his Anh Bon and demand that he repay the ten grand immediately.”
“Um... My phone is charging in the bedroom.”
He lifted his cell from the armrest and offered it to her. “You can use mine.”
“I don’t need to call him in front of you to prove I’m not a pushover. I’ll handle it.”
“Good to know,” he said, but it didn’t look as if he believed her.
Even worse, Annie began to doubt whether she believed herself. Not only had she given Clark permission to steal her wedding venue and her grandparents’ wedding date, the call ended before she could squeeze a concrete date as to when he’d return her money.
“Just don’t come to me looking for a plus one when he asks you to be the best man. One look at me in a tux and you’ll be elbowing ladies right and left to catch the bouquet.”
“In your dreams.”
“Seriously though, you need to say screw everyone else and just do you,” Emmitt said without a hint of teasing in his tone. “I mean it. You don’t owe him anything. Hell, the prick owes you—and not just the money. He owes you one hell of an apology for putting you in that situation. Then he needs to apologize to you in front of your friends and family about the dress and stealing your grandparents’ wedding date.”
Wow, not only had he heard nearly everything but he’d thought about it long enough to form a strong opinion. The whole situation turned Annie’s stomach.
It wasn’t what Emmitt had said or even how he’d said it that burned. It was the humiliating fact that he was the first person in her world to say those words, to tell her to stand up for herself. What did it mean that a perfect stranger was able to understand what her closest friends and family had pushed aside in favor of civility? What did it say about her that she’d allowed them to?
“Do you think all of that will fit on a sticky note?” she asked.
Emmitt’s gaze lazily roamed over Annie’s body and down, and Annie felt zips of awareness follow in its wake. “You strike me as the type of woman who, once she sets her mind to something, doesn’t let anything stand in her way.”
The confident way he said it sent a rush of tingles racing through her body faster than her mom checking out a Black Friday sale.
“That’s a bold statement to make about someone you’ve spoken to twice.”
“What can I say—they’ve been insightful conversations. Plus, you’re pretty easy to read.”
Annie snorted—twice—because she was about as easy to read as a darkened street sign to a glaucoma patient.
Born Asian and raised by white parents, Annie came into the world a walking oxymoron. In fact, the more people came to know her, the more their initial assumptions were proved inaccurate. Annie was proof that you can’t judge a book by its cover. So she was embarrassed she’d done the same to Emmitt.
If being mysterious was considered intriguing, being a never-ending surprise was off-putting. People liked to rely on their judgment, and Annie was often misjudged.
“You laugh, but I bet I know more about you than most guys would after six dates.”
“This should be impressive, since I doubt you’ve been on six consecutive dates in the past six years.” When he opened his mouth to argue, she added, “With the same woman?”
“I’m so observant, I don’t need the same amount of time other people do to know if it’s a forever kind of thing,” he said, which surprised her because when he said “forever” he didn’t look as if he wanted to gag or would break out in hives.
“Are you saying you’re open to commitment?”
“If it’s the right person who came along?” He shrugged. “Why not? But I don’t need to string someone along to figure out if they’re right for me. I don’t play games with the people in my life, making them jump through hoops in order to figure out where they stand. Nah, that’s childish and pretty shitty, if you ask me.”
Annie saw a flash of fresh pain cross Emmitt’s face and realized that beneath the confident swagger lingered an uncertainty that drew Annie in. Her gut said he’d been played by someone he trusted and cared for. Based on the new sadness lurking beneath his words, that someone had deeply hurt him. And recently.
The caretaker in Annie wanted to ask if he was okay, but the pragmatist in her understood better than to pry. The more she knew about him, the more human he’d become, and the harder it would be to kick him out of his own house.
After a night like tonight, a smart girl would cut her losses and go straight to bed. Only Annie was tired of playing things smart, because instead of wishing him good night, she said, “Okay, wow me with your observation skills.”
If she was going to steer clear of charming players, then she might as well learn how to recognize the signs.
“Oh, you’ll be wowed,” he said and she rolled her eyes. “You don’t believe me? Then let’s make this a little more interesting. If I wow you with my superior observational skills, then tomorrow I get the bed.”
As far as she was concerned, Emmitt wasn’t going to be living here come tomorrow. So what was there to lose? “Wow me.”
“This is going to be good.” He rubbed his hands together like a kid in a candy store. “You have a thing for British mysteries, Shemar Moore, and reality dating shows.”
“Knowing what’s on my Hulu account doesn’t make you observant, it makes you a snoop.”
“No rules were stated at the beginning of the game as to how I come by my information. But I will lay off your horrific taste in television and get back to what a romantic you are.”
“Of course I’m a romantic,” she argued. “I was recently planning my own wedding. I’m sorry to say, Emmitt, you’re just another man whose talents have left me wondering why I bother.”
“You’ve clearly been hanging around the wrong men,” he tsked. “I was going to say, your romanticism goes far deeper than dream weddings, Goldilocks. Most women would jump at the opportunity to blow a few grand on a new dress, yet you went in search of the perfect tailor to alter your grandma’s. You also wanted to share her wedding date, which tells me she was not only the most important person in your life but that you never had to guess where you stood when you were with her.”
He went silent, studying her in an intense way that kept Annie shifting on her feet.
She was practically bouncing on her toes when he finally said, “I imagine that without her, you’ve felt a little lost throughout this whole ordeal.”
“Of course, I still miss her. It doesn’t take a psychic to determine that.”
“What was her name?” he asked, the question causing a wave of warm emotion to roll through her.
“Hannah,” Annie said on a swallow, wondering why the simple exchange of sharing her grandmother’s name felt so intimate. “And lots of women choose to wear their grandma’s dress. It’s a pretty common
