Brendan was coming closer, his gaze laser-focused on her face.

I can’t tell him.

She didn’t want to tell him about any of this. LA Weekly. The party being planned in her honor. Her splashy new title. Any of it.

If she made a pro/con list of LA versus Westport, Piper loves Brendan would be in the pro-Westport column and that outweighed any con. They couldn’t discuss a potential return to LA without Piper revealing her feelings, and then . . . how could she do anything but turn the opportunity down after telling him those three words? But she wasn’t one hundred percent ready to say no to Kirby. Not just yet. If she said no to this triumphant return to the scene she’d lived for the last decade, she’d be saying yes to Westport. Yes to being with this man who endangered himself as a matter of course. Yes to starting over from scratch.

Kirby was rambling in her ear about a Burberry-inspired color scheme and a signature drink called the Horny Heiress.

“Okay, thanks, Kirby. I miss you, too. Have to go. Bye.”

“Don’t you dare hang—”

Piper hung up quickly and powered down her phone, hopping to her feet. “Hey.” She directed her most winning and hopefully distracting smile at Brendan. “You bought the cologne? I wanted to get it for you as a gift.”

“If it makes you want to smell me in public, I’ll consider it an investment.” He paused, nodding at her phone. “Everything okay?”

“What? Yes.” Stop fluttering your hands. “Just some gossip that Kirby thought was urgent. Spoiler: it’s not. Let’s go upstairs, right?”

Piper sprung forward and hit the call button, praising the saints when an empty car to their immediate left opened. She took Brendan’s thick wrist, grateful when he allowed himself to be dragged inside. And then she pushed him up against the elevator wall and utilized two of her favorite skills—avoidance and distraction—to keep him from asking any more questions.

Questions she didn’t want to ask herself, either.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Brendan couldn’t shake the sense that Piper had just slipped out of his reach—and it fucking terrified him.

While cologne shopping, she’d looked up at him in a way she hadn’t before. Like she was getting ready to lay down her weapons and surrender. He’d never had anyone look at him like that. Scared and hopeful all at once. Beautifully exposed. And he couldn’t wait to reward that trust. To make her glad she’d taken the leap, because he’d catch her. Couldn’t wait to tell her that life before she’d shown up in Westport had been lacking all color and light and optimism.

Her hands smoothed down his chest now. Lower, to his abdomen.

She leaned in and buried her nose in his chest, inhaling, moaning softly . . .

Tracing the outline of his cock with her knuckle.

That touch, obviously meant to distract, trapped him between need and irritation. He didn’t want Piper when her mind was obviously elsewhere. He wanted those barriers gone. Wanted all of her, every fucking ounce. But there was a part of him that was nervous, too. Nervous as hell that he wasn’t equipped to fight whatever unseen foe he was up against.

The latter accounted for his harshness when he caught her wrist, holding it away from his distended fly. “Tell me what the phone call was really about.”

She flinched at his tone, pushed away from him. “I did tell you. It was nothing.”

“Are you really going to lie to me?”

God, she looked literally and figuratively cornered, stuck in the elevator with nowhere to run. Not that she didn’t look for an exit, even on the ceiling. “I don’t have to tell you every single thing,” she stammered finally, punching the open door button repeatedly, even though they were only midway to the sixteenth floor. “Are you planning on being this domineering all the time?” Her laugh was high-pitched, panicky, and it burned a hole in his chest. “Because it’s a little much.”

Nope. Not taking that bait. “Piper. Come here and look at me.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to be interrogated.”

“Good,” he ground out. “I want the truth without having to ask you for it.”

He caught her audible swallow just before the elevator door opened, and she was off like a shot, speed-walking in the opposite direction of his room, which was where the hell she was going to end up, if he had anything to say about it. Brendan caught up with her right before she could swipe into her own room, wrapping an arm around her middle and hauling her back up against his chest.

“Enough.”

“Don’t talk to me like a child.”

“You’re acting like one.”

She gasped. “You’re the one—”

“Christ. If you tell me I’m the one who wanted a high-maintenance girlfriend, you’re going to piss me off, Piper.” He gripped her chin and tipped her head back until it met his shoulder. “I want you. However you are, whatever you are, I want you. And I’ll fight to get inside that head as many times as it takes. Over and over and over. Don’t you dare doubt me.”

Her body heaved with two deep breaths.

“Kirby called to tell me I’m on the cover of LA Weekly. Okay? ‘A Party Princess’s Vanishing Act.’ There’s a whole story and . . . now I guess, ta-dah, I’m interesting again. After a month of silence, everyone suddenly wants to know where I’ve gone.” She broke free of his grip and pushed away, her posture defensive. “Kirby wants to throw me a big, over-the-top coming-home party. And I didn’t want to tell you because now you’re going to bear down on me until I magically produce answers about what I want—and I don’t know!”

Brendan’s pulse ricocheted around his veins, his nerves escalating to full-on fear. LA Weekly. Over-the-top party. Did he stand a fucking chance against any of that? “What do you know, Piper?” he managed, hoarsely.

Her eyes closed. “I know I love you, Brendan. I know I love you and that’s it.”

The world went momentarily soundless, devoid of noise except for the sound of his heart tendons stretching, on the verge of snapping under the pressure of the wonder she’d just stuffed inside of it. She loved him. This woman loved him. “How can you say ‘that’s it’?” He took a giant step and scooped her into his arms, rejoicing when she came easily, looping her legs around his waist, burying her face in his neck. “How can you say that’s it when it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me?” He kissed her hair, her cheek, pressed his mouth to her ear. “I love you, baby. Goddammit, I love you back. As long as that’s the case, everything will be fine—and it will always be the case. We’ll work on the details. Okay?”

“Okay.” She lifted her head and nodded, laughed in a dazed way. “Yes. Okay.”

“We love each other, Piper.” He turned and strode toward his room, grateful he already had the key in his hand, because he wouldn’t have been able to take his attention off her to search for it. “I won’t let anything or anybody fuck with that.”

Jesus. She’d been . . . unlocked. Her eyes were soft and trusting and beautiful and, most important, confident. In him. In them. He’d done the right thing pushing, hard as it had been to see her scared. But it was all right now, thank God. Thank God.