Rosy cheeks? Perfect.
Smile?
Her lips formed a pained grimace.
If you messed with my smile, Jared Mitchell, I’ll . . .
But the threat faded as quickly as it had appeared. He hadn’t stolen her princess grin with a single kiss. He had shocked her back to life and opened her eyes. He’d left her wanting a fairy tale that would never be written—the playboy billionaire bachelor and the girl with the broken heart.
“That’s me,” she told the mirror. “You want to know who I am Jared Mitchell? I’m the one who knows better than to trust you.”
Even if you deliver fireworks in a storage closet.
And oh, Heaven help her. If one kiss left her raw with pure, electric lust, the grand finale would blow her away. One kiss and she knew a single night in his bed would redefine magic.
But once he fixed her definition of “fireworks” to match his, he’d walk away. She’d watched him for years. He solved problems, rebuilding companies only to move on when the transformation was complete. He spent more time on his work deals than on the women in his life. Still, she suspected that it didn’t take long to upend his former girlfriends’ worlds. He’d turned hers upside down and inside out with a single kiss.
“Lucy?” Emma called through her bedroom door. “Are you ready? We need to get to the hospital.”
“I’ll be right down,” Lucy called as she rose from her dressing table.
She heard Emma’s heels on the hallway’s hardwood floor. But she didn’t turn to follow. Before she left her pink princess haven, before she did her part to entertain the children at the hospital, she needed to reclaim her smile.
She pressed her glove-clad palms against her dressing table and studied her reflection. Who was she? A woman who didn’t need Jared Mitchell.
But I want him.
She closed her eyes. She’d wanted her cheating ex too and look where that had landed her. Her stable future had been knocked off course. She owed it to herself to choose wisely next time.
“Jared’s a reckless choice,” she told the princess in the mirror. “He stays out of my bed.”
Rejected. Dismissed.
Jared turned the words over in his mind. On the mammoth, wall-mounted T.V., the Marlins’ pitcher threw a curve ball that didn’t come close to home plate. Great, they’d walked another player from . . . hell, he couldn’t remember which team his Miami Marlins were playing.
“Did you see that?” Finn demanded. Seated in the leather easy chair positioned at the head of the living room set up, Lucy’s brother leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs.
I can’t follow the game right now, Jared thought. I’m having a fucking vocabulary crisis.
“Ignored,” Jared murmured. That was the word. He’d left packs of juice at the princess palace five mornings in a row. He’d written notes and waited for Lucy to take him up on his offer and share a box of mixed berry. Then he’d kissed her breath—and the memory of her lunch date—away in the storage closet. He’d touched her. He’d felt her come alive with a desire that matched his.
But then she’d run.
And he hadn’t heard from her since. Not one damn word. He’d sent a text.
Are you ready to show me?
No response.
He’d sent another.
Lucy, can we talk?
Nothing.
Logic suggested he should move on. A dozen other women had reached out. He’d received everything from dinner invitations to old-fashioned booty calls. But he wasn’t interested. He didn’t want to know more about those women. He didn’t care about their latest trials at work.
Because I want to talk kids’ parties with Lucy.