Page 98 of Flirting with Disaster (Jackson: Girls' Night Out 2)

“I can’t trust anyone,” she repeated.

“You said you could trust me.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know you.” She didn’t realize she was shaking her head until Tom reached out, and his fingers gently stopped the movement.

She sighed at the touch. Tears stung her eyes. She didn’t want him to see that. She ducked her head, and his hand slid to the back of her neck, and then she was pressed to his chest, his arms warm around her.

“You can trust me,” he murmured.

“I don’t trust anyone,” she managed to say past her tears.

“I know that. Why would you? Everyone has let you down.”

“You haven’t,” she whispered, but then she was crying too hard to speak. To say that Patrick had dumped her for his reputation, and Tom had risked his career for her. To say that her father had run to save his own life, and Tom had stayed right there and protected her. That even after she’d been cruel to him, he’d been kind. She couldn’t say any of it. She could only cry harder when his arms tightened around her as if he’d never let her go.

“I missed you, too, Isabelle,” he said, the words warm against her temple. “I thought about you every day. I called Jill once. I even looked up Veronica’s column on the off chance that you’d written in to say, ‘A man I was dating arrested me, and I can’t stop thinking about him.’”

She laughed. An embarrassing, coughing sort of laugh that made her aware of how wet she’d gotten his shirt. “I actually presented her with that problem tonight. Really.”

“And what did she say?”

“She said I was being really stupid. She said I should call. I told her you probably never wanted to see me again.”

“Not true. I always want to see you. In fact, even if you’d kicked me out, I was going to try to buy that painting from you.”

“What painting?” she asked. Then said, “Oh,” when he drew back to frown down at her. “My boobs.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

She buried her wet face back in his shirt, and they laughed. They just laughed, as though everything was okay again. As though they could just pick up where they’d left off. As if they fit together easily and trusted each other, so everything would be fine. Why could she feel that way with him even when everything else was so scary?

“I could have mailed that box to you,” he said quietly. “But I couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing you again. Even if you were just going to tell me to go to hell, I wanted to see you while you did it.”

“Is that all you wanted?”

“No,” he said, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. “No, I wanted to tell you how sorry I was for lying. And I wanted you to say that we might have a chance.”

Her chest ached. The pain was awful. Hope hurt a lot worse than fear.

“I’m sorry for lying to you,” he said.

Isabelle fisted her hands in his shirt and held on for dear life. “We might have a chance,” she whispered.

She felt some of the tension leave his body, his muscles softening around her. She finally realized how good he smelled, how much she’d missed his skin. She didn’t want to let him go. “You must be tired,” she said. “Did you stop for dinner or anything?”

“Jill fed me.”

She nodded. “Do you...do you want to stay? Here?”

He stood straight, pulling away from her. “I thought maybe we’d take it slow this time.”

“Oh. Okay. Sure. Really?”

His sincere frown bloomed slowly into a smile. “No, not really.”

She made a little noise of relief, and then he kissed her. She’d forgotten his taste in the past few months, but she remembered it now. Every nerve in her body woke up and asked for more. But for once, she showed

a little restraint. Isabelle pulled back and looked up into his eyes.

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