Beg, Borrow, or Steal (When in Rome, #3)(27)

Ohmygod.

Is he following me?

Maybe I shouldn’t have flirted so hard with a stranger like that. Oh lord, what if he’s a murderer? What’s the protocol here? Do I keep driving so he doesn’t know my location? But . . . I don’t get the feeling he’s a creep. Then again maybe I’m once again experiencing the Helmet Effect.

I’m trying to decide what to do as I approach my driveway, but he makes up my mind for me when he suddenly slows way down, dropping back. But then he turns the bike sharply. Right into . . . Jack’s driveway.

Oh my god, please no. This can’t be what I think it is. Please please please tell me that Jackson is not the man beneath that helmet! Why can’t he just be a serial killer? I’d like to go back to that option, please!

I’m still holding out hope that maybe this is simply someone coming to visit Jack as I steer into my driveway too and we ride parallel to each other up the gravel until we’re both parked. He turns his head, black visor pointed in my direction, and I watch with a sinking feeling as he lifts that damn visor and reveals Jackson’s face.

Son of a bitch.

I’m out of my truck in two seconds flat without even shutting the door. He sees the fury in my eyes and pulls his helmet off while putting down the kickstand and jumping off the bike. I’m around my truck in record time aiming for my house.

“Emily, wait!”

“No!” I yell without looking back at him. I hear him toss his helmet to the ground and rip off his gloves, and then the crunch of gravel as he runs to me. I walk even faster, trying to make it into the house before he can reach me, but I’m out of luck. His long legs eat up the ground, and he’s racing behind me on the stairs.

“Go away, you asshole!”

“Emily, please. Let me—”

“No!” I shove my key into the front door lock and frantically jiggle it, willing it to open on the first try for once. I don’t like change and this sticky lock has always been like a little decadent morsel of familiarity. This is the first time I’ve wished it was a properly functioning lock. “You catfished me! I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”

Embarrassment is clawing at me from under the surface of my anger. Jack has done some annoying things, but this is maybe the lowest.

“Yes, I did.” His voice is firm behind me. I feel him at my back. I see his shadow at my feet, and I want to stomp it.

And the key won’t turn in the damn lock! I should have replaced it ages ago. All I want is to get inside my house where I can shut the door in his face. I feel so tricked. So vulnerable.

“Will you turn around, please?” he asks with urgency.

“No. You purposely misled me so you could humiliate me! Congratulations—you accomplished what you wanted.” The lock finally gives way and I sigh with relief as I wrench the door open.

I fly inside and try to immediately shut the door, but his hand catches it before I can, holding it open a few inches. “I did not set out to humiliate you. I’m sorry if that was the result.”

“What a half-assed apology.”

His eyes burn. “It was half-assed. Because that’s the only part I’m sorry for.”

I laugh once and without humor. “That’s low, Jack, even for you.”

“And I would do it all over again.”

“Thanks. I’ve heard enough.” I try to force the door closed, but he holds it firm, his face leaning closer to catch my gaze through the opening.

“I’m not sorry you thought I was someone else because for once I got a taste of what it’s like to be a person you don’t hate, and I . . .” He stops, his chest heaving. He seems to think better of whatever he was going to say, but I’ve played enough Jeopardy! to solve the puzzle. He liked it. “I can’t bring myself to regret that.”

He’s breathing heavily but I don’t think I’m breathing at all.

“Please don’t feel embarrassed.” His voice is softening. “There was nothing to be embarrassed about. You were having fun, and . . .” A sad sort of smile tugs at his mouth. “I had fun too. I’m sorry, Emily. I’m so sorry I humiliated you—that was never what I meant to happen.”

“Then what was your intention?”

“When I pulled up behind you, I forgot you didn’t know I owned a bike. And then when you smiled at me so openly, I realized you didn’t know who I was. And I just wanted to see if . . .” Again he stops, but I’m not sure of how he was going to finish it this time.

But I have a hunch.

My grip loosens on the door. I’m not quite sure where to go from here or what to do with what he just said, but I do know two things for certain:

1. I did have fun with him out there.

2. Jack Bennett just apologized to me.



“Why did you do that?” I ask, looking him right in the eye so he can see that even though I’m humiliated, I’m not a coward.

His head tilts. “Flirt with you?”

That is a question I didn’t even consider asking, and even though I desperately want that answer now, I continue with my first. “No—why did you apologize?” It goes against everything we’ve ever been to each other.

He drops his hand, and when I don’t immediately slam the door in his face, his shoulders relax. “Because I may be a lot of things, but I never want to be the kind of person who can’t apologize when I’m in the wrong. I grew up around someone who was a real dick and never said he was sorry . . . so, I don’t know, I just don’t want to repeat his pattern. And I was firmly in the wrong today. So again, I’m very sorry.”