My stomach twists in knots as I stare at him.

I can’t do it.

As my anger turns to fear, and my fear turns to the understanding that the truth is going to hurt him.

I can’t hurt this man in front of me. He’s too good. Too selfless. Hurt enough already.

Whatever this is between us will be over.

And then I’ll have to leave him.

Fuck.

“Chase? Talk to me.” Concern reverberates in his voice, his breath feathering over my lips as his eyes search mine, asking for answers I don’t think I’m ready to give now.

“It’s nothing. No ghost.” I shake my head a little to knock some sense into me and give a half-hearted chuckle to sell it. “I promise.”

He didn’t lie to me.

He doesn’t deserve to be hurt or to know about the deception.

“I was—I was just excited.”

“About?”

“Um. About. We have a family friend who announces baseball games for one of the networks. I talked to him earlier about ways we might be able to get a major league club to help sponsor The Center. New equipment, team uniforms, maybe some extra funding. He and his wife have a foundation that helps out underprivileged youth so I thought he would be the one to ask.” Breathe, Chase. You’re overexplaining like a little kid who’s lying.

“Are you kidding me?” he asks, his eyes wide, his smile growing to megawatt proportions before he scoops me up in his arms, spins me around, and presses one of his knee-melting kisses on me. “That’s incredible. Fantastic. I don’t even know what to say or how to thank you or—”

“Nothing’s happened yet,” I caution with a laugh. This time when his lips find mine, I’m less caught by surprise. I’m so much more aware of how he makes me feel. Of how much he has become to me in such a short space of time.

So I deepen the kiss. Try to get lost in it, in him, to the point that I’m trying to apologize to him through a kiss without him having a clue. It’s all I have. All I can manage.

“Woah,” he says when the kiss ends, and he gently lowers me so my feet touch the ground. Our gazes hold, and I pray that he can’t see the tears I’m fighting back. He narrows his eyes as I hold my breath. “You sure you’re okay?”

Other than the fact that I’m not who you think I am? Sure. Perfectly fine.

“Of course.” I clear my throat, needing a reason to explain the emotion he can clearly see. “I was just excited about it all, and happened to be driving by on my way to the coffee shop to work, and—”

“You figured you’d stop and tell me?” he finishes for me.