I was so, so wrong about her. I was wrong about her in high school, though I’m willing to give my eighteen-year-old self a pass for that. But as a man with a fully grown brain, I have no excuse for the way I imagined some bullshit movie-montage transformation. She didn’t walk under some flowered archway and come out the other side like a Pantene model.

“Above all, you don’t look like an idiot. You look wonderful. And maybe you feel like you’re faking it, but to me it’s as real as anything else in the world. It’s not fucking fake that you’re witty and attractive and so over-the-top captivating that I’m breaking all my own workplace rules just to get close to you at every possible opportunity.”

Jenny sniffs, and for the first time she looks at me from beneath her eyelashes. “Don’t bullshit me, Roman Bliss. I don’t think my heart could take it.”

There are no words worthy enough to convince her of how badly I want her right now—all of her. All of her past, and so help me God, all of her future, too. I know that in some nebulous way that I could never phrase into something appropriate for another human to hear, and now is definitely not the time to be exploring it, so I do the only thing I can to prove I’m not bullshitting her.

I take her face in my hands and kiss her.

It starts out verging on innocent, a connection meant to comfort and reassure her, and then Jenny makes a sound into my mouth that can’t be audible to anyone else in the restaurant but is louder than a thunderclap to me. The gates of propriety that have been holding back a blaze of heat and want come crashing down. I slip a hand around to the back of her neck and pull her closer, tasting her, teasing her, battling her.

I don’t care that my family is one of the best known in the town of Ruby Bay. I don’t care that whenever I go out in public, I’m representing myself as well as my entire family and the Bliss Resort & Club. I don’t care. I can’t care, because in this moment I have been reduced to a bundle of nerves and testosterone kneeling at Jenny London’s feet.

Her hands grip the back of my shirt, nails digging in even through the fabric, and she spreads her knees apart so I can take up the remaining space between us. I pause to suck on her bottom lip and get a taste of salt—her tears. She lets out a throaty laugh and pulls back enough to say, “You have no idea how much I wanted this. I had no idea how much I wanted this. Some fucking revenge....”