Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 33433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 134(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 134(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
"Come here," I say, hauling her onto my lap.
She doesn't protest, but she doesn't exactly relax, either.
I wrap my arms around her, cradling her to my chest. The van's heat is cranked, but she doesn't start to thaw until I rub my hands up and down her arms, then her back, then her thighs.
"Your hands are freezing," she mutters as the van pulls out, but she doesn't make a move to get up.
I keep rubbing.
We're silent for several minutes, the only sound the hum of the van's tires.
"You want to know what I really said in that interview?" I finally ask.
She's very still, her breath warm on my neck. "I already read it," she whispers, but I can hear the hesitant hope in her voice, like she wants me to give her a reason to believe I'm not the asshole that article made me out to be.
I hug her tighter. "They took one line, Sophie. The rest of what I said never made the article."
"What did you say?" she whispers, searching my face.
"That it's an insult to compare a ballerina to an athlete, because athletes are just athletes. We move, we hit, we sweat, and we call it a job. Ballerinas take everything it means to be strong and turn it into something beautiful. You turn athleticism into an art form, baby, and you make it look so easy that people forget it's even hard at all. That's not a sport, it's fucking magic." I swallow, my throat tight. "I said no one with a football or a hockey stick will ever be able to touch that. It's not a competition, because we're not even on the same level as you."
She's silent for a long time. Long enough that I start to think I've made it worse. Then, she exhales, her breath shaking. "Why didn't you just say that?"
"Because you blocked me. Not even a bulldozer could get through the wall you threw up to keep me out."
She makes a sound—a half-sob, half-laugh—and buries her face in my coat.
I rest my chin on her head and close my eyes, relief burning through me. I don't know what to do with this feeling, but I never want to lose it.
Her body shakes even though she's not crying. There's no way Sophie Hawkes would cry over me, but her arms wrap around my waist, and she holds on, like she's afraid of letting go.
I hold her right back.
When we get to the lodge, she doesn't move to get out of the van. Instead, she leans up, placing her lips against my cheek. "Thank you," she whispers against my skin.
"For what?"
"For making me feel like enough."
I don't have the right words, and I don't try to find them. I cup her cheek and pull her into a kiss instead, trying to tell her with my body what my mouth is too fucking clumsy to get right.
She melts into it, her hands fisting in my jacket, her whole body arching into mine.
I'm so fucking gone for her. So gone.
"Why me?" she asks when I finally let her up. "Why do you want me, Harlan?"
The question is so simple, so confused, that it knocks the wind out of me. I think it might also be the most important question I've ever been asked.
I don't even have to think about the answer. "Because you're the only person I've ever met who made me want something I wasn't already winning at. And you're the only one who has ever scared me."
She meets my gaze, her eyes soft, and I see the truth in them, the vulnerability she hides from the world. I scare her, too. I think I scare the hell out of her, and she has absolutely no idea what to do about it.
She's spent so long being told she isn't enough, the thought of finally being enough to anyone is, quite possibly, the most terrifying thing in the world to her.
"Don't run," I whisper.
She hesitates and then nods.
I pull her down for another kiss, promising myself that I'll do whatever I have to do to prove that she's safe with me. Even if I have to wear a fucking leotard to do it.
Like I told her the day we met, I'll pay whatever price she wants, whenever she wants me to pay it. The only thing I'm not willing to do is let her go.
Chapter Six
Sophie
By the time dinner rolls around, I'm nervous in a way I've never been before. I know what this date signifies, and I'm very well aware of how it might end. But…I think I'm ready for it.
I'm ready for Harlan.
At least, that's what I tell myself until I descend the stairs and find him waiting at the bottom in a tux that looks like it was designed perfectly for him.
God, he's the kind of beautiful that makes me stupid.