Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 128211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
I sighed. “Thank you for the apology. I’m sorry, too. Let’s just… let’s try not to kill each other these next couple months, yeah?”
“That’s exactly what I came out here to say,” he said. I noticed he conveniently didn’t comment on the girlfriend thing. “I thought maybe we could shelve all this… be friends?”
I tried not to laugh.
Truly, I tried.
But it bubbled out of me before I could stop it. Not a full on haha, you’re so funny laugh, but one that sounded like I’d choked on that word he’d thrown at me.
“Sure, Finn,” I clipped. “We can be friends.”
I tried to ignore the way my chest was ripping apart as I slid off the barstool, ready to go back into the club and get my mind off this conversation. But before I could take a step, Finn’s fingers caught the belt loop of my jeans.
He tugged me to a stop, pulling hard enough that I had no choice but to face him. My cheeks burned when I met his gaze again, when I saw his jaw set like that. It reminded me of the first night he touched me, the night I found out he wasn’t just good with his hands in the kitchen.
“You look so pretty like this,” he growls against my lips, hand splaying my throat before curling just enough to make me gasp and arch into the touch. “Wearing the way you want me like a red lipstick you want everyone to see.”
“Finn…”
“That’s it, Firefly. Call out my name. Beg for what you want.”
I blinked, cursing the memory and the way it sent electricity straight between my thighs.
“I mean it,” Finn said. He dropped his gaze to where I was staring at his fingers in my belt loop, and then cleared his throat, releasing the hold. “We need to work through this together. Especially with…”
He glanced at the camera I just remembered was with us, and I flushed deeper.
“Let’s be a team,” Finn added. “We make a good one, if you remember.”
I’m trying to forget.
But I didn’t say the words aloud. Instead, I sighed heavily, but nodded, leaning my arms on the railing again. As much as the idea of being friends with Finn Pearson made me sick, he was right. This was a huge chance to further my career, to secure myself gigs I couldn’t even dream of at the moment.
It was a chance to prove myself to my father with the world watching.
I wouldn’t waste that — especially not on feelings that should have been long dead by now.
“Fine,” I relented. “Let’s be a team. But only if you mean that. Don’t take your little chef fits out on me. You can throw dishes and play Fruit Ninja all you want, but don’t be a dick to me.”
The corner of Finn’s lips curved. “No dick behavior. Promise.”
I smirked back, rolling my neck against the strain there. “I think I need another drink.”
“I think I need my bed.”
“Old man.”
“Never felt that to be more true than this moment,” he admitted, and right on cue, a huge yawn stretched his mouth.
I chuckled. “What happened to the Finn I used to know? You were always the last one back on the boat. You’d be out until you had to provision the next day sometimes.”
“I guess we’ve both aged.”
“Guess so.” My smile fell a bit, eyes flicking over the new lines on his face, the way he looked older now. The floor dropped out from under me.
I hated that I’d missed out on those years.
“Is everything okay with you and Gisella, by the way?” I tried not to sound as desperate as I was to know the answer when the question left my lips. “She seemed a little… perturbed at dinner.”
Finn sighed. “That’s one word for it. She was fit to kill.”
“Why?”
“The producers thought it would be fun to tell her during post-charter interviews that you and I used to date.”
Shit.
I didn’t know why, but guilt slid through me like a snake. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” Finn arched a brow at me, then smiled a little. “Don’t look so scared. It’s fine now. We talked. She was upset I didn’t tell her first, but I didn’t really have the time to yet, did I?”
I wished I had something to take a sip of because I didn’t know how to answer that.
“We’re good now,” he assured me.
I pretended like that was a relief. “Oh. Great. I’m glad.”
Silence stretched between us again, and I told myself to go back inside, but for some reason, I couldn’t stop staring at him.
I blamed the alcohol for not being able to stunt my curiosity any longer.
“Finn.”
“Mm?”
“What happened with your restaurant in Dublin?”
Every semblance of joy left his face in an instant, the light leaking out of him like a candle snuffed out by an unforgiving wind. He swallowed, the Adam’s apple in his throat lurching as he tore his gaze from me.