Page 47 of Lost in You (Flirting with Forever 1)

James’s face turns bright red at the brush-off at the same time my anger boils and spills over.

My words are low and gritty. “Leave her the fuck alone, man. I’m warning you.”

Chase stands, rolls his eyes, and, just as Madison’s about to turn the corner, shouts, “He’s not going to want you when you tell him!”

Now, just what the hell is that all about? I shove Chase hard and he stumbles backward and goes down hard on his ass.

I spin on my heel, and follow Madison out of the room. I hear James’s confusion as I walk away. “What the actual fuck is going on here?”

Chapter 25

Madison

I’m shaken. The entire conversation with Chase had been a shitstorm of epic proportions. I hadn’t known what to expect, and I’d actually thought we may be on the right track when he’d started with an apology. The truth is he’s not sorry and doesn’t even understand what he should be sorry for, which is just baffling. Then he’d all but blurted out that I’m hiding something from Shawn. But … I am.

Oh God, I’m a horrible person.

My feet keep right on going until I hit the far side of the room where the reception had taken place last night. To my surprise, the cake table is still set up. And even better—I think there just might be leftover cake. There are about twenty take-out boxes stacked in piles. When I take a peek inside one and my suspicions are confirmed, I let out a ragged sigh of thanks to the cake gods. Or the wedding gods. Or whoever left all this cake here for me when I needed it most. Next to the boxes is a pile of forks and a piece of paper, on which someone has scrawled, Please eat the cake!

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.

I pull a chair right up to the serving table, flip open one of the boxes, and take a deep breath, inhaling the decadent scent of the cake. Nothing like eating your feelings. The only problem is, I don’t know if there is enough cake to make me forget what just went down.

For a couple of beats, I shove everything to the back of my mind and just concentrate on moving the treat from the box to my mouth. The luscious cake and sweet, sugary frosting would normally have me doing a happy dance, but instead it just makes me sad. Why can’t anything ever go my way?

Here I thought maybe everything was finally going to work out for me. Shawn and I have this fantastic chemistry, we talk about anything and everything, and I’ve never had someone anticipate my needs the way he does. I’ve never had anyone understand me and be okay with who I am. I glance around the room, memories of the first time we’d kissed washing over me. My eyes drift over to the exact spot where we’d finally admitted with our lips that things were changing between us, and then later that night we admitted it with our whole bodies, too. Hell, with our souls.

My heart sinks. Are things going to change between us again when I tell him what I’d done?

I shovel another bite into my mouth just as I hear footsteps behind me. I’ve just been busted eating cake like it’s my job. Awesome. I swivel around to see Shawn standing a few feet from me.

I can’t even say anything, my mouth is so full of cake. I cover my mouth with my fingers.

“Caught ya.” He smirks at me, then grabs a chair from behind him and slides it right next to mine. “Do you have another fork?”

I nod my head, still chewing, and his blue eyes watch me with amusement as my fingers fumble on the table for another fork.

He accepts it from me and, eyeing the cake, plunges the fork in, picking up a huge chunk.

My mouth finally empty, I glance up to find him watching me. It’s now or never. “Shawn, I—”

He aims the fork right into my open mouth, surprising the hell out of me, and effectively stopping my confession.

He pats my leg. “Listen. Whatever it is, you don’t have to tell me. I don’t want to know. I’m pretty used to Chase being full of shit at this point.” He scoops up some more cake and fills his mouth.

Now we’re both incapable of speech, so we just stare at each other.

Over and over again in my mind and with my eyes, I tell him I’m so sorry.

After we gorge ourselves on cake and bring an emergency stash back to the room with us, it really sinks in that we’ll be stuck here for a while longer. We sit on the bed together, backs against the headboard, watching the snow fly past the window.

“This storm is insane. How long do you think we’ll be stuck here? Because now that I know Chase is roaming around, I don’t want to leave the room. I don’t even want to think about him. He makes me feel sick.”

“You don’t have to. You don’t have to talk to anyone you don’t want to or say or do anything you don’t want to do.” He reaches over and squeezes my thigh with his big hand, then leaves it there. The warmth of both his hand and his words leave me strangely contemplative.

I swallow past the lump in my throat. “Is it weird that I kind of love being stuck here? Nothing to do. Nowhere to go.” I sneak a look at him out of the corner of my eye and watch his lips curve into a smile.

“Nah. Not if you’re with the right person.”

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