Page 5 of One Night Valentine

Before I can tell her no, Cruz interrupts. “No one is going to believe you and I are together.”

My mouth drops at the same time Lexi admonishes her brother. “Cruz!”

I stand up and try to hide the hurt from my voice. “Thank you so much for dinner! And congratulations on your retirement. Lexi, I’m going to walk home.”

She stands up instantly. “No, I’ll take you.”

But I stop her and hold my hand up. “No, spend time with your brother. I shouldn’t have come.”

Lexi can see I’m about to fall apart, but she knows me better than anyone, and she knows I won’t let her take me home. She forces her keys into my hand. “Here. Take my car. I’ll have Cruz drop me off to get it when we leave.”

I don’t have it in me to argue with her, so I take the keys, and without another look at Cruz, I walk out of the restaurant with my head held high.

I drive to my apartment and am stomping up the stairs to my apartment as I replay Cruz’s words. “No one will believe we’re together.”

He could have just said no; he didn’t have to go for the jugular. And he’s right: Hell, if I couldn’t keep Grant, I sure as hell couldn’t keep a man like Cruz Payne happy and satisfied. He’s a football star. I’m, well, a nobody. And yes, I know I’m curvy and probably a little too plain, but he didn’t have to drag my looks into it. I mean, I know Lexi believes her brother is some kind of saint, but all I can see is that he’s an ass.

I’m trying not to let this upset me, and maybe it would be easier if I wasn’t so attracted to Cruz. Hell, why couldn’t he be ugly?

4

CRUZ

I fucked up. The minute Tara stood up to leave, I knew I’d said the wrong thing. I wanted to make her stay and see things my way, but maybe letting her walk away will be easier.

“What the hell was that?” My sister is hovering over me like she’s ready to fight.

Shit. My sister is mad, and it’s never a good thing when she’s pissed at me because I feel like shit. “What? It’s true. Look at her. No one is going to believe we’re together.”

Lexi’s face scrunches up. She opens her mouth, closes it, and then opens it again. She sits back down and shakes her head. “Wait. Spell it out. What are you saying?”

I roll my eyes. My sister is smart. She graduated top of her class in high school and is on the dean’s list at college every semester, but sometimes she just doesn’t get it. “Well, I’m assuming you want me to be her date for the wedding because you all want to make people think she’s moved on and is over the ex.”

Lexi nods. “Yeah, and not let her sister think she won again.”

I lean back in my chair and cross my arms over my chest. “Right, well, no one is going to believe we’re dating.”

She clenches her eyes and opens them wide. “Why not?” she blurts out.

I chuckle. “Come on, sis. I’m ten years older than her. I’m officially a has-been, and?—”

She interrupts me. “Wait… you think that no one will believe it because no one will believe she likes you?”

I nod. “Yep.”

She slaps her hand on the table between us. “Oh my God, Cruz. How dense can you be? I swear, I see women throwing themselves at you after every game. You could literally have a different woman to date every day for a year.”

I screw my face up the more she talks because nothing of what she is saying sounds good in the least. “Tara isn’t like those women.”

She slaps her hand on the table again. “Cruz, you just made Tara think that you didn’t want to do this because people wouldn’t believe you two would be together.”

“They wouldn’t,” I say pointedly.

“Cruz! You made it sound like she’s beneath you… like you would never go out with someone like her… like people would riot if you two were even in the same room together.”

I open my mouth to disagree with her but then stop myself, remembering the look on Tara’s face when I made the claim that no one would believe we’d be together. I definitely hurt her. Is that what she took me to mean? Did she really think I was saying she wasn’t good enough?

I shake my head. “That’s not what I meant… at all.”

---