Page 38 of Dare Me

The weekend was absolutely perfect.

Pure bliss.

The greatest sex of her life.

And now, as she stared at the request for an interview for a job in Durham, Arianna didn’t feel the excitement she thought she would.

It was late Monday afternoon and they were requesting a video interview with her for Wednesday. The job was everything she was looking for—located in a big city and part of a major medical center. There were some amazing places for her to rent that were way more appealing than the places around here, plus the pay would be a huge raise for her.

Why am I not jumping up and down with glee?

Because Will Jameson rocked her entire world and proved that he was most definitely worth the wait.

Sighing, she sat back at her desk and her mind instantly played vivid images of the two of them. They’d made love throughout the night Saturday night and then went shopping again on Sunday. They were done by the middle of the afternoon and went back to Will’s to assemble some of the pieces they’dpicked up and to put away all the stuff they’d purchased the day before.

Then they’d made love in his apartment—on the living room floor, the kitchen counter, the mattress up on his bedroom floor, and then his shower.

It was amazing she could stand upright today.

And that she’d been able to skip the big Donovan Sunday dinner with just a little white lie about how she was out with a group of friends and lost track of time.

But for all the incredible, sexy memories, he hadn’t asked to take her out or even when he’d see her again, and she hadn’t brought it up either—not really. Because of her own weird insecurity with her family, she had tried to broach the subject by reminding him how they usually treated her. But rather than argue with her or try to get her to maybe look at it another way, he had been rather blasé about the whole thing. If anything, Will had said that the ball was in her court.

Damn him.

Part of her knew it was for the best and that this weekend—for her—had been a little about closure so they could move on.

At least, that was her theory.

But now, as she was staring at a potential dream job, she suddenly wasn’t so sure it was the right thing to do.

The job and the closure.

Her head fell forward on her desk and she just sort of stayed like that for a little while until it was time for her next appointment.

When she got to Ryleigh’s later on, she figured her sister would give her some advice.

But…she wasn’t there.

A quick glance at her phone showed a text from her mother that everyone was eating dinner at the pub tonight, since she wasn’t the only one to miss yesterday’s dinner.

“Great,” she murmured before changing out of her scrubs and into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Slipping her sneakers on, she contemplated saying she was too tired to go, but…it would be wrong to lie twice.

Sort of.

“Ugh…just go, you big baby,” she chided herself as she grabbed her purse and headed out the door. Ryleigh’s apartment was within reasonable walking distance, but after being on her feet most of the day, she wasn’t in the mood to walk.

When she pulled into the pub parking lot five minutes later, she got a text from her sister.

Ryleigh: SOS! Where are you? You need to be here! NOW!

“That doesn’t sound great.” With her purse in hand, she made her way into the pub and it took all of five seconds for her to see what the problem was.

Her mother had Ryleigh and Will essentially locked in a booth together. She was all set to stomp over and demand to know what was going on, but…that would raise suspicion. Instead, she casually walked over and kept her eyes on her sister.

“Hey! I hope I’m not late,” she said before kissing her mother on the cheek and then smiling at Ryleigh.

“I was wondering when you were going to get here,” Ryleigh said with a tight smile.