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My body is betraying me by wanting her—but how could I not? She’s beautiful—there’s no way I could ever deny that—but she drives me insane. She’s everything I hate—uncontrollable chaos. Yet, I’m aching to have one little taste of her wild side.
The thought occurs to me that I could get used to hearing her laugh more, to seeing her happy tears. And those are both things I shouldn’t want to get used to.
The thing about other people’s expectations is that you’re never really able to live up to them. You’ll end up disappointing them, and then you feel like shit for doing so.
“I’m thinking of doing something incredibly fucking stupid.” “Like?” “Like tasting that sharp tongue of yours. I can’t help but wonder if your insults won’t bother me as much if I get to taste them.”
She isn’t terrible to be with, and that’s what fucking terrifies me. We don’t get along. We fight more than we have a normal conversation, yet I want to spend more time with her.
“Because your body is so perfect, one day I’ll have to recreate it with clay so I can admire it forever.”
I feel like I’m in middle school again. I want to ask does she like me or like like me like a goddamn twelve-year-old.
“If you haven’t learned this already, I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. I heard you were sick, and I wanted to be here.”
Pippa Jennings—the woman I yelled at the moment we met—is stealing pieces of my cold, black heart. She’s breathing life back into it, and I don’t have it in me to fight, even when I know it can’t end well.
Camden Hunter is infuriating. He has a perfect face. A perfect body. Is rich as hell. One of the most talented people I’ve ever met. And the asshole can cook, too.
I want to take her out, to show her off, to have people know she’s with me. That she’s mine. And that’s never happened to me before. I don’t know how to handle it.
I think I have actual feelings for this woman. I don’t do feelings. But I want to do feelings if they’re for her.
“But I want more of this. More of you. More of us. And unless you want to, I don’t have anything to hide. I want you, shortcake. In an intense, ferocious way I’ve never wanted anyone else.” Another deep breath in. “And it’s actually really fucking unnerving.”
“Yours. That’s what I am,” he whispers. “And you don’t have to tell me your name. It’s mine.”
I like mornings with her. I like watching her take her first sip of coffee every morning, watching her fuss with doing her hair to ultimately throw it up on the top of her head.
“Shortcake, you shine brighter than any other person I’ve ever met. You don’t have to fit in because you outshine everyone else. It’s a remarkable thing.”
At some point between the heated arguments, the passionate nights, and the tender moments, I started falling for a man I swore I couldn’t stand.
I want to prove myself to her. And I’ve never wanted to prove myself to anyone when it comes to my art.
It crept into my mind unexpectedly, but at the same time, it feels like something I already knew. It’s almost like my head was just accepting what my heart already knew—I’m in love with Pippa Jennings. My shortcake. Mine.
“I didn’t know love until I knew you. And I’m trying to figure it out because I want to do better—be better—for you. But I can’t do that if you won’t let me. There’s nothing I can say if you want to give up the second things get hard. But I do love you. I love you in a way that consumes me. You’re my every thought, every dream, my entire being. I love you so much that it fucking hurts you think I wouldn’t do anything, give up anything, to make us work.”
“Ten million,” a voice thunders from the very back of the room. My entire body breaks out in shivers. I’d know the voice anywhere. At any place, in any crowd, I’d recognize it.
“I love you, shortcake,” he continues, seemingly unaware of what his words have done to me. “I was so busy falling in love with you I didn’t even realize I’d fallen in love with this town, too. I’d never ask for you to give up your life in Sutten. All I’m asking is for you to welcome me into your life so we can create a life here together.”
“I love you,” I tell him, pulling away because I need him to know. I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of saying those three words to him. “And I’ll spend every day making sure you know how easy it is to love you. And how cherished I feel to have your love.”
never thought I’d be someone to form attachments with so many people, but as I look at them as we make our way to the end of the path, I think about how much happier my life is now that I have all of them in it.
I give her a moment, looking at the real-life statue in front of us. I’d spent countless hours perfecting the frame and features of her mom in stone. I’d pored over image after image of her, wanting to make sure I made this tribute to her absolutely perfect.
“You taught me everything I know about love, and every single day, I wake up wanting to be a better man for you. You’ve turned me into the man I want to become, not the shell of the man I used to be. I’ve known from the moment I told you I loved you that I wanted you to be my wife, but I wanted to give you time. I wanted to give us time. And while I wish with everything in me your mom was here with us to watch me ask you to be my wife, I thought maybe if I did it here, with all the people who loved her surrounding us, that it’d be the next best thing.”
“I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life that I want to be your husband. I want you to be my wife. I want to have some big, elaborate wedding here if that’s what you want and then take you on a honeymoon to France and go to every single French pâtisserie we can find. I want to share coffee with you every morning and have kids with you and really just grow old with you. I will spend the rest of my life proving to you that I’m the man you think I am.”
For the rest of my life, I’ll be thankful that this small little town brought me and Pippa together. And that both of us opened up enough to each other to tempt our fate.
