Page 61 of Double or Nothing

“Howdy, stranger!” he shouts, and I get a ridiculous urge to run to him. Desperate for his body against mine.

He doesn’t resist when I slam into him and land my mouth straight on his. He’s smirking against my kiss as he wraps me in his arms and pulls me into the apartment with a mwah as he breaks away.

“Eleven hours,” Jack laughs when he turns away from me. “Bang on halfway. You owe me one.”

He’s talking to Alice. Oh my fucking God, he’s talking to Alice. The beautiful blue-eyed goddess, wrapped up in a navy robe on his sofa.

She stiffens as she stares at me, blinking in some kind of disbelief. And I’m blinking too, in an alternate dimension. Lost to everything but the sight of her, and the pure bloom of joy in my heart.

“So much for your twenty grand,” Jack says to Alice, patting her shoulder as he passes her by on the way to the kitchen. “And this calls for a celebration.”

“Alice,” I say, grinning as I approach, and she grins right back. Her smile brighter than the sun on a hot summer’s day. So beautiful.

“Bryce,” she replies. “I thought you’d gone… I thought…”

“She thought you’d pussied out for good and we’d both be in ghost town for ever,” Jack laughs from the kitchen. “But I assured her that wouldn’t be the case. Not once your dick got hard and you shifted out of panic mode.”

He presents three glasses of orange juice on the coffee table. He narrows his gorgeous eyebrows at my shocked expression.

“Fucking hell, it’s not all about De Chante, you know. I’m a player, not a bloody alcoholic.”

He gives me my orange juice, and hands Alice hers.

“Cheers to not being a pussy, BT,” he says to me, raising his glass, then smirks at Alice. “And cheers to some more gold foil, Soul Girl. I had it nailed.”

Even through the fear, and the self-consciousness, and the crazy memories of last night, there’s a light in my soul that smirks along with Jack, the jester.

Because underneath his smile lies something else. I feel it. Electric.

Jack wants me here. The playboy who could have anyone he wants, wants me here. Boring Bryce Terrence in my chinos. He was waiting for the door buzzer with a bet riding on my reappearance.

But, even more importantly than that, is Alice, looking up at me with wide blue eyes and a grin of her own on her beautiful lips. I know those eyes and that smile. I knew them better than I knew my own, once upon a time.

She wants me here, too.

Holy fuck, I’m glad that cab was waiting on the park corner this afternoon.

This crazy recklessness is the most satisfying feeling in the world.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

ALICE

Ican’t stop blinking in disbelief.

Bryce is here. He came back!

I owe Jack far more than one of my paintings. I’m so glad the arrogant bastard got it right, that I’d happily gold foil his sculpture-worthy body from head to toe in a heartbeat.

The relief is overwhelming, the dark clouds disappearing.

Jack’s smirk is full of pride as he pats Bryce on the back.

“Phew, eleven hours. That was a close call. Glad you didn’t cut and run,” he says.

Bryce takes a deep breath.

“Yes, well, so am I.”