“Touché,” he said.
“It’s harder than you thought it would be, isn’t it?”
“Not at all. I’m just not all that into happiness. I’m more a contentment sort of guy,” he replied.
“Really? Why is that?”
Will shrugged his broad shoulders and gave her an inscrutable look. “Happiness is a chimera. Something shimmering in the distance that most of us keep striving toward but never really reach. But contentment is easier. I mean, right now I’ve had a nice dinner with a very beautiful woman in front of a roaring fire. Nothing could be simpler than that.”
Penny thought about what he’d said. There was more truth to it than she wanted there to be. He’d been honest and now she had to be, too. She owed it to the man who saw happiness dancing just out of his reach to stop pretending to be something she wasn’t. Ultimately, she knew that she couldn’t make another person happy. She never had been able to do it and doubted that in this moment with this man it would be any different. Contentment was all he was aiming for and she suspected she could manage at least that, but a part of her wanted more.
“I don’t know if I buy into that. I’ve been truly happy at times, usually with my friends when I can let my guard down and be myself,” she admitted.
“Are you being yourself now?” he asked softly.
“I am. Coming off a bad relationship makes it so clear to me that I can’t stomach lies,” she said.
Then wished she hadn’t.
“I can’t, either,” he admitted. “Which is why I have a proposition for you.”
She looked at him, trying to read the expression in his blue eyes, but in the flickering light of the fire that wasn’t easy.
“I’m listening.”
He rubbed his chin and gave her a rueful grin. “Don’t take this the wrong way.”
“Um...if you keep hedging, I’m not going to have much of a choice.”
“I have a theory that has served me well most of my adult life about relationships and it’s that the maximum time for them is two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” Great. Sounded like he was another guy who wasn’t for her. But at least he was being honest. “Go on.”
“Before I do, there is something I want to make sure of first.”
He put his arm around her shoulder. Drew her closer to him, and she let him. Given that this might be their one and only date, she wanted to go for it.
Their eyes met and held, and she couldn’t look away from his intense blue eyes and the expression in them. Whatever he meant by two weeks she wanted to know more. His breath brushed over her lips as he exhaled and he lowered his head slowly, giving her a chance to retreat, but she didn’t want to back away.
She wanted his kiss. But she needed some answers first.
PENNY PUT HER hand on his jaw and felt the stubble of his five o’clock shadow. She liked the way it abraded her fingertips and she sighed.
“Sex. That’s what you’re proposing, isn’t it?” she asked, withdrawing her hand from him and getting to her feet.
Penny shivered a little bit from the cold but stood her ground. She’d never been wishy-washy in her life. Even with her bad relationships, she’d gone into them with her eyes open.
“No. I’m talking about the fact that we both know we’re going home in two weeks. It would be silly to pretend we didn’t.”
“Go on, I’m listening,” she said as her teeth chattered.
She got back under the blanket and he tucked it around her. He smiled at her—it was tentative and roguishly charming, and she had to smile back. “The next two weeks, leading up to Christmas and then New Year’s Eve, we spend together. We do all the things that couples do and we enjoy it.”
She nodded, trying to be analytical about it, to treat Will as if he were a businessman pitching an idea to her. “What’s the catch?”
“That we both know it ends on New Year’s Eve. That this is just temporary. To pretend this could be anything else is a lie.”
She thought about it. She’d had her fill of lies that were told to her by men. “So you’re proposing a vacation fling?”
“No, a Christmas affair...a sort of gift to each other,” he said. “Unless you’re not interested in me.”
“I almost kissed you,” she reminded him.
“The almost is the part that I’m concerned about,” he said, frowning slightly.
“You kind of said you had a proposition for me. I needed to see what you meant before I took this any further.” She hitched in a breath. “But for the sake of argument, why not try to make this into something real? Don’t you believe in love at first sight?” she asked. “I know not everyone does, but some people do.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and reached for his drink, taking a couple of swallows before looking her in the eyes. She knew stalling when she saw it.
“No lies,” she said. “That’s my rule if we even consider doing this. I don’t care if it will hurt my feelings or if it’s too raw for you. I will not tolerate any falsehoods.”
“I think there is a story there,” he said wryly.
“You haven’t convinced me you should hear it yet,” she retorted. “But it involves Jerk Butt Face.”
He laughed. “I am not good at relationships. Courtship and romance I can do—no problem—but the heavy-duty lifetime-together crap, not so much.”
She arched her eyebrow at him. “Might have something to do with the fact that you call it crap.”
“Might be. But experience has taught me two weeks is my maximum,” he said.
She wanted to know more about that but didn’t push. He offered her something temporary. “You’re proposing that we just both go into this with our eyes open. Have a great time and keep it light?”
It seemed almost too good to be true, but she was tempted. She needed something to make her remember all the things she loved about her life. And all the things she liked about being with a man.
Before Butch had come along and made her feel nothing but bitter resentment... “Yes,” he said. “That’s precisely what I’m looking for. But I’ll understand if this isn’t for you. Not everyone is good at compartmentalizing.”
“I take it you are?” she asked.
“I am. But as you said, we don’t know each other well enough to go into all that.”
“The nice thing about what you’re offering is that we don’t have to. I don’t have to try to make you into the man of my dreams.”
“No, but I wouldn’t mind being the man of your fantasies.” His voice dropped a seductive notch. “I find that when women and men are too focused on making ‘it’ work, they lose out on experiencing all the things they truly want.”
Boy, was that the truth. She hadn’t been too pushy with Butch because he was her boss, but also because he had seemed like a nice normal guy. She’d called that wrong.
“Can I have some time to think about it?” she asked, biting her lip.
“You can, but we only have two weeks,” he reminded her. “So don’t take too long.”
That was true.