Page 15 of The Revenge Bride

“Do you want to choose those?” I take out my cell phone to snap a picture.

“No.” He puts his hand over mine to stop me.

A rush of heat pours through me. Because we’re in public, I leave my hand under his rather than yanking away and setting tongues wagging. But it’s torture. Because if he’s as good with his hands as he is with his lips, then I kicked my own ass by putting that no touching line on the agreement.

Even if I can’t reach the O-zone, I could still have enjoyed the feel of him being inside of me. The thought dazes me. Rhett inside of me. I look at him.

For a split second his dark eyes meet mine and I suck in a breath. “What’s wrong?” I whisper, sure I saw something desolate and painful in his gaze.

“Nothing.”

“I know we’re not friends, but if you need someone to talk to?—”

“I don’t.” He moves to the far wall where sunflowers stand tall and bright in the corner. “Let’s pick whatever and get out of here.”

“Okay.” I choose pink and white roses.

Valerie promises to rush the order so they can be ready by Friday morning since we’re getting married that evening.

Outside, I have to take two steps to every one of Rhett’s. He slows when he notices I’m struggling to keep up with him.

“Don’t care much for flowers, do you?”

His smile is tight and he doesn’t confirm or deny. “Where to now?”

“The bakery to order a wedding cake. Do you have a preference on what kind?”

“Chocolate anything.”

I grin. “A man after my own heart.”

We stop at the corner by the barbershop and a small bookstore to wait for the light to change. As soon as it does, Rhett takes my hand again and we walk to the other side.

At the bakery, we get almost the same reaction. It’s so great we’re getting married.

After we settle on the cake, as we leave, Rhett says, “Why does everyone think we’re a good idea together?”

I shrug. “Maybe it’s not us but more so because everyone loves a happy ending. I guess.”

“Maybe.”

There’s a twilight sky as we start walking again. We pass the park where kids are trickling out and heading home. The streetlights light up in unison as we amble toward the high school.

“The scene of the crime,” I say. “Where a closet encounter altered my life.”

“I didn’t tell anyone that lie that went around.”

I still cringe when I think about that. By the time school let out that day, everyone heard we’d been locked in that tight space together and believed that I’d given Rhett a blow job.

I kick at a pebble on the sidewalk. “Peter Ryan stuck his crotch in my face in the cafeteria the next day and told me to blow him too.”

“I heard about that.”

I look over at him. “Someone beat his ass that afternoon.”

“I know.”

We sneak past the school gate and head to the football field. “You know? Was it you?”

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