“A truce?” I whisper.
Jonathan nods, letting the book cover drop shut. “We co-manage…civilly.”
I snort a laugh. My laughter fades as I realize he looks dead serious. “You think that’s honestly possible?”
“Financially? Not if things stay as they are, but there’s still time for that to change. Interpersonally?” He fans open the book, this time deep into the story. I wrap my hand around his and snap it shut before he cracks the spine. “That remains to be seen.”
He peers down, where my hand clasps his, then back up, a flash of something I can’t read in those cunning pale eyes beneath thick, dark lashes. “I thought personal-space time was over,” he says.
I wrench the book out of his hand. “It was. Until you were about to damage merchandise.”
“I was going to buy it.”
“The hell you were. It’s a romance.”
He arches an eyebrow. “Ah, of course. You know everything about me, including all my literary preferences. I don’t read romance. I couldn’t possibly.”
Shit. Does he?
I glare at Jonathan as he turns back to the table and once again slides his thrillers toward the front, hating him for making me doubt myself. “Let me guess,” I tell him, popping a hip and giving him a skeptical once-over. “Your ‘romance reading’ consists of Pride and Prejudice, and you think Jane Austen was one of the earliest and most influential romance novelists.”
He falters for a second, nearly dropping a book as he straightens his thriller stacks into neat tiny towers. “I know there’s more to the genre than that,” he mutters.
“Hm.” I glance down at the historical romance he was allegedly going to buy that I’m now holding. “Maybe you do. This, Mr. Frost, is at least a proper romance novel. In fact, it’s my all-time favorite.”
In uncharacteristic clumsiness, Jonathan fumbles the stack of thrillers and sends them careening to the floor. His gaze snaps my way, then to the book in my grasp.
“That’s your favorite?” he says, voice low and tight, pale eyes boring into me.
“Yes,” I say, stretching out the word. “Why are you being weird?”
He blinks away, then stares at the shelves full of historical romances. “What are some others? Your favorites.”
It’s a command. Not a question.
I have no idea why he’s acting like this or why I’m about to humor him, but the romance lover in me can’t stop herself. I cross the space and stroll across the built in shelves containing historical romances, tapping titles like Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune. “This one. This one. This one. This one.” I slide my fingertip sensually along the shelf. Jonathan’s swallow echoes from ten feet behind me. “This one, too.”
I glance over my shoulder. The way Jonathan’s staring at me is…terrifying.
I’m the gazelle, and he’s the lion. He’s unnaturally still, unblinking. And it’s freakishly reminiscent of Fantasy Aristocrat Jonathan who walked in, rocking the hell out of breeches and Hessian boots, then shut the library door behind him with an irrevocable, world-changing click.
Is nothing safe from him? Must he shoulder and trample his way into every corner of my life? I stand, frozen, unnervingly arrested by the intensity of his gaze, the way he’s looking at me like he’s seen me right down the marrow of my bones.
I feel naked.
“Are you done messing with me now?” I whisper.
As if my words have broken a spell, he blinks, and then, like a big cat stalking through the grass, he closes the distance between us. “That’s what you think I’m doing. Messing with you,” he says quietly, eyes searching mine, a new, furious fire in his gaze. “Could you think any less of me?”
My chin lifts. Every moment he’s snapped and condescended, arrogantly corrected me and put me in my place, flashes through my memory. “Why the hell would I think any better?”
Jonathan wraps his hand around mine as I hold the romance novel, staring me down. “You’re not entirely wrong,” he admits. “I can be cold and calculating, sometimes sharp and abrupt. But this is the truth, whether you believe me or not: I care about the Baileys, this bookshop…everything it’s given me.”
Jonathan plucks the book from my hand, turns, and stalks away. “Even if,” I hear him mutter to himself, “it’s going to make me lose my goddamn mind.”
Chapter 5
Playlist: “Happy Holidaze,” Dana Williams