His cocky assuredness that she’d hate Paris—that she was only hanging on to the Puff because it was a safety net.
She shuddered and stepped back, away from him. Away from the obvious. Away from what she’d been refusing to see all day.
He wasn’t for her.
“Bri.” Gerard rubbed his hands briskly down his face, his hands scraping against stubble. “Look, please just sit down. I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”
He hadn’t answered a single question directly yet. The balloon swelled another size as he turned to sit. There was only one way to know. “Sandra said there was money.”
Gerard froze halfway to his chair.
Bri crossed her arms over her chest, hugging herself against the evening breeze. But a deeper chill started from within. “Two hundred dollars.”
He turned, his features pale and pinched. “Bri, I can—”
“You used me, didn’t you? You used me for the story. Entertainment sells, right?”
Sandra was right. She couldn’t believe it. Anxiety stabbed at her chest, begging for freedom, and she stood stoically in place, refusing to give it the release it demanded. “Were you playing devil’s advocate with me and Charles?”
“It wasn’t like that.” Gerard winced. “Okay, maybe a little at first. But not the whole time.”
The balloon burst, filling her to the brim with despair. “So, during which time, exactly? When you were kissing me in the fountain? Or when you were kissing me in the Puff? Or kissing me on the porch?” Her voice cracked and she hated it. She covered her mouth with shaky hands. Everything was changing, after all. And she had no one to blame but herself. She’d trusted him. A complete stranger on a motorcycle. She’d fallen for all of it. Believed they could have a love story to rival her parents’.
But theirs hadn’t been entirely real either, had it? A sob hiccupped free.
“Bri, please. You’re overreacting.” Gerard stepped toward her, anguish in his eyes, but she jerked away before he could touch her.
“And you’re dodging all my questions! Answer me.” Heat flared, warming her chest and neck and bringing a surge of confidence. “Do you or do you not have cash from Charles in your possession at this moment?”
Gerard raked his hands through his hair and groaned. “Technically, yes, but—”
“But nothing. We’re done here.” Tears blurred her vision as she grabbed her cooler and stalked down the stairs. She needed a petit four. Needed the wisdom of her wisest and oldest friends. Needed the Puff.
She needed something that would never change.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
What’s the rush? You were due to come home day after next.” Peter’s pen clicked on and off in the background as he presumably gave half his attention to Gerard’s fit. “What’s one more night?”
A lot. Gerard pressed his lips together in an effort to keep from unleashing on his boss as he paced the B&B’s front porch, cell clenched in his fist. He almost didn’t care who saw him or heard his conversation at this point. Bri was gone—long gone—back to the bakery or wherever she’d stormed off to, and she’d taken all of his good mood with her. He wanted to get out of Story. ASAP.
“I wasn’t asking. I was telling you I’ll be in the office a day sooner than scheduled.” He gritted his teeth. “If that’s a problem, I’ll take a detour on the way home and kill twenty-four hours elsewhere.”
“Calm down. I was just curious.” The pen clicked in double time. “What happened?”
“The blonde happened.” Gerard paced the other direction, eyes sweeping the windows of the house for any signs of Mrs. Beeker or other guests. Maybe he cared a little if he was overheard. That would be just his luck—word getting back to Sandra about his and Bri’s fight.
Sandra. If that busybody had just kept to herself, their fledgling relationship wouldn’t have been ruined. How dare she accuse him of catering to Charles, like he’d accepted that money without the intent of returning it? He’d been bamboozled, which was possibly Charles’s play all along. If he couldn’t have Bri, he’d make sure no one could. Gerard should have seen it coming, should have stayed on guard when it seemed like Charles had laid low in the bakery standoff—but he’d gotten distracted.
By Bri.
“You’re finally admitting your feelings for Bri, huh?” Peter chuckled, half-amused, half-smug. “It’s about time.”
About time? Gerard slowly lowered his phone and looked at it, as if his boss could give him answers to the questions running through his mind.
Peter had given him this assignment. Peter had conveniently demanded he turn the piece into a series and stay longer. And Peter was one of the only humans alive who knew the things Remy had told him.
“Always travel, never land.”
“You know what love does, son? Love prisons you in a Podunk town in mid-America, that’s what it does.”
“You keep moving, boy, you hear me? Chase after the story. Don’t let it catch you.”
Gerard’s hand tightened around the phone as the pieces clicked into place. Peter had been on him for the past ten months about moving on from Kelsey and dating again. He’d seen an opportunity for this assignment with Bri and forced it on him.
His jaw tightened. He’d been played. All this time, he’d been on guard about the love angels’ matchmaking schemes, and all along, it’d been Peter.
He interrupted his boss’s ramble about the assignment and his next bonus and profit margins. “Dude. You sent me here on purpose.”
“I know.” He didn’t even bother denying it.
Gerard ran his hand through his hair, grasping the longer strands in desperate need of a cut. He tugged hard, wishing he could throat punch his obnoxious best friend/boss through the phone. “That would have been good to know a heck of a lot sooner.” The man who never, ever bluffed had just stacked the deck—against him.
His anger flared.
But Peter’s voice remained calm, even. “No, because you’d never have gone if you’d known.”
Gerard narrowed his eyes. “Would my job
