Can't Take My Eyes Off of You (Summer Lake #2)(10)

“Where were you traveling, if you don’t mind me asking?” One of the things she loved most about her job was talking to the inn’s guests about their travels. She very much wanted to visit all those wondrous places she’d heard about. It was another vow she’d made to herself—that one day she would see the seven wonders outside of a book or a cable TV program.

“I’ve been all over Asia these past weeks.”

She could tell he was a big traveler, simply by the way he said it, like it was no big deal to visit Asia. She would have been gushing like crazy about her trip and pulling out pictures.

“I’ve always wanted to see that part of the world,” she said after another bite of cake. “Do you have a favorite country in the Far East?”

“Japan. Especially in the spring.”

She leaned forward, guessing, “Were the cherry blossoms in bloom?”

“Everywhere.”

She closed her eyes, trying to imagine what it must be like to stand beneath the pink blooms. “How lovely it must have been,” she said, a smile on her lips at the vision in her head.

“Lovely,” he echoed.

She opened her eyes and found his gaze locked on hers. His eyes were darker than she remembered them being a few minutes earlier. Even more intense. Which was saying something, because he was one of the most intense men she’d ever come across.

Wanting to go back to that space they’d just been in where things had finally felt somewhat comfortable, she said, “Wesley told me you have your own business.”

His almost-smile disappeared. “I just sold it.”

“Oh.” She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say to that. “Is that a good thing?”

“It was time to move on.”

Yes, she knew all about moving on. “Any thoughts about what you want to do next?” Feeling borderline comfortable again, she picked a chocolate crumb from the stainless-steel countertop with the tip of her left index finger and licked it off.

Of course, that was right when he said, “Look, Christie, you seem like a nice person, but I don’t understand what happened with you and my brother. I need you to explain it to me. Now.”





CHAPTER FIVE





Christie nearly dropped the fork in her right hand at his abrupt conversational switch. But really, how could she blame him for asking when they hadn’t had a chance to talk much about it earlier? It was easy to see how much his brother meant to him.

“I’ll do my best.” She wanted to be honest with him, despite knowing she had to keep Wesley’s secret. It was a heck of a position to be in. She put down her fork and pushed her plate away, not hungry anymore. “You probably know that Wesley and I have been friends since college.”

“He always said you made him laugh.”

She grinned at that. “He made me laugh too. Did he tell you the first time we met was in a nude-drawing class?”

His lips twitched a little bit again, and she found herself wishing he would let himself actually smile. But, again, his mouth flattened out before that could happen. “No, he didn’t mention that.”

“I probably should have known right then and there that I wasn’t cut out to be an artist when I couldn’t keep a straight face while sketching the nude.” When he raised an eyebrow, she realized she was getting off track. “Anyway, fast-forward ten years and I needed a job.” And an escape from her mistakes. “Wesley offered me one here at the inn.” She looked around the inn’s kitchen, at all the upgrades she’d helped make in the past nine months. “I absolutely love working here.”

“Did you and Wesley date in college?”

“No. We were just friends.”

“When did that change?”

She dreaded this next part. Because this was where things got sticky and didn’t totally add up—even in her own mind. But she owed him the fullest explanation she could give. “It didn’t. Not really. That was the problem, in the end. I think we were both far more enamored with the idea of getting married and settling down than we were of each other.”

“So you didn’t love him?”

Christie knew what he was thinking, that she’d set out to hurt his brother on purpose. “Of course I love Wesley. I’ve loved him practically from the moment I met him.” She was sitting straighter on her stool now, her shoulders back, her chin up. “But as a friend.”

“How could it have taken you so long to realize this? You were engaged for months.”

“You’re right,” she admitted. “It shouldn’t have taken so long for me to figure out that marrying your brother was wrong and that neither of us should settle for anything less than the kind of love that Sarah and Calvin have for each other.” A part of her couldn’t believe she was saying these deeply personal things to a man she’d met only hours before. But she was sick and tired of trying to pretend that she felt something she didn’t.

“So when you realized this,” Liam said, “you broke it off with him.”

“I was going to, but before I could, he told me he’d also finally realized he couldn’t marry me. So we agreed to call off the wedding and stay friends. But then I found his note the next morning.” She hated this. Hated knowing without a shadow of a doubt that Liam was going to keep pushing and pushing and pushing at her until she broke. But all she could do tonight was shake her head, feeling trapped in a terrible web. One that she’d helped to weave. “I thought we were going to have a chance to talk about things more, that we were going to stand together to tell everyone about calling off the wedding.”