Page 60 of Fool Me Twice

I dropped my head into my hands. “I’m her boss.”

“It has happened before.”

“And we’re friends.”

“Friendship can turn into romance,” she said. “What else?”

I knew what she was getting at, but I refused to go there. It was too much, and honestly, some things I couldn’t even stand to say out loud.

“I would let her down,” I mumbled.

Silence met my confession.

I raised my eyebrows at Melba. “I don’t hear any comments on that one.”

“Letting others down is inevitable.”

I drew my lips thin and looked at my hands. Melba was wonderful, but I really wasn’t in the mood for platitudes.

“She’s so straightforward,” I said. “And I’m…”

A liar. A fraud.

If she knew what I still kept from her, she would hate me.

“It simply could never be.” I stood, finished with the conversation.

“Some other man will come along and scoop her up, then.”

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. “I imagine so.”

I sounded so nonchalant, but inside I was beating the war drum of possession. Georgia would never be happy with any man. She belonged by my side.

Which was stupid. I knew that.

Finally, it was my turn to open the sliding glass door. To go inside. “See you later, Melba.”

CHAPTER17

GEORGIA

“Ishould bring it all.” Sebastián dumped his containers of slime into his backpack.

“Sure. We won’t be gone that long, though. We’ll be home by this evening.”

“That’s why I’m bringing it all,” he said.

“Okay.” I chuckled and pointed at his bookshelf. “Don’t forget a book, too, in case you get bored in the car.”

For perhaps the hundredth time, I wondered if accompanying Rodrigo and his family on this day trip was the right course of action.

When he’d asked if I wanted to go, we’d been standing in front of Sebastián. I didn’t think Rodrigo had meant to play that hand, but since Sebastián wanted me to go with it had been hard to say no.

It was a short trip, anyway. We were taking Melba to her hometown, where she would be staying for an extended visit with her great-niece, who’d just had a baby. A few hours’ drive out there. A few hours back.

What could possibly go wrong?

Anything. That was the answer. Anything could go wrong.