by K. M. Scott
I sensed a hint of suspicion in his tone, but I wasn’t sure. Turning around, I studied his expression. He wore that typical Tristan Stone look I’d seen all my life. Emotionless, his face didn’t give any hints to what he thought, but in his dark eyes so similar to mine, I saw some clue how he felt.
Was that pride I saw in them?
“You like her then?” I asked, curious what he thought of Summer suddenly.
A wry smile slowly spread across his lips. “How could I not? I married a nice girl with long brown hair from outside of Philly who gave me three wonderful children and the happiest years of my life. Of course, I want that for you, too, son.”
Unable to stifle a chuckle at the thought that he already had me married with children like him, I said, “Well, let’s not rush things. Summer’s a nice girl, but we haven’t even been going out six months yet.”
My father patted me on the shoulder and smiled. “Let’s hope it works out. I know your mother would be over the moon to see you with a girl like Summer.”
As he walked out to return to the dining room, I felt a little bad that all of this with Summer wasn’t real. I hadn’t seen my father look at me like that in a long time, and I liked making my mother happy.
And if I was a couple years older, I might want to settle down with someone like Summer. I couldn’t imagine doing that with anyone else.
I stood there thinking about how that could be a good thing and didn’t see Tressa walk into the room. She stopped in front of me and pointed her finger directly at my face.
“Just so you know, I’m not buying whatever this whole thing is with you and that lovely creature you’re claiming to be your girlfriend.”
How was it possible that someone could look so much like me and be so goddamned different?
“There’s nothing to buy, Tress. Summer and I have been together for about two weeks. It’s pretty simple. Even you can understand that.”
She shook her head before rolling her eyes. “What I understand is this. That girl is so out of your league that I’m thinking you hired her to put on that show out there.”
“Whatever. You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said as I turned to leave.
But that didn’t stop her.
“There’s no way someone like her would willingly go with you. Not unless she’s been living under a rock for the past few years and has no idea of what you’ve been up to. The strippers, the models, the wannabes. All of them are enough to send someone like her running for the hills. But since I know she hasn’t been under a rock for all your exploits, I have to assume she’s either stupid or naïve. The problem is just from talking to her for a few minutes I can tell she’s neither. That leaves only one other choice. This is all a lie for Mom and Dad’s benefit. You’re probably holding something over that poor girl’s head so she’ll join you in this farce.”
I’d never exactly understood how the bond between triplets worked. Ever since we were children, I could literally feel when Diana was sad, even if she was miles away. Tressa never felt sad, but I knew her emotions as well as my own from as far back as I could remember. Mind reading, however, had never been part of any of our abilities. I had no idea how she figured out what I was up to, but I had no intention of letting her ruin my plan.
“Maybe she’s just not judgmental like you. Ever think of that?”
Tressa smiled and shook her head. “It’s not judgmental to not want to date a man-whore, Ethan. It’s just common sense for nice girls, and that girl in there is every bit a nice girl. I’m going to give you fair warning. Mom and Dad like her, and I do, too, and I’ve only known her for a few minutes. Whatever you’re up to, try to remember that real women—you know, the kind who aren’t Barbie dolls—have feelings that can be hurt with your games. That includes your mother, too. Remember that.”
“Whatever, Tress. I’m glad you like her.”
I returned to the dining room and sat down next to Summer as my sister’s words echoed in my head. Nobody was going to get hurt because we both knew what we were up to.
The problem was I couldn’t help notice the way I got a dull ache in my chest when I thought about her being hurt. I liked Summer, and if I wanted to date just one woman, I could see me choosing her. She had a lot of what I looked for in someone, and as I’d seen tonight, she was able to do something no one else had ever been able to accomplish.
She impressed my parents and made my father look at me with pride in his eyes.
But I didn’t want to be with just one woman. Not yet anyway.
We said next to nothing all the way back to the city, and when I pulled up in front of her apartment building, she practically jumped out of the car. All I got was a quick goodbye and she was off.
I quickly found a parking spot and followed her up the front stairs. She was in such a hurry I barely caught her before she got inside.
“Hey, what’s up?”
She didn’t look at me and shook her head. “Nothing. I have to get upstairs.”
Before she could get away, I grabbed her arm to stop her. “Summer, is something wrong?”
“No.” She hesitated for a moment and then turned to face me. “Yes, actually. I don’t want to do this anymore. You have a great family that cares about you. I don’t want to be a part of lying to them anymore. You can tell my boss what happened if you feel you have to, but I’m out. Go find someone else to parade in front of your family, Ethan.”
“So does this mean I won’t see you anymore?” I asked as that ache in my chest returned.
Summer looked confused by the question. “Why would we see each other anymore? I was never the kind of person you’d date. You wanted me because I was exactly the kind of girl your family thinks you should be with. But you don’t want to be with me. You want models who look good or dancers who look sexy. I’m not either of those kinds of women. I’m just me, Summer, a smart, nice girl who guys like you never think twice about after they sleep with them.”
“Can’t we at least be friends and still hang out?”
“Do you mean hang out like get-together-and-fuck kind of friends?” she asked with disgust.
“No. I just meant friends. I liked hanging out with you on the plane that day and at my parents’ house for dinner tonight.”
Sadness filled her eyes, and she frowned. “Guys like you don’t have female friends, Ethan. I don’t think I’m the right kind of person to play these games. I had a great time that night, and it was fun getting to know you on the plane ride back. Maybe we should just leave it at that and go back to our lives.”
I watched her open the door to her building and walk inside as a feeling of emptiness came over me. It would be nothing for me to find a woman to spend time with for the night, so why did Summer not wanting to see me ever again bother me so much?
Unsure about everything I was feeling, I knew one thing. I didn’t want to lose Summer from my life. There had to be a way we could still spend time together.
As she waited for the elevator in the lobby, I banged on the glass door to get her attention. I didn’t know what to say when she came back, but I had to do something to change this. She heard me pounding on the door and walked over to open it.
“What?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t like the idea of never seeing you again.”
“Ethan, this city is full of women who would give their left arms to be with you. You won’t be alone for long.”
She really did have an exaggerated view of how appealing I was to the opposite sex. I couldn’t help but smile.
“I don’t know about all of them. I just know I want to be with you.”
“Why?”
Damnit, why did she have to ask so many questions? “I don’t know why. I just like being around you.”
“So what do you want to do? Come up to my apartment and get me into bed? Is that it? Because I don’t have any interest in being any guy’s booty call.”
“No. I just want to hang out. Maybe watch a movie
or something like we did on the plane.”
“And you want to do this with me instead of hooking up with some model to have sex?” she asked, her eyes wide in disbelief.
I couldn’t explain it, either. Until just a few minutes before, I wanted nothing more than to have my plan work and live my life as I wanted to. But now I wanted something else.
Now I wanted Summer.
“Yeah. You can even pick the movie like on the plane.”
She seemed to think about it for a moment, and then she gave me one of her shy smiles. “Okay. Just a movie.”
Walking with her toward the elevator, I didn’t know why not having Summer in my life bothered me so much. I just knew it did.
So for tonight, we’d do a movie. And next time, maybe it would be something more. This whole nice-girl thing was completely foreign to me, so I had no idea what would happen.
All I knew was I liked my life more with Summer in it than not. Now I just had to not screw things up. The problem was that was easier said than done considering my history.
Chapter Eight
Summer
From behind me, Ethan nuzzled my neck as I tried to find the number for that pizza place we both liked but could never remember the name. Of course, that made ordering a hundred times harder.
“Giuseppe’s. That’s the name, I think,” he said against the shell of my ear. “Look for Giuseppe’s.”
The touch of his lips on my skin tickled, and I rolled my shoulders as I giggled. “I tried that already. No good. I think it was Nardone’s.”
He pulled me to him and hugged me around my waist. “That doesn’t ring a bell. Why don’t we cook again tonight?”
His suggestion made me laugh. Turning in his hold, I looked up at him and saw he was serious. “Ethan, the last time we tried that, we got nothing cooked and ended up having sex right here in the kitchen. I was still finding rice in my hair at work the next day.”
“I know. It was fun,” he said, smiling wickedly. “I’ve got an even better idea. Let’s fly to Italy and get pizza made by actual Italians.”
“What? Are you crazy?”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good idea. The Stone Worldwide plane isn’t being used at the moment, so why not?”
“Because I have work tomorrow, for one.”
He shook his head and then kissed me. “Call in sick.”
“I’ll starve to death if I have to wait that long to get food, for two.”
“Okay, then. Let’s head to Chicago and get deep dish pizza. That wouldn’t take long.”
The way he said that with such eagerness and wonder in his eyes made it hard to say no to him. He’d taken me on a few impromptu trips in the month we’d been together, like New Orleans for the weekend and Dallas for an overnight adventure one Friday night. I loved how spontaneous he could be. That’s why I hated saying no to his suggestions now.
But tonight I had to. I hadn’t eaten all day, and if I didn’t get some food in my stomach soon, I’d pass out.
I grabbed his shirt in both hands and pulled on it as I pretended to be a woman on the edge. “I need food, man! I can’t remember the last time I ate, so if I don’t consume something in the next half hour, you’re going to find me laid out on the floor, and not in the good way.”
Ethan smiled, finally convinced of how dire my hunger situation had gotten. “Okay. Let’s forget about that pizza place and try the one I saw about two blocks away. At least I know the name of that one. Vincenzo’s. So get them going on the pizza, and instead of waiting for delivery, I’ll run for it. That way you can get food into your stomach sooner and not fade away on me. Sound good?”
I tapped my finger on the tip of his nose and leaned in to kiss him softly on the lips. “You know, you’re not just a pretty face, Ethan Stone. Good looking and brilliant. It’s a great combo.”
Turning back toward the counter to make the call to Vincenzo’s, I found myself pulled against his muscular body. He buried his face in the spot between my shoulder and chin and kissed my neck.
“Mmmm, I think I might just make a meal out of you,” he teased.
“Dying here, Ethan. That means you’ll have to explain to the police how badly you treated your girlfriend and how you starved her.”
He stopped feasting on my neck for a moment before he planted one final kiss just below my ear. “Got it. I’m on a mission. Summer wants pizza, so pizza she will get. Call them and I’ll head down there now so I can grab it as soon as it comes out of the oven.”
“Thank you. I promise to repay you in trade later tonight,” I said with a giggle as he walked toward my apartment door.
Without looking back, he said, “I’m going to keep you to your word, so be ready. Pizza and then wild sex. Just how Thursday nights should be.”
I ordered our pizza the way we always got it—sausage and extra cheese—and root beer soda Ethan liked to drink whenever we got pizza before I sat down on the couch to wait for him and our dinner. It had been nearly four weeks since that night he stood outside banging on the front door to my apartment building to tell me he didn’t want to never see me again after I reneged on our deal. For the first couple days, I had a hard time believing he wasn’t coming around just for sex, so I held out for nearly two weeks to test him. He never complained or made a move toward sleeping together in all that time. We just hung out at my apartment watching movies at night after work, sometimes falling asleep together on the very spot where I now sat.
Of course, when I let him know I didn’t expect us to never have sex again and that I would be open to the idea, he didn’t wait. Not that I wanted him to. The man had the ability to make me forget my own name from the things he did to my body, so holding out for those two weeks had been practically torture.
But it had showed me something important about Ethan.
Not that we were rushing into anything. Neither one of us had said those three magic words, although if I had to tell the truth, I’d been in love with him since that night we spent together. I hadn’t told him that, though, because even I didn’t understand how I could possibly think that, but it was the truth.
Regardless of what we had or hadn’t said about how we felt about one another, every night we got together and he listened to me complain about Julia. When I asked him about his day, he usually gave me some vague answer about time between shoots or how he’d be leaving soon for another one and didn’t want to think about it. Then we ate dinner before watching TV or a movie.
To some women, that happening night after night would be monotonous, but to me, spending so much time with him made me happy. In two days, it would be a month we were together, but it felt like I’d known him forever. He made me smile when I felt like life was beating me up at work. When we made love, he worked to please me as much as I did him.
Everything was perfect.
Closing my eyes, I thought about him grabbing the pizza and soda off the counter at Vincenzo’s and running back, the bottles shaking up and down with every step so when he opened one for each of us, they would fizz all over the counter like they did every time he ran out for food. I’d be ready with a roll of paper towels like I had since that first time he made soda run all over my kitchen and my feet stuck to the floor for two days, even after I mopped three times. He’d smile and apologize, making that same joke about how carbonation wasn’t his friend as he scrambled to stop the soda from exploding out from the top of the bottles.
My phone buzzed behind me on the kitchen counter, so I jumped up to grab it just in case it was him texting. Maybe Vincenzo’s had run out of root beer or they didn’t have sausage for the pizza.
I looked down at my screen and saw a message from Ethan. Opening it, I read the words but didn’t understand their meaning.
I’ll be there. Don’t worry. It’s okay. I miss you too.
What did he mean by that?
Scrolling through our texts from the past few days, I tried to remember if I had messaged him anything that woul
d warrant that text back to me. I found nothing.
“The pizza man has returned!” Ethan announced a minute later as he came through the front door. “I swear I didn’t shake up the soda this time, so you don’t have to worry about it spraying all over the place. I held it close to my body so it didn’t get jostled all around.”
I set my phone on the coffee table and headed toward the kitchen to get dinner. I’d ask him about that odd text after I got some food in me.
Ethan already had paper plates set out on the counter by the time I reached him. “Chow down. I can’t have you fading away on me,” he said before kissing me on the cheek.
As I lifted two slices of pizza out of the huge cardboard box, I inhaled the delicious smell of mozzarella cheese, sauce, and sausage. While Vincenzo’s wasn’t my favorite pizza place, tonight my dinner made my mouth water. The cheese began to slide off the crust, so I quickly plopped the slices down onto a paper plate just as I heard Ethan twist the top off one of the bottles of soda.
I barely had time to grab the roll of paper towels before I heard the all-too-familiar hiss of the carbonation escaping the bottle. Turning around, I watched as he hurriedly tried to retighten the top of the bottle, but it was no use. Soda ran down over his hands onto the floor as he moved left and right trying to find a place to set the bottle down.
“Sink!” I yelled, pointing toward it like he needed help finding the damn sink.
His eyes opened wide. “Right!”
He took two giant steps and reached the sink, but the damage was done. Looking behind him, he saw the trail of soda across the kitchen floor and frowned. “I swear I didn’t think I shook the bottles at all this time, Summer. I don’t know why, but carbonation just isn’t my friend.”
I kissed him and smiled. “It’s okay, Ethan. It’s sort of your thing with soda. It always happens, so it’s okay.”
“You said okay twice. I think that’s the international sign that it’s not okay,” he said with a pout as he washed his hands and I mopped up the soda from the floor.
