Written with You (The Regret Duet #2)(14)

No smiling.

Or lip twitches.

But damn if Businessman Caven Hunt wasn’t sexy as hell.

It was now Friday night. And while I’d seen Caven on Monday night for tacos, then again on Wednesday while Rosalee and I played with potato stampers, and I was slated to see him again the next day for Rosalee’s art class, the idea of him coming over to spend time with me, alone, was more than enough to send me sprinting up the stairs for a shower. But as I ran, I typed out my reply.



Me: Lucky for us both I have no life and I love cheesecake.

Caven: I guess I’ll be seeing you in twenty minutes then.



I’d decided to slow things down with Caven after my conversation with Beth in hopes of us developing more than just a physical connection—and also to buy myself time to figure out how in the hell I was ever going to explain away my scar.

It was hard. Excruciating, really. While he’d more than proven that he wanted me physically, I’d been in love with that man for the majority of my life. It didn’t matter one bit that I didn’t know his favorite color or what he did in his spare time. I knew that he was good, honest, caring, and kind. I knew that he’d risked his life for a little girl. And I knew his world started and ended with his daughter. I didn’t need to know anything else.

But I did need to shave my damn legs because, while slowing down meant not stripping his clothes off the second he walked through the door, it thankfully didn’t mean he would keep his hands to himself.

Twelve minutes later, I pulled the door open and found him standing on the other side. It was Casual Caven in low-slung jeans and a T-shirt that hugged his broad shoulders and showed off that sexy tattoo.

“What happened to my twenty minutes?” I asked, securing the end of my wet braid with a hair tie.

He grinned and gave me a quick head-to-toe, the wolfish curl of his lips signaling his approval of my sleep shorts and tank top.

“You sounded desperate for me in your text, so I came as fast as I could.”

My eyebrows shot up my makeup free face. “Oh, did I now?”

He walked in carrying a paper bag in one hand, trailing his fingertips across my stomach as he passed. He set the bag on the bar in my kitchen, and removed two white boxes, and two sets of plastic cutlery.

I went straight to my pantry and pulled out a bag of pretzels before dumping them into a bowl.

He eyed me curiously. “What are those for?”

“To dip in the cheesecake.”

His eyes did a slow blink. “What is it with you and dipping random food?”

“I think I have lazy taste buds. I don’t taste sweets after the first bite unless I mix it with something salty.” I lifted a pretzel in the air and scraped off the top of the New York-style cheesecake. Then I popped it into my mouth. He watched in disgust as I chewed with a grin. “Don’t look at me like that. Pretzels covered in pretty much anything are widely accepted. It’s not like I’m dipping my pizza in birthday cake or anything. Though you should be warned that’s another favorite of mine.”

“Have you always been like that?”

I shrugged. “As long as I can remember.”

His lips twitched as he crowded me in the best possible way. His hand went to my hip. “Ice cream is the only exception, huh?”

“Nope. I use pretzels for that too.”

He gave me a squeeze, a shadow fluttering across his face. “You didn’t seem to have a problem while we were sharing that carton of Ben and Jerry’s back in the day.”

Oh, shit.

Oh, fucking shitty shit.

And this was precisely the problem with giving him Willow while pretending to be Hadley.

Hadley had always gagged at my crazy food combinations. She was a simple girl who ate meat and loved ice cream. I had been a vegetarian since I was ten and a salt and sweet mixer since…well, forever.

I picked up my bowl of pretzels, stacked the box with the cheesecake on top, and carried it to the coffee table in front of my couch. “Well, I wasn’t about to expose that level of crazy on the first night.”

“You were naked and planning to steal my computer. Pretzels and ice cream would have been a drop in the bucket.”

My stomach rolled. It was a joke, and I applauded him for his ability to even speak about that night without seeing red. But he was teasing me about the night my sister had gone above and beyond to shatter my heart. It was the reason we had been fighting when she’d sped off in my car, ultimately hitting a tree and losing her life. And it was the reason the last thing I ever said to her as I screamed into her voicemail was, “You were wrong. I will always I hate you.”

I didn’t know if she ever heard that message.

But I’d said it. I’d left those words dangling in the universe just moments before she took her final breath.

Maybe I deserved the slash through the heart he’d caused with his little stroll down memory lane.

I avoided his gaze by retrieving my remote from the drawer and then a blanket hanging on the ladder across the room. “Anyway. You want to watch a movie or something?”

“Shit. Hadley.”

God, I’d have given anything to hear Willow roll off his tongue. Just once. But that was the price I had to pay to keep Rosalee.

She was worth it all.

He set the tiramisu on the coffee table and sank beside me on the couch. “You know I was kidding, right?”