Better Hate than Never (The Wilmot Sisters, #2)(109)
Turning back to my food, I poke an olive listlessly.
But then a shadow cuts across my little table, swallowing up the sun and turning the world as bleak as I feel inside.
I frown up from my plate, prepared to tell whoever’s standing over me to move along, when I freeze.
Christopher stands there, breathtaking—sandstone slacks draping down his long, solid legs, a linen shirt rolled up to his elbows, golden sunlight spilling around his windblown dark hair. His amber eyes glow, warm and soft, as he stares down at me. “Hi, Katydid.”
My fork drops to the plate. Tears blur my vision. “What the hell?” I croak.
Then I launch myself at him, knocking a shocked, deep laugh out of Christopher as he wraps his arms around me, swinging me around. “What are you doing here?” I shriek.
“Following you like a lovesick fool, of course,” he says, before kissing me, slow and sweet. “I’ve been practicing while you’ve traveled for work, taking domestic flights and using those chances to do some more widespread networking. Once I could fly coast to coast, my therapist and I agreed I could probably survive a transatlantic flight.”
My heart clutches. I set my hand over his chest, soothing it gently. “And did you?”
He tips his head side to side. “Eh, it was touch and go. I have a hunch being with you on my flight home will help. And that means I’ll just have to fly with you everywhere from now on.”
Fresh tears spill down my cheeks as I laugh. “And here I was, moping, being homesick, and deciding that my traveling-for-work days were over.”
“Well now, I won’t complain if you want to stay home more,” he says, before he presses a kiss to my lips. “But I’m not giving up travel with you either. I think there’s a happy balance there for us, waiting to be found.”
“I think so, too.” I kiss him, hungry and deep, drawing him close. “Let’s go to bed.”
“Katerina,” he says, feigning offense, as my hands start to wander down his back, lower, over his backside. “I just got here, and you’re objectifying me already.”
“Damn right, I am.”
He laughs into my hair as he hoists me higher, wrapping my legs around his waist. A hefty wad of local cash lands on the table before he starts to walk us down the road. “Where’s your place?” he asks, kissing me as he speaks. “Please tell me it’s close.”
“It’s close.” I point toward the small apartment building to my left, and Christopher turns sharply for its entrance. Not for the first time, we fumble with locks and door handles to an apartment, then tumble across its threshold, slamming the door shut, tugging at each other’s clothes.
On a particularly enthusiastic tug on my part, Christopher and I crash noisily into the wall.
We both burst into laughter as he kisses me, his hands cupping my breasts, mine raking down over his naked backside, pulling him close.
“These walls are paper thin,” I whisper. “I have to try to be quiet.”
“Yikes, Katerina. You? Quiet? Your poor neighbors are in for an earful.”
I laugh against his kiss as he picks me up and walks me toward the small bed we’re definitely about to break. “I’d say I feel bad for them,” I whisper, “but then again, the alternative is them listening to me cry-sing to emo music because I miss you so badly. So, really, of all the things they could hear, us making wild, loud love is hardly the worst.”
“The worst?” Christopher says, love in his eyes as he lays me down on the bed. “Katerina, we’re in each other’s arms, with all our lives before us—nothing could be better.”
? ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ?
Second books are notoriously hard to write, but I told myself, since this wasn’t my second book ever (just the second book in this series), that wouldn’t be the case.
Oopsie. I was very wrong.
Thankfully, I had the best people in my corner while I wrestled my way through drafting, revising, and finally falling in love with this story. My friends whose empathy, support, and humor made me feel so much less alone—they’re my people who see and love me as I am, who let me see and love them as they are, too, and that means so very much. Becs and Sarah, who get what a sometimes draining, self-doubt rollercoaster this writing life can be, whose GIFs, texts, and early-morning Marco Polos kept me going—thank you for reading this story with hearts in your eyes and encouraging me as I wrote it. Thank you, Sarah, Ellie, and Amanda for authenticity reading and for your invaluable feedback on the representation in this story. Kristine, my superstar editor, always patient with my endless questions and so very supportive of the heart of my work—thank you for helping me shape this story into its best self, especially that second act that now truly shines because of your wise insight. Samantha, world’s best agent, who believes so deeply in what I do and is always excited about how I do it—I cannot thank you enough for being on this path with me, for all your guidance and support.
And last but not least, my two (not so little anymore—please stop growing up so fast, okay?) firecrackers, you are my greatest joys and my magnum opus. With every book I write, I want to make you proud. If you read this one day, I hope you’ll recognize in this story the love I aspire to as your mother and what I believe you deserve from your friends, family, and (if you want this one day) partner—love that doesn’t dim your fire but fans its flames.