“No? What’s it like?”

Her silence spoke volumes.

When she finally opened her mouth, he already knew what was coming. “You knew this wouldn’t last. We both went into this eyes wide open, knowing it was a fling. Knowing that we’re horrible together.”

I didn’t know. The thought felt like it was ripped from the deepest part of him.

“We’re good in the only area that matters, though,” he said instead, letting his eyes linger insultingly on her chest.

It was exactly the fuel she’d needed. “See that? That is why someone like me would never be with someone like you. You’re all about the short-term gratification of sex and don’t have a clue about how to build something lasting. How to build something that matters.”

“You’re absolutely right, Princess. Perhaps I should just get myself a journal and start writing a bunch of arbitrary goals that I’ll fail miserably at.”

“I am not failing at my goals.” She jabbed a finger at him. “I intentionally set them aside to get some perspective.”

“And did you?” he asked in a low voice. “Did you get perspective?”

Come on, Brynn, he silently coaxed her. Dig beneath that pretty, boring surface.

She opened her mouth before closing it quickly and staring blankly over his shoulder. His heart sank. She wasn’t going to reach for it—wasn’t going to reach for him.

“So what’s next, then? You go back to your boring routine and spend your life covering up your tattoo? Covering up the past few weeks?” Covering up who you really are?

“Why are you acting like this?” she asked irritably. “I haven’t once indicated that this was anything but a phase. I even set an end date.”

“Which isn’t for another six days.”

He’d been counting. Carefully.

She shrugged. “What difference does it make? Today or next week…it’ll end the same.”

He tilted his head back, reading between the lines. It would end with her finding some boring lawyer with a briefcase and him trying to fill the void with an endless string of women who weren’t Brynn. Who would never be Brynn.

He tried one more time, taking a small step forward. “Brynny, it’s okay to just let yourself be. Nobody’s going to criticize the real you, if you don’t criticize the real you.”

It was the wrong thing to say.

Her eyes shuttered completely, and she took a step backward. “You don’t know everything about me,” she snapped.

So tell me.

But she didn’t.

“Got it,” he said with a nod. “So if we happen to be in the yard at the same time, I’ll just wave, then? Or do I pretend you’re not there?”

She sighed. “Will…”

“How about if we’re getting the mail at the same time? Should I compliment the good condition of your front lawn? Because God knows I won’t have access to your other lawn…”

“Hey!”

“Well, what’s it going to be, Brynn?” he asked, keeping his voice low even though his temper was straining. “You’re clearly in charge here, so I’d love to know what it says in your little planner about what happens now.”

“I thought…” She pursed her lips. “I thought we could just go back to the way we were.”

He snorted. “At each other’s throats, dripping with sexual tension?”

“It wasn’t just sexual tension. You’ve always hated me. It’s not until I let you into my pants that you’ve pretended to be nice.”

You stupid little fool.

“Right. Well, thank God I don’t have to hide my dislike anymore,” he said in a low voice.

“Thank God,” she said, her voice faint.

“And you won’t either,” he continued, pressing her. “All the disdain you’ve kept carefully at bay the past few weeks can come spilling out.”

“I’ve enjoyed the past few weeks!” she yelled.

She looked as surprised at her outburst as he felt.

“Yeah?” he asked carefully. Careful to keep his voice casual. Curious, rather than desperate.

“Yeah,” she said with a shrug. “I also really like butter pecan ice cream, doesn’t mean it’s good for me every day.”

She might as well have stabbed him.

A harsh laugh came out of his mouth. “Okay, then. Got it. This tub of Häagen-Dazs will just get himself back to his own house, yeah?”

His hand went for the handle of the front door when her voice stopped him, a quiet, tentative plea. “One last thing.”

Will froze, but didn’t turn around.

“Last night…the fire, the candles…the…intensity…What was that?”

It wasn’t easy for her to ask. He knew that. It also revealed that she recognized a tiny crack in her carefully laid plan.

But the question was too little, too late. He was done helping her find answers. Done providing them for her.

She was on her own.

“Last night is what I like to call the sexual grand finale.” He shot her a steady, cool look over his shoulder. “I’m not surprised you dug it. Most women do.”

He wasn’t the only one that could read between the lines. He saw in her narrowed blue eyes that she caught his implication. Last night was commonplace. You’re not the only one.

“Well, for what it’s worth, it needed some work,” she said in a waspish tone.

He gave a careless shrug as he opened the door. “I did the best I could with a subpar partner.”

And just like that, they were back to where they started.

Like they hadn’t gone anywhere at all.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Your parents have the right to only

know you as their little girl.

—Brynn Dalton’s Rules for an

Exemplary Life, #52

Now, tell me again why you cut your hair, honey?”

Brynn plucked a fancy olive off one of her mother’s trademark hors d’oeuvre platters and mentally patted herself on the back for dyeing her hair back to its natural blonde color before trying to survive dinner with her parents.

If her mother was having this much trouble adjusting to the choppy layers, the dark color might have made her swoon.

To say nothing of the tattoo that her mom would absolutely never see.

One step closer…

“Just wanted a little change,” Brynn said as she reached for the pile of cloth napkins and began carefully sticking them through her mother’s pewter napkin rings.

But Marnie Dalton had never been one of those mothers who was content to be blissfully ignorant of what her daughters were up to, and neither was she a live-and-let-live personality.

And right now, Brynn was wishing she and her mother had just a little less in common, because she knew her mom was seeing right through her.

Right to that tattoo, and right to the stain that Will Thatcher had left on her…well, not her heart. But somewhere.

“Just a change, huh? Just like this little hiatus from your career was a change?”

Her mom had stopped short of calling Brynn irresponsible, but Brynn heard it anyway. She knew that tone from dozens of I’m disappointed talks. Only, those lectures had never been directed at Brynn. Sophie had always been the one to drive her mother batty with her refusal to do anything “expected” for much of the past ten years. Only Sophie’s marriage to someone as classically conservative as Gray had managed to appease Marnie.

Apparently their mother had decided to channel her meddling energy elsewhere, and Brynn was really wishing she had another sibling right about now. Anyone to deflect her mom’s speculative gaze.

“Come on, Mom, haven’t you ever needed a little break from yourself?”

To Brynn’s surprise, her mom paused in slicing a tomato and appeared to put genuine thought to the question. “A break from myself? I don’t think so. I’m not sure what I would need a break from.”

Brynn hid a smile at her mom’s immodesty. “Is it hard, then? Being so perfect, I mean?”

Marnie raised an eyebrow and went back to slicing her tomato. “You’ve been hanging out with your sister, I presume. Such sass is usually Sophie’s bit.”