Page 73 of The Bachelor

But, damn, this was hard.

I turned off the water and glanced away from my reflection, wiping my hands on a paper towel. I made sure my skin was dry before I tossed the towel in the trash and headed for the door. My fingers circled the handle and pulled it toward me, my feet stumbling to a stop the moment I stepped out.

It was the sight before me that had completely knocked me off-balance.

One I hadn’t been prepared for.

Why was this tall, muscular, devilishly gorgeous man standing outside the women’s restroom?

“Hi,” I whispered to Camden, his eyes already fixed on mine. “Are you okay?” I tried to think of why he would be here. “Are you waiting for someone?”

“You.”

My heart began to pound. “Yeah?” I swallowed. “And why’s that?”

“I’m going to take you somewhere.”

I didn’t know what to do with my arms, but they felt so incredibly heavy as they hung at my sides, so I wrapped them around my stomach. “Right now?”

He nodded.

“Okay,” I replied.

“Do you trust me?”

“Always.” I took a deep breath, unsure if that kind of honesty was the right thing to give him.

His hand lifted, and he gently grazed it across my chin. “Oaklyn …” he said softly in a tone Camden never used. “Fuck me, you’re perfect.”

A word I’d just used in my head to describe him.

And when he’d said it, I could feel his emotion.

It was sitting in my chest, squeezing me so tightly.

He found my hand tucked across my hip and linked our fingers. “Come with me.”

There was a door not far from the restroom. I hadn’t noticed it when I came in, but he took me through it. We walked behind the bar, past the dumpster, where a few of the employees were smoking, and we entered a side alley that was wedged between this building and the one beside it. The alley was completely shut off from the street, mostly dark, just specks of light that filtered in from the streetlamps. We were about halfway down from where we’d entered when Camden stopped, positioning my back against the brick of the building, standing closely in front of me.

What are we doing here?

And what does he want from me?

“I didn’t want to have this conversation inside the bar or outside the restroom. My sister might be drunk at the moment, but if she sees us together or if one of the girlfriends do, Hannah will start questioning, and I don’t want that. At least not yet.”

“I get it.”

But do I?

I had no idea what he meant by theyetpart.

“Oaklyn,” he began, and I could feel him searching my eyes even though I couldn’t see that level of detail in the alley, “I need you to be honest with me about something.”

“I’ve never lied to you.”

“That’s not what I mean or what I’m inferring.” He took a breath, his exhale hitting my face even though he was so much taller. “What I need to know is, are you interested in Macon?”

Macon?

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