Two Wrongs Make a Right (The Wilmot Sisters #1)

by Chloe Liese

“Have one,” Bea says, lifting the tray of fizzing coup glasses closer. I take an involuntary step back. “It’s champagne, James, not a Molotov cocktail.” “Drinks in your hand are not just drinks, Beatrice. They’re projectile missiles.” “Wow,” she says. “You’re one hell of a—” Before Bea can finish whatever insult she was about to throw my way, the swinging door opens right into her. Instead of insults, she throws six glasses of ice-cold champagne straight onto my pants.

Silence fills the tight space, and it feels like the world spins as our gazes lock for a brief, suspended moment. Jamie’s expression softens. The sharp furrow in his brow fades. The hard, flat line of his mouth surrenders to a faint lopsided tilt. But it’s those eyes I can’t stop staring at. His hazel eyes are a September night—bonfire-smoke rims, irises the color of golden firelight dancing on the last green leaves of summer. They are unfairly lovely.

Am I honestly entertaining a faux romance—a fauxmance?—with a woman with whom I’ve shared nothing but physical catastrophe and a dozen stinging verbal paper cuts?

Anxious thoughts crowd my brain. Was I cold when we left? Should I have sent her a message since we parted ways? Why am I horrible at all this? And why is a ten-hours-old fake relationship already on track to be more of a headache than the last real relationship I was in?

“No texting,” I tell myself, pushing the cart. “No need to overcompensate. No reason to act like an overeager, lovesick boyfriend.” Because I’m not, obviously. Lovesick. Or her boyfriend. Not really.

Bea said nipples, and I’m blushing like a schoolboy. I clear my throat, cheeks heating.

Dammit. First, he’s a baby doctor. Now, he rescues zombie cats in their hour of undead need. Ugh.

do not stare at his butt, tight and round and high inside his wrinkle-free dad slacks. Well, not too long.

I need to stop getting swept up in this bizarre attraction I feel for Jamie. So what if he’s my wet dream of a jock’s body with silver-screen Gregory Peck glasses and good looks? So what if he takes care of babies and rescues geriatric cats and says adorable shit like Shall we? And If you insist?

“Were you rushing to get here? You’re breathing heavily.” I’m breathing heavily, I almost tell her, because I’m on my knees in front of you and not nearly uncomfortable enough about it.

With Jamie in my clutches, I’m Gollum hoarding the One Ring, Emperor Palpatine with Anakin in his grip, Thanos wearing the Infinity Gauntlet.

He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear as the wind whips it across my face. “I don’t see you differently. I see you better.”

She loves something prickly, a bit daunting to approach at first. It unravels the ever-present anxious knot in my chest, a ball of relief unspooling through my limbs. If she can love that little creature, quills and all, maybe she could— No, not love. Of course not. But perhaps . . . understand me. How rare that would be.

You have to meet a living creature where they are, and love them for who they are, not who you want them to be.”

What’s “terrible,” I almost tell her, is how much I want to kiss you. The ways I want to kiss you. The ungentlemanly things I want to do to your body when you stand there, blushing as you peer down at the ground, swaying your skirt.

I feel like Ariel's friends when they're telling/ singing to the prince to kiss her.

It’s much easier to kiss someone in the heat of the moment, the way Jamie did at the bowling alley. But now? Now I’m the one who has to kiss him while moonlight bathes his beautiful face in an otherworldly glow and the wind throws my skirt his way, as if nature itself is urging me toward him.

It’s just that sometimes being truthful feels like it’s made things worse. Because when you face the facts, then you have to live with them. Eventually, you have to do something about them.

“ ‘Romance’ means happy endings. ‘Love story’ means they took a romance novel, cut out the back ten percent, and replaced it with misery.”

“Don’t downplay your work,” she says fiercely. “Don’t make yourself small just because someone else has.”

The real question is, James, can you canoodle?” “Oh, Beatrice, I can canoodle.” And I’ll enjoy it more than I should.

“I realized it’s even more powerful,” she continues, “when I can show the sensuality of those so-called imperfections. How we can appreciate ourselves and desire each other not when we’re perfect but when we’re us.

“My fake boyfriend isn’t supposed to ruin me for everyone else,” I whisper. Jamie’s eyes fall shut as he drops his forehead to mine. “Sometimes, Beatrice, I want to ruin you for everyone else.”

“You know it’s okay, right? For someone to see the best in you. For them to like the things you’re way too hard on yourself for.”

“I’m saying, you’re the best kind of chaos I’ve ever met. And while chaos used to terrify me, you make me crave it. I’m saying, even though this is an absurd situation we’ve backed ourselves into . . . I’d do it again in a heartbeat because it’s given me you.”

You’re the best thing in my life, I want to tell her. You’re safe and real and perfectly imperfect. We started as a lie, and now we’re the truest thing I’ve ever known.

I love her. Oh God, I love her. With each pound of my heart, the swell of the string quartet as the music builds, that’s the only thing I hear and feel—I love her. When haven’t I loved her?