The Perfect Lie (Hope Falls Universe)(12)

“Hey, I would’ve been up for every other weekend, but it was more complicated than that. Where I was going, I couldn’t really bring a dog.”

“Where were you going?”

He looked down at Stephanie’s beautiful face. She had an upturned nose and the skin of a movie star. Somehow, he had gotten this little piece of perfection to be totally into him. Was he going to ruin it by telling her the truth? “Well,” he said tentatively. “You remember when you said you were a bad person? Well, you’re not. I am.”

“Josh, you’re not—”

He cut her off before she could say anything without knowing all the facts. “I couldn’t have the dog because I was in prison, Steph.”





Chapter Five



Steph took a step back from Josh and eyed him up and down, trying to reconcile the words with the man she had been so comfortable with. It wasn’t just that she’d slept with him. She felt as if she’d known him. As though they had some sort of connection that went beyond words or back story.

It was like a slap in the face as she realized how little she really knew about this man she’d just shared her body with.

Josh cursed under his breath and turned away. His long strides widened the distance between them by the second.

Steph stood motionless, watching him leave before reality hit and she realized what was happening. “Wait!” she called as she started to run after him.

She caught up right as he headed to the truck. “Josh, I want to know more.”

He pulled open the passenger side of the door and held it for her. “It’s okay. I got it.”

“No, you don’t got it. I was surprised and—”

“We don’t know each other,” he pointed out. “Today was nice, but maybe it was a fluke. Let me take you back to your car.”

“I don’t want you to take me back to my car. I want you to finish the story. I want to know what really happened.”

“Really happened? There is no sob story here, Steph. I did a bad thing and I got sent to prison.”

“And now you’re out of prison. So I don’t see why I need to suddenly hate you when nothing has changed in the past two minutes.” She had been so lost in her own self-loathing of the past few weeks that it never occurred to her that Josh might be going through the same thing.

But the world didn’t revolve around her. Other people had real, serious problems that would follow them around for life. And whatever Josh had done, whoever he really was, it didn’t change the perfect gentleman he’d been with her.

“Come on, Josh. You dropped a bombshell on me and I didn’t immediately hug you and tell you everything was going to be okay. I’m allowed to be surprised. You can’t punish me for being human.”

He squinted and stared at her in shock. “Punish you? I’m protecting you. You’re a heiress passing through town. You don’t need to be caught up with some ex-con who is only just getting his life together.”

“Do me a favor. Don’t protect me. I didn’t come out with you today because I wanted a bodyguard.”

“Then why are you with me? Because there is absolutely no reason that we should be doing anything together and I can’t—”

He broke off and Steph desperately wanted to know what he was going to say. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I don’t have any answers for what’s happening or what I want or where I’m going or how long I’m staying. Everything about my life is in the air right now, so I’m not exactly a model of stability. But are you going to end whatever this is because we’re riding blind? Or are we going to keep whatever this is going?”

He started to say something but stopped. He reached up and ran his fingers along the bottom of her jaw before the pad of his thumb brushed over her bottom lip. She took in a shaky breath as all of the sudden she was right back in the sensual haze that it was so easy for him to drag her into.

Finally he said, “I don’t think that not knowing is a good idea for us.”

She nodded as she tried to remember how to breathe normally. “So we need to decide then. Is this over or are we going to try for something real?” How the hell was she supposed to decide that? How was she even supposed to think straight when he was around? And was her inability to think straight around him a good sign or a bad one? “You decide. This is too hard for me.”

“Hard for you?” He raised a brow and she let out a snort of laughter as she caught the double entendre of his words.

“Fine. What do you suggest, oh wise one? If I can’t decide and you can’t decide, what do we do?”

He glanced up at the sky and squinted. “We’ve had a long morning. Why don’t we take a beat and then meet up for dinner?”

“Dinner at my place?” The bed-and-breakfast had a brand-new stove and an entire working kitchen she could use.

“Maybe someplace public would be best,” he said with just enough wickedness glinting in his eyes for her to know exactly what would happen if they were alone again. “Sue Ann’s Cafe has the best food in town.”

“Okay. Dinner at Sue Ann’s,” she agreed. “And then we can have the talk.”

“It’s a date.” They both smiled at each other at the sudden agreement, but Steph knew that neither one of them felt totally comfortable with the idea of putting a label on the explosive reaction between the two of them. But in a few hours, everything was going to come to a head.