as possible, because my body could betray me if he got too close. I practically sprinted down the stairs to keep a buffer between us.

Dignity mattered, but not as much as self-preservation.

“Hold on,” Vincent called after me as I started to push against the door to the street. “Don’t go out yet.”

I harumphed as I turned around to face him. “Whatis your deal? You were the one begging me to come out just a minute ago!” I huffed, annoyance bubbling up again.

“Just wait a sec,” he puffed as he caught up to me. “Piper, before you go out, I want you to know that this is all for you.”

He pushed open the door, and my jaw dropped when I looked outside.

The entire block around our office had been transformed into a wonderland of blooms. Everywhere I looked, from the mailboxes to the light poles to the construction signs, was draped in lilacs.The lush purple and white blooms were threaded around every surface.

“What?” I asked in a whisper, utterly dumbfounded.

“I did it for you,” Vincent replied.

I walked out in a trance. How in the world had he gotten the lilac garland up the side of my building? Why was a trashcan transformed into a lush arrangement of deep purple blooms and spiraled greenery? Every direction I turned, lilacs. There were so many that the street was perfumed with them.

“I collected all seventy-five different shades,” Vincent explained as he gestured toward the over-the-top display. “They’re all here, every one.”

He pointed, and I was shocked to discover the explosion of blossoms continued down the block. My mouth went dry, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t know what to say.

It was too much, too beautiful, too…Vincent. A grand, sweeping gesture that made it all but impossible to breathe, let alone think straight. But amid the overwhelming beauty of it all, one thought lodged itself stubbornly in my brain:What the hell am I supposed to do with this?

“But…why?” I asked.

He blinked at me as confusion settled in his expression. “You said lilacs were your favorite flowers. At the farmers’ market.”

“I mean, yeah, they are.” I gestured around. “But whythis?”

A group of teenage girls passing by asked me to take a photo of them posed next to a wreath of flowers in the shape of a heart,which gave me a few seconds to think about something other than what he’d done.

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