Julie didn’t realize she’d spoken everything aloud until she felt Mitchell stiffen briefly behind her before he pulled her even closer, his hand splaying over her stomach before it slid up between her br**sts.

Over her heart.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered against her hair.

The rightness of his simple response rocked through her, and she almost sobbed with regret at the way she was treating him. Not only had she dragged him into a sham relationship, but she’d gone on a date with another man as though what they’d shared was disposable.

She swallowed nervously. That last part, at least, she could come clean about.

“I went on a date tonight,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

The hand that had been idly stroking her hair paused for the briefest of seconds, and she braced herself for him to pull away. To leave her. Instead, he resumed his slow, comforting strokes on her head.

“Say something,” she begged.

“Did he kiss you?”

She licked her lips nervously. “No.”

“Did you want him to?”

Julie started to turn to face him, but he held her still. “No!”

“And you came home early. Alone.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Then I’d say I have nothing to worry about.”

“But Mitchell—”

“Shh. Go to sleep now.”

Julie squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the sheer kindness of this man. And when she thought she heard him whisper “I love you,” she blocked that out too.

Because he couldn’t love her. Or at least he wouldn’t. Not for much longer, anyway.

Chapter Fourteen

Julie padded quietly out of her bedroom, her eyes so puffy from a night of crying and fitful sleeping that she could barely see.

She halted when she registered that Mitchell was in her kitchen. He was wearing the same dark jeans and gray polo shirt he’d had on the night before, but his hair was damp and she smelled her own cucumber soap. He’d showered in her bathroom.

For some reason, the thought made her heart do a little happy dance.

His hair was curly when it was wet. It should have made him look completely rumpled, but other than the unrulier-than-usual curls, he looked completely tidy and polished. She felt a rush of affection for the sheer orderly perfection of him. It was strange to think that the same structured persona that had drawn her to him for professional needs now appealed to her in the most personal of ways.

“You’re a nice guy, Mitchell Forbes.” She walked into the kitchen and slid an arm around his waist as she nuzzled the hard plane between his shoulder blades.

He tilted his head down, adjusting his glasses to look at her. “I certainly didn’t feel like a nice guy when I copped a feel at six a.m.”

Julie gave a slow grin. He’d copped a feel and then some. “I liked it,” she said quietly.

He planted a quick kiss on top of her head. “Sit. I got us bagels.”

Julie shook her head and accepted the foil package he handed her. “This is what I mean. Nice guy. You hold me when I cry, don’t bat an eyelash when I tell you I went on a date with someone else, and then you go and fetch me breakfast.”

He unwrapped his own bagel sandwich without looking at her, his expression unreadable. After a long moment blue eyes flicked up to hers. “I didn’t sleep much last night. All I could think about was you. With someone else. I didn’t like it.”

The bite of bacon, egg, and cheese that had tasted deliciously greasy seconds ago turned rancid. She forced herself to chew methodically and then took a small sip of the coffee he’d set in front of her. She should have known she wouldn’t be let off the hook that easily. Just because he was sweet didn’t mean he wasn’t human.

“It didn’t mean anything.” It sounded weak even to her own ears.

“Then why’d you do it?”

Julie fiddled with the foil, her appetite completely gone. Do it. Confess now. This is your chance. She knew now that she had to tell him. But she kept hearing his whispered words as she drifted off to sleep: I love you. She couldn’t hurt him. Not yet. She wanted these last few precious days before she had to ‘fess up.

There was no guarantee that he would forgive her, but she had hope. Especially when she told him the decision she’d made this morning.

She wasn’t going to write the story.

Mitchell meant too much to her. And even if it wouldn’t break his heart to have their relationship splayed across Stiletto’s shiny pages, it would break hers. What they had was too precious to share with the world. It was theirs and theirs alone.

Of course, not writing the article meant that she technically didn’t have to tell him at all.

Except that she did.

Julie might not know much about relationships, but she knew that the good ones weren’t founded on secrets and lies.

But first she had to explain away last night’s mistake. “Mitchell, I really am sorry. I wish I could explain exactly why, but the truth was I freaked out about whatever this is and thought a backward step might help.”

“Did it?”

She answered with her eyes. No.

He studied her for several moments before reaching across the table and taking her hand. He rubbed a thumb over her knuckles. “So we’re not seeing other people?”

Julie blinked in surprise at how much the thought of Mitchell with someone else hurt.

“No,” she breathed. “I don’t want us to see other people.”

He raised her hand to his lips. “Me neither.”

“So we’re good then?”

He let go of her hand and dug into his bagel. “We’re good.”

Thank God. Appetite restored, Julie reached again for her bagel.

“You up for a little run around the island?” Mitchell asked.

Julie’s sandwich paused halfway to her mouth. “The island? Please tell me you’re not talking about the island of Manhattan.”

He took a gulp of coffee, apparently completely unaware that he’d gone off the deep end. “Yep.”

“It’s a city, Mitchell. Not a damned track.”

“Still an island. And a small one at that. Thirteen miles long, only two across.”

She held up an objecting hand as she stuffed her bagel in her mouth. “Human bodies are not meant to do that. I mean, why don’t we just swim to Staten Island when we’re done?”

“I’d love to.”

“You’re ridiculous,” she said with a full mouth. “I have a better idea. How about we walk two blocks to an air-conditioned movie theater and split a big-ass bag of popcorn?”

“Or . . .” He caught her eye and held it, and she struggled to swallow her sandwich. She knew what that look meant.

“Now?” she asked. “But I’m all puffy and gross and—”

Julie didn’t get a chance to finish her protest as he scooped her up, Rhett Butler style, and carried her the few feet into her bedroom.

She expected him to pounce, but instead he laid her gently on the bed, crawling over her with deliberate slowness. Julie’s tiny bedroom window got exactly fifteen minutes of direct sunlight each day, and they were right in the middle of it. The room was otherwise dark except for the soft morning sun shining on her bed, and Julie smiled at the picturesque perfection of it. As though someone up there was smiling on this particular moment. On her and Mitchell’s moment.

His eyes never left hers as his palms slid up her rib cage in deliberate slowness. She framed his face with her hands. It should have felt familiar by now, but something was different this morning. Julie swallowed nervously. What now?

His dimples flashed briefly, and she knew that he felt the change too.

They knew each other’s bodies backward and forward. They knew heat, passion, lust. But there hadn’t been caring in the bedroom.

Not until right now

“Mitchell,” she said, lurching to her feet in sudden panic, “I—”

Julie half expected him to cut off her words with a kiss. She wanted that. Wanted him to take them back to when sex had just been sex and the idea of being with him didn’t seem to matter so damn much.