Page 126 of Wicked Proposal
If I let it, it just might consume me.
Mia’s eyelashes flutter like butterflies. I lean in, close enough to kiss?—
“The movie’s starting!”
Eli shouts. The spell breaks. The moment passes. The electricity fades away, just enough to let us compose ourselves again.
Just enough to let me wonder…
What the hell am I doing?
39
MIA
Five minutes intoSkyfall, Eli conks out.
I had no doubt he would. It’s way too late for him to be up, and besides, he’s just stuffed himself full of pizza. That’s a guaranteed nap formula.
“Sorry,” I whisper to Yulian, who just ended up with a lapful of little boy’s legs. “I’ll move him in a minute.”
“No need.” He shrugs, careful not to displace Eli from his nest. “He’s comfortable. Let him sleep. He’ll be cranky if you wake him now.”
“Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”
“My sister was a terror.” A small smile quirks his lip, but it’s gone as quickly as it came. “Alina. She always wanted to pick the movie, but never stayed awake long enough to finish it.”
The way he says it makes my heart go tight. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“It was a long time ago.”
I have no family.That’s what he told me back then.
“I’m sorry.” It’s all I can think to say. Every time the topic of Yulian’s family comes up, I feel like a bull in a china shop, all those broken shards cracking loudly under my feet.
“Don’t be.” Yulian’s tone is casual, but I can tell it’s just practice. A pain like that never goes away, no matter how long it’s been. It’s the one thing no nurse or doctor can fix. “And I thought I said I didn’t want to hear those words from you anymore.”
That drags a smile out of me. “Fine. Then I’ll say something else.”
“About time.”
“Thank you.” I squeeze his hand. “For being so patient. For being here, tonight, despite everything else you’ve got going on.”
“It’s—”
“Don’t say ‘nothing,’” I catch him. “That’s my rule.”
He fixes me with his CEO glare. A soft version of it, anyway. “You’ve gotten bossier lately.”
“Been learning from the best.”
“Is that so?”
His rough knuckles shift under my palm, still tender from the fight. There’s no blood right now, but I know there was. I know it ended up there for me.
It should make me feel horrible as a nurse, but as a mom, I’m glad whoever threatened my family got his just desserts.
And as a woman…
