Page 65 of The Boyfriend Material Novellas

Instead, I check out places she might work.

I’m like a detective chasing down clues.

But I’m reaching the end of the line.

Until the day some of my business partner’s old friends show up at a coffee shop and tell me I must come along to a lingerie store.

What are the chances it’ll be hers?

But it’s my last chance, so I take it.

And then I see the face I’ve been dreaming of.

14

MARLEY

I’m seeing things.

There is no other explanation.

There is no other reason.

I can’t possibly be looking at Reid.

Reid Martin, who I’ve been composing an email to in my head all morning.

He looks just as handsome as he did that day, if not more so.

“It’s you,” he says in a whisper laced with disbelief.

“It’s you,” I say, trembling, unsure too.

Because when your wildest dreams come true, you still don’t believe them.

After all, he could be married. He could be involved. He could have thought we were foolish.

“How are you?” he asks, the most pedestrian of questions, as he walks over to me, wonder in his eyes.

“I’m great,” I say in a voice that hardly feels like my own. It’s like I’m talking from within a dream. “And you?”

“I’ve never been better. Literally.”

“You look . . .” My voice trails off. It’s choked with emotion. I don’t want to let on that I’ve dreamed of this magical moment. But I can’t fake it.

“You look real. You look like all I’ve wanted,” he says, taking the leap first.

It unlocks my heart. It unlocks everything I’ve stored up since I met him and we spent the most magical day together. “I missed you.”

“And I made a promise in Paris.”

“What was that?” I ask, my voice pitching up.

“That if I found you again, I’d make sure we spent a lot more than five hours together.”

I beam. Like the sun is shining inside me. I look at my watch. “What do you know? I have no place to be and nothing but time.”

His smile matches mine as he takes my hands. “Have dinner with me tonight. And tomorrow. And the next day.”

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