My Unexpected Vow: California Billionaires Book 2 by Harlow James (top 10 inspirational books txt) 📕

up in the most magnificent shade of green as the florescent lighting catches them. “Don’t do this. Don’t pull away from me right now.” I slide my thumb along her chin and lower lip as my eyes dip down to her mouth, the subtle pink hue of her lips drawing me near as I contemplate kissing her.

But we’re not alone. And I don’t want to scare her or make her regret our lips touching once more. She already had reservations about our first kiss. The next one has to be one for the books.

“I’m… not,” she stutters.

“Yes, you are. Just be with me, live in this moment. Don’t think about tomorrow or ten minutes from now. Just cook with me. Spend time with me. Be with me,” I say on a plea, the desperation in my voice surprising me as well.

“But… I have to worry about what happens ten minutes from now,” she says with a dip in her brow.

“Why?”

The timer beeps in the background. I release her as she reaches to shut it off. “Because that’s when the food will be done.” She grins and just like that, my chest feels lighter.

“Okay. That’s fair. But seriously, Wave. Let’s just have fun, alright?”

She nods reluctantly, but I can sense her easing up a bit. “Okay. I can do that.”

* * *

“Holy shit! This is actually edible,” Waverly exclaims as she pops another bite of her chicken in her mouth, smiling as she chews.

I twirl my fork in the spaghetti and blow on it a few times before depositing the pasta into mine. “Damn right it is. We fucking cooked, Wave.”

The brightness of her smile has me mesmerized. “We did!”

“Now we have to live off of chicken parmigiana for the rest of our lives since it’s the only thing we know how to make,” I say lightheartedly.

“You mean for the next three months,” she counters.

My mind spins for a moment. “What?”

She finishes chewing before she speaks. “You said the rest of our lives, but you meant the next three months… right?”

Swallowing down the weight of her words, I feel my stomach drop just like my food in my throat. She still sees this as having an end date. She’s definitely not on the same wavelength as me. And why does that sting so badly?

“Yeah, my bad,” I say, shrugging off her correction. I mean, technically a marriage is supposed to be for life, right? And even though I know we said six months, with the way my mind has been reeling, I wasn’t seeing an ending anymore. But maybe I am just getting ahead of myself. “Unless …”

“Alright, everyone! That’s the end of our first class! Please feel free to take your leftovers home and proceed with the cleanup. I will be around to check your stations before you leave,” Margo bellows through the warehouse, cutting me off. But maybe it’s best that she did so I didn’t make an idiot out of myself, divulging thoughts that clearly are only mine at this point.

Waverly and I finish our meal and then wash the dishes and put away the leftover ingredients in the large industrial refrigerators located along one of the walls in the building. When we’re done, we both thank Margo profusely and then walk outside to my car.

The chill of the night serves as a reminder that spring is around the corner, but winter is still trying to hold on. For the second week in March, the weather has been beautiful, but the nights have still been fairly cold. I wrap my arm around Waverly’s waist as we trek to the car, pulling her into my side to provide an extra layer of warmth. And she doesn’t fight me on it but instead leans into my body until we arrive at her door. The woman is sending me mixed signals left and right, and it feels like I’ve forgotten how to read. However, up until her, I never bothered to decipher a woman’s interest because it was always so blatant. I knew within minutes of meeting a woman if she wanted me or not.

But not Waverly. Nope. After the last two-and-a-half months, I’m no closer to understanding what’s going on in her head, despite the moments we’ve shared. And as the evening draws to a close, one in which I had high hopes for, an unsettled wave of disappointment rolls through me once we arrive at home.

“Thanks again for tonight, Hayes. I really did have a good time.” Waverly stands outside of her bedroom door, pulling her sweater around her body like a cocoon, shielding her from me in a sense.

“Me too, Wave. We made a pretty good team.”

“Yeah, we actually did. No one got stabbed, no one lost a finger. I’d say it was a successful night.”

No, it would have been a successful night if you were pressing your lips against mine again right now.

I let out a half-hearted chuckle. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Well… goodnight, Wave,” I say, studying her face for any indication that she doesn’t want to go into her room just yet. She remains in place, her arms wrapped tightly around her, her eyes searching for something, but the hell if I know what it is.

Is she expecting more from me? Does she want me to kiss her as badly as I want to press my lips to hers?

But after the ups and downs in her mood tonight, I’m not sure that’s entirely what she wants, and I’ll be damned if I make her feel uncomfortable.

In that moment, I realize that if anything transpires between us, it has to be Waverly’s decision. I never want her to flip a moment between us on me. I don’t want to see regret in her eyes again, like the first night she kissed me. I need to hear the words from her lips, not just the action, to know where we stand. And with that realization, I painfully turn around and open my bedroom door,