Page 22 of So Wrong It's Right

“Myimpulsive nature?” I cross my arms in front of me and stare him dead on. “Did I grab you in front of a room full of people and kiss you? No, no, I didn’t. That was all you.”

Goddess, that kiss. One minute, I was being blasted by Devon for being unattractive and the next Christopher was kissing me the way no man so uptight should be doing. It was primal. I felt that kiss in every cell of my body. The slide of his tongue, his firm fingers on my hip. I did not imagine all that. And I did not instigate it either.

“You’re right. I...acted in a way I’m not proud of. I probably made things worse.” He is making them worse right now. “I shouldn’t have kissed you like that.”

Right.

Part of me wants to turtle-shell up. This night has been hell on my ego, and it shows no signs of getting better. The other part of me, the part he doesn’t like, is feeling a little more “impulsive.”

“So why did you?”

He messes up his own hair again, scraping his fingers through it. “I just...I don’t know. That guy shouldn’t have been talking to you that way. And I didn’t know what was going on, but I felt like you needed me.”

Pity kiss. That makes more sense, I guess, than the idea that Christopher Lockwood was just overcome by passion and had to stake his claim on me in a crowded pub.

This hurts more than I want to admit. Not exactly the answer a girl wants to hear when she learns why she’d been kissed. Even if she doesn’t really like the guy who is saying it. Because I don’t. I may have thoroughly enjoyed that kiss, but it’s only that it’s been a while since I’ve been kissed, and he is surprisingly good at it. That’s all it is.

But I don’t need him. I don’t need any man. They aren’t trustworthy. Men are for fun but not for necessity. Not in the Year of Stella.

“Well, I’m fine now. You can go.”

He stands slowly, watching me like I might jump him. Which is ridiculous. Again, he was the one who pounced on me tonight. I think I’ve been admirably in charge of my hormones.

He doesn’t make a break for the door. Just stands there looking at me. “If you would just think before you do things, we could have avoided all this trouble.”

Every muscle I own tenses up. “Are you kidding me right now?”

“You and my parents, you’re the kind of people that go off on your little daydream clouds or stars or whatever and leave the rest of us to deal with the practicalities of life.”

This is too much. Really. “I’m not impractical.”

“Look around you, Stella.”

So I do. I look around the apartment I love. The one I pay for every month. I look at the decor that welcomes me after a long day of dealing with sick and hurting animals and the families who love them. In this apartment, I’ve watched every single episode ofWalking Deadwith my best friend. I’ve made cookies with my sister. I’ve stayed up too late and slept in too long. I’ve played cards with my parents at that table.

My apartment is great.

I think about the office. How cheerful it is to people who are scared there might be something wrong with their beloved pet. How I try to make a difference in people’s lives every damn day. Iwantto help the people in my town. Iwantto help animals. I want to take care of Doc Anderson because she needs a keeper, but she also does amazing things, and if she’s well-fed and less stressed, she can do her job better. I am happy at my office.

My job is great.

Why should I defend my life to this man who doesn’t know how to live without something to protect his pocket from ink?

Instead, I decide to just let it go. I don’t need one more person in my life who thinks I’m not good enough. He can leave. I have nothing to prove to Mr. Retentive.

“I think it’s time you should be going. The town is already going to be talking enough.”

He doesn’t move, so I get up and go to the door. Maybe he forgot where it is. As I pass him, he palms my shoulder and turns me around. “If I go along with this, you need to do everything I tell you to do at the office.”

“What?” I try to track the conversation back to figure out what he’s even talking about. “Go along with what?”

“If I play along with this charade, you have to listen to me at work.”

Seriously? Even the way he pronounces charade, shar-odd, is pretentious.

Why would he go along with my “shar-odd”? Well, he went along with it well enough downstairs, didn’t he? The wheels are turning in my head. He doesn’t actually like me, does he? I meanlike melike me? That kiss was amazing, but everything before and since points to a man totally not interested.

But that kiss. Lockwood doesn’t have the social skills to pull off pretending that kind of passion, I don’t think.

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