Page 167 of How to Kiss a Hawthorne Brother
“A worthy opinion. Even if you’re wrong. What else?”
“I love country music.”
He makes a face. “I’ll allow it. But only if you’re singing it. Wait.” His expression turns serious. “This is an important one. College basketball. Yes or no?”
“Yes. Definitely.”
“In that case, Duke or Carolina?”
“You mean Crapolina?”
His eyes go wide, and he presses a hand to his chest. “You wound me.”
“Seriously? You’re a Carolina fan?”
“I’m a Carolinagraduate.That’s where I got my MBA.”
I shift like I’m climbing out of the bed. “This was fun while it lasted, but I think it’s time for me to—”
He pushes himself up, lunging across the bed after me. I squeal as he hauls me off my feet and playfully tosses me back on the bed. It’s not lost on me that he just picked me up like I’m a tiny sack of potatoes. “A Duke fan?” he says. “Seriously?”
I’m on my back, and he’s hovering over me, one hand on either side of my head.
I shrug. “A Duke fan. To my core, Perry. To my very . . .applecore.”
He groans and drops his head. “Lila, youdidn’t.”
I bite my lip, loving this playful side of him. If I wind up marrying this man, I’m going to write apple puns into my wedding vows. “Is Duke really a deal breaker?”
He pops back up and smiles wide. “I can’t believe I’m saying this when the blood in my veins runs Carolina blue. But it’s gonna take more than pukey Duke to get rid of me.”
I lean up and kiss him on the nose. “Your generosity knows no bounds.”
After we share a third bag of M&Ms, we spend another two hours talking about everything and nothing, finally circling back to Perry’s divorce.
We’re snuggled under the covers now, our faces no more than a foot apart, one of his feet draped loosely over mine.
His summary is brief, almost perfunctory, but I can see the hurt in his eyes. It doesn’t take much imagination to fill in the gaps of what the whole ordeal must have been like.
“So your assistant was helping her the whole time?” I ask, still disbelieving an employee could be so disloyal.
Perry nods. “By the end, he wasn’t just covering for her infidelity. He was funneling her information about what my business was worth, sharing pertinent information about key clients. It was all a part of building her case. When she filed for the divorce, she knew exactly how much to ask for in the settlement. She presented herself essentially as a partner in the business, and added in, on the grounds of her having finished her MBA six months before I finished mine and the effort she made tosupportme through my graduate program, that she was entitled to more than half of my business’s net value.”
“That’s horrible.”
He nods. “The judge sided with her, and I had to liquidate everything I had in my portfolio. Stock options, IRAs, all of it, just to pay the settlement.”
I huff. “I should have spit in the water I left next to her bed.”
When he smiles, I reach out to trace the lines that crinkle up beside his eyes as a result. “You have good lines,” I say.
“Pretty sure those are called wrinkles.”
I grin. “They aren’t wrinkles! They’re smile lines. And yours are very handsome.”
“Jocelyn once suggested that I get Botox,” he says.
“You’re kidding.”
