“Nothing.” My voice is suspiciously prim. I walk to the shop door and fling it open. “Well, I’m sure you’ve got lots of things to do today. Don’t let me keep you. Thanks for bringing this by!”
“I don’t think so.” He takes hold of its handle and slowly closes the door. He turns his eyes to me. “What was in that letter?”
I give him a nonchalant smile. “Oh, you know, nothing important. Girl stuff.”
He steps closer, and I take one instinctive step away. Not because I feel threatened, but because I feel…the opposite of threatened.
“I know that letter had something to do with me.”
I talk out of the side of my mouth like a ventriloquist. “Someone’s a bit of a narcissist.”
“Annie. Show me the letter.” Will’s tone is calculatingly easy and his smile is dripping with seduction. He’s baiting me.
I don’t know what comes over me, but before I can stop myself, the words, “You can’t make me,” fly out of my mouth.
His smile melts into something roguish and challenging. “Wanna bet?” He steps closer, and an excitement I’ve never known twirls through my veins.
There is absolutely no way I’m letting Will Griffin get ahold of this letter. What was Amelia thinking? It’s embarrassing! It’s a terrible idea! Which makes the letter Terribly Embarrassing.
Will steps closer—slowly—and with every step he takes, my skin sizzles happily. Which is confusing because this is not the time to think of happy sizzles.
I pinch the letter fiercely between my fingers using every muscle my poor little under-toned fingers will provide, and then tuck it behind my back. “This letter isn’t for you, sir.”
“But it’s about me, right?”
“No.” I hold my chin higher.
He grins. “You’re lying.”
“And how would you know that?”
“Because I’ve watched you. I know your tell.”
The floor swoops under my feet. “You’ve…watched me?”
He doesn’t look embarrassed or like he’s just admitted something creepy. He states it like a fact. “It’s my job to watch and listen to everyone Amelia interacts with. And that includes you. Which is how I know that when you’re not telling the whole truth, you always lift your chin slightly. Like you have to muster up the courage to tell a lie. It’s cute.”
Ugh, I wish he wouldn’t say “cute.” It’s disorienting. Compliments from him make me dizzy. Ah, but that’s his motive, isn’t it?! He’s like the snake in The Jungle Book, growing closer with swirly hypnotizing eyes.
“We both know I’m going to get that letter, Annie, so how about you hand it over and save us both some time.” His voice is so charming and playful that I could melt. And with him this close, I can smell him. A mix of body wash and deodorant—but not cologne. A subtle masculine and clean scent that’s so good it hurts.
“You’ll have to try to steal it from me if you want it. Because there’s no way I’m giving you this letter.”
He chuckles soft and low—like I’m adorable for even considering going against him. “I’m not trying to steal anything. I am succeeding in stealing it. Your first mistake was ever letting me get this close.”
“Oh? Then how is the letter still in my hand?”
“It’s not. You dropped it a minute ago.”
I gasp and break eye contact to verify that the paper is in fact still pinched between my fingers, and when I do, Will uses my momentary disorientation to lurch forward fast as lightning and slip the paper from my grasp.
“And that’s how you lie without a tell, Annie Walker,” he says with a gleeful smile. “Now let’s see what Amelia wrote about me in here, shall we?”
He barely gets his last word out before I launch myself at him, intent on ripping that paper from his hand, and then tearing it into a million little unreadable slivers. But I forget that I’m five foot three, and he’s at least six feet or more and easily holds the letter above his head to begin reading as I jump like a child trying to pluck an apple from a tree.
He clears his throat dramatically. “Dear Annie! Remember when I said I had a solution to your dating problems?”
“Give me that letter!”
“Well, I’ve brought him right to your door. I’m convinced Will is exactly who you need too—”
“William!” I yell loudly, my own voice scraping against my nerves as I continue to hop and tug and circle him for that letter. “You can’t read this! It’s embarrassing.”