Page 46 of A Conflict of Interest

Why were the most romantic things in the world suddenly coming from Veronica Preston? Sweet and sentimental and open with her feelings and didn’t want to have sex with me. What? “Well,” I laughed after a second like that, “you’re doing pretty great so far, actually. That spiced hot chocolate was amazing.”

“Okay, true. Chocolate is always going to be good, though. But I mean—” She shrugged, drawing herself tighter, pointedly not looking at me. “I know I’m messy and… I dunno, toxic.Irresponsible. I want to be better. Not just to have you, but because it’s… I don’t know, the right thing to do, I guess. So… you’re the person I hurt the most. If anyone’s going to have personal criticisms of me, it’s you. I want to hear them. Unfiltered.”

My heart beat faster, a nervous knot tying itself in my stomach, as I studied her carefully. “Veronica… I’m not the authority on what being a good person looks like.”

“Someone you have in mind who is?”

“Well, no, I guess not. Just…” I shrugged, looking down. “I think the only person who can decide what that looks like for you is—well, you. Everyone has their own ideas of what’s good and what’s bad, and if you try to meet everyone else’s, I think you just end up meeting no one’s.”

“Yeah, but I don’t—” She caught herself, pursing her lips and taking a long breath. I shifted in closer, and I didn’t realize what I was doing until I’d put a hand down on top of hers.

“Tell me. I think it’s important to say it.”

“Bossy again, huh?” she said, a playful edge in her voice this time.

“Mm-hm. Now do as I say.”

She looked down and mumbled, a soft voice, barely there. “I don’t really care what everyone else thinks, I care about what… you think.”

Ah—dammit. My heart missed a beat. It was a miracle it didn’t miss all the rest of them, too. “What?”

She didn’t say anything, a flush creeping in over more of her face. My breath felt tight.

“Veronica—you can’t just… invent a personality for yourself around the tastes of someone you like.”

“I know. Just—you probably have some very valid criticisms to make… of the personality I do have. So… I would like to know,” she mumbled. “I don’t really care what criticismsother people have, but I trust… you have a good read on the situation.”

I didn’t have a good read on anything, especially notthissituation. I found myself staring at her for a while, and I only remembered my hand was on hers when I squeezed it softly. “That you were… too afraid to be seen caring about something.”

She paused, and she glanced at me from the corner of her eye, a nervous, hesitantly hopeful expression on her face. “That Iwas?”

I broke from her gaze, looking down shyly. “Might have to put in more time to figure out where you are on that now. You seem to, uh—be making some progress.”

She gave me the sweetest smile that had ever been given, and I melted, just a little bit. Despite my best efforts. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Sweet-talker,” she said, and I laughed.

“Coming from the expert.” I took my hand off of hers, and I stood up, a nervous feeling bubbling in my chest. “I didn’t get to give you the stern talking-to I brought you here for. Let’s go do it over a charcuterie board.”

The glimmer of unrestrained excitement on her face, just for a second before she caught herself, was the sweetest thing I’d ever seen. “You don’t mean one ofyours.I’ve been spending ages now wishing I could sample them. Plus, you always seem to need a little help finishing them… always a cracker or two left on them when I check in.”

God, I knew I was in love with her, but did it have to be like this? Did she have to be so… just… perfect and sweet and lovely? With no way for me to know if it was real?

I’d just told Lucy I’d be careful. I wasn’t breaking that promise already.

Hopefully I wouldn’t in, like, an hour either.

Chapter 14

Veronica

The charcuterie boards were as delicious as they seemed in the pictures. She showed off her fancy cheeses, cured meats, artisanal smoked sausages, small-batch farmer’s-market jams and honeys and infused balsamic vinegars, on a sampling of crackers, and I even managed to take in some of it even though most of what I was doing was justlookingat her with that total captivated feeling in my chest.

I really needed to focus. Food was one of her passions and an expertise she had, and it would have been disrespectful of me to not give her my full attention and commit every word of what she was saying to memory forever. It was just hard when I was overwhelmed by the fact that it washer,Kelcey Huntington, talking to me again. And how her eyes shone brighter when she was fully focused on something like setting up the board.

Of course, it also didn’t help when she would get a dribble of honey on her finger and suck it off, closing her eyes with a small, satisfied sigh. I pointedly made sure I looked away, focusing on the food at hand, and I herded the racing thoughts in my head long enough to actually respond to what she was saying, pinching myself if it got me to stop thinking crude objectifying thoughts about her.

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