Ugh. Had I been that transparent?

“He’sexactlymy type,” I confessed. The type I was usually so careful to avoid. I threw the car into reverse and checked my mirrors before backing out.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Love-is-grand-Kenley frowned in the rear view mirror, totally confused.

“Ohhh, I get it,” Mara said. “Does he look like that guy from Brown, or something?”

I shook my head, considering it. “He doesn’t look anything like Jason... but heislike him.”

As the words left my mouth, the rightness of them sank in even further and hardened like cement.

“How do you know?” Kenley asked. “You just met Aric.”

“I just know, okay? He’s so… smooth, so sure of his universal appeal to women. That’s why I’ll always go for a guy like Hale. He’s so much more—what am I trying to say?”

“Safe? Boring?” Mara suggested in a kill-me-now tone.

“Real. That’s what he is. Hale is real in a way a guy like Aric could never be.” I nodded, certain of the truth of it.

So why did my reaction to Aric feel so much more real to me after one night than my feelings for Hale did after almost four years?

FIVE

Start Saying Yes

I pulled my Mini Cooper into the station parking lot a few minutes before one the next afternoon, the nerves in my stomach swimming like a bowl of busy goldfish.

I’d eaten only lightly today, anticipating my usual anxiety-produced reaction to being on live. The newscast was nine hours away, and I was already nauseous.

Better to keep the belly as empty as possible.

The crunch and pop of gravel alerted me to another vehicle driving into the lot, a green Lamborghini, which pulled up and parked right beside me.

Gee, wonder whothatcould be?I glanced over and saw the back of Aric’s blond head as he gathered items from his passenger seat.

Nothelping the nerves. I grabbed my own bags and got out, determined to be friendly but unaffected by him.

“Good morning,” he said when he spotted me. He gave me a wide smile that put the hot Southern sunshine to shame.

A sunny smile. I’d always thought that was such a ridiculous description, but I could see it now, as if he carried a bit of the bright California sun with him from his home state.

No doubt he’d thawed many a female heart in Minnesota where he’d last worked.

Not here, Buddy. This was one girl who was going to stay chill.

His gaze swept over me from my jersey knit wrap top to my black pencil skirt and pumps, seeming to take inventory of every detail. When his eyes met mine again, the clear gray was so striking, I almost forgot to respond to his greeting.

Chill.Right.

“Hi,” I finally managed. “It’s afternoon, you know.”

He huffed a slight laugh. “I guess it is. I’m still kinda wiped out from the drive and moving in and stuff. I didn’t get up till about an hour ago.”

Now that he mentioned it, I noticed his hair was still damp from the shower, darkening its color slightly. He carried a garment bag that must have contained his suit because he was wearing a golf-type shirt and a pair of long shorts with flip flops.

In the daylight, my assumptions from last night about his volleyball muscles proved true. Long, lean, and muscular, he would look right at home among the athletes he’d be reporting on. He moved like an athlete, too, fluid and confident.

Butterflies began hatching and testing their wings inside me. I didn’t understand myself—I’d seen hot guys before. The UGA campus had been full of them. Hale was handsome.