Page 31 of Blurred Lines

The distractions had come thanks to Cristian—we’d spent most of the time naked. Christmas had been spent at Solitaire, just the two of us plus Claudia. A week later, we’d made a brief appearance at the Canyon Hills New Year Extravaganza, held at the local golf club, although we’d skipped out before midnight and toasted the new year in the comfort of his bed. Our bed. He said it was our bed now.

“Café au LA? That’s the place where we met, right?” he asked.

“Where you tossed your billfold at me while looking hot? Yes. But if you need to work, I can sit in the juice bar again.”

My favourite table now had a permanent “Reserved” sign, or if I preferred, the servers would bring snacks up to Cristian’s office. I was getting a lot of curious glances. Which might have had something to do with the fact that Cristian wasn’t shy about public displays of affection. Everywhere we went, either he had an arm around me, or my right hand was gripped in his left. Always the left. His right hand was his gun hand, he said, words that had sent a chill through me. I’d been trying to ignore the Mario problem in the hope it would go away, but Cristian was taking it very seriously. He’d even checked my home security system, a pointless exercise because Dawson had supervised the installation, but apparently it met with his satisfaction because we’d be staying at my place tonight. Vi was coming home tomorrow morning, and I wanted to be there to see her.

“The café is fine,” Cristian said. “They do a good meatball sub, and I can catch up on emails while you work.” He slid an egg-white omelette in front of me. “Does that mean you’re planning to write a new adventure for Mr. Hotly’s dick?”

I don’t know why I blushed. Cristian had been nothing but enthusiastic in his efforts to bring my stories to life, although I’d nearly died of heatstroke in his sauna. His freaking sauna.

Pinch.

“Maybe. Do you have a boardroom table somewhere?”

“No, but I can buy one.”

Of course he could.

“Don’t lose your mind, but I need to swing by the grocery store later to pick up stuff for Vi and Dawson. Their refrigerator is empty.”

“You mean we need to swing by the grocery store.”

See?

“What happens if we never work out who Mario is?”

“We will.”

My phone buzzed, and Cristian got to it before I did. Once he’d read the message, he snapped a selfie of the two of us, tapped out a few words, and then dropped the phone back onto the counter.

“Was that him? Was that Mario?”

Cristian shook his head, and rather than his usual thunderous look, he wore a smirk.

“Who was it? What did you do?”

He just shrugged and walked back to the stove as I grabbed the phone and opened the messages.

Theo

Lauren, I realize now that I made a terrible mistake in expecting you to promote the Threadz app without compensation. Can we discuss this over dinner?

Me

You had your chance, jackass. Mr. H.

In the picture, I was quite clearly wearing a man’s shirt, I had sex hair, and there was a hint of beard burn on my chin because Cristian hadn’t shaved for a week. In short, I looked freshly fucked, probably because I absolutely had been. Thoroughly. Twice.

“I love you.”

Shit! I’d blurted it out without thinking, and we’d only known each other for a month. Okay, two months and a bit if you counted the wallet thing and the flirting in the gym, but definitely not an appropriate amount of time to be getting into the heavy stuff.

“Love you too, babe. You want juice?”

That was it? Cristian loved me, and he just casually tossed it out there, no drama?

“You don’t think it’s too soon for us to say that?”

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