Libby looked between the second-place finishers. “Can you give me a second, Doug? I need to chat with Raz.”
The man nodded. “My car’s parked on the street across from the diner. I’ll be there if you decide to take me up on the offer. Good race, Raz,” Doug said, extending his hand.
Raz shook it. “Yeah, same to you, mate,” he answered, and he meant it.
What was going on with him? Was it the energy of the vortex messing with his mind?
Doug set off for his car, and Libby gestured for them to walk. “I’m not sure what I should do, Raz,” she said, twisting the green beads of her bracelet.
He stared at her wrist. “I didn’t even notice you had that on.”
She stopped next to the Rocky Mountain oyster food tent and gazed at the delicate green orbs. “This bracelet was a gift from my brothers. Green is supposed to bring luck. I wore it the day I had the fake interview with the Derricks, and then, well, you know what happened next.”
Yeah, his life got turned upside down thanks to a vibrator-wielding crazy lady who’d stolen his heart with the bang of her gong.
He couldn’t let her leave with Doug.
“I don’t think—” he began as she started talking.
“I think I should go with Doug.”
Twenty-Six
Erasmus
Libby’s words hit like a punch to the gut.
“You want to go with Doug?” he repeated.
She held his gaze. “We didn’t plan for what would happen if I won the race.”
He glanced away, wanting to punch himself in his big fat gob. “That was the cocky beefcake in me. I should have known that if anyone could beat me, it would be you.”
She toyed with the beads. “When I passed you and Doug on the trail, I started thinking about how we got here and how this started—how we started.”
“Lopsided chi and your missing O, courtesy of yours truly,” he offered, his heart breaking into pieces inside his chest.
She smiled up at him. “And don’t forget sixteen vibrators.”
He reached down to touch her face but pulled back. “I could never forget, plum.”
He couldn’t. She’d woven herself into the tapestry of his soul.
She swallowed, and he observed the muscles in her throat constrict. “We’ve both been clear about how we view relationships. And it’s just sex. And not even real sex—benchmark sex.”
“Just sex,” he repeated. A few months ago, he wouldn’t have thought twice about sleeping with a woman. But he’d experienced a shift these last several weeks, and what was once disposable now felt indispensable.
“Then we’d know if the like cures like experiment worked. We should want to know, don’t you think?” she asked.
No, for the love of all that’s good and holy, hell no! Forget knowing and stay with me.
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” he muttered instead.
Lie. Lie. Lie.
“I don’t even know if anything will happen with Doug. He might not be interested in me like that. He may want to talk about yoga,” she replied, but he knew better.
“Believe me, the guy is into you. Who wouldn’t be? You’re…”
The best thing that’s happened to Sebastian and me in years, and I don’t think we can survive without you. I don’t want to survive without you.
“I’m what?” she asked, the question hanging in the air as her eyes shined with a hopeful expectancy.
“You’re a good person who deserves to know if her O is back,” he said, the words tasting like dirt.
“What does this mean for us?” she asked, confusion lacing the question. “I won’t lie. I wanted you to win, Raz. And…”
“And?” he repeated.
“And when you tell me you want me, it makes my chi go topsy-turvy in the best way. But what you’re saying isn’t the forever kind of want, right? Like, I’m yours until you go back to England…until after the fight.”
Was that true?
Is that why he hadn’t been more explicit? Did he only need her now with the fight on the horizon? Was he that bloody selfish of a prick?
“I…I don’t know,” he sputtered, grappling with his demons.
It would have been easier if she had a gong to bang in his face or a vibrator to toss at his head. But there wasn’t an ounce of judgment in her amber eyes, not a sliver of contempt or a flash of anger.
“I’ll see you back at the house. If Sebastian asks where I went…” she trailed off.
“I’ll tell him you’re on a walk to pick those flowers you like,” he supplied.
“Okay,” she whispered as a wretched stretch of silence engulfed them. After what could have been a bloody eternity or two seconds, she nodded and headed toward the street.
He watched her until she disappeared, then ran his hands down his face.
What had he done?
“You look like shit, man.”
Raz looked up to find Landon.
“I feel like I’ve been run over by a Mack truck.” He stared at the man. The guy looked different. “Where have you been, mate? I’ve barely seen you this summer.”
Landon’s expression hardened. “Busy.”
“Busy hiding from your fans,” he tossed out.
“I know you guys like to give me crap about being recognized in public. But I’m a pretty big deal in a lot of places,” the man replied like worldwide popularity was a bad thing.
“Sorry, mate, I’m all over the board. We know you’re bloody successful. Rowen and Mitch checked out your thousands of fan groups. And I’m sorry for coming off like a real prat. I’m losing it here.”
“Over Libby?” Landon asked.
He nodded as an idea took hold. “You write love songs, don’t you?”
Landon cocked his head to the side. “I’m not writing you a love song, dude.”
“No, I don’t want you to write a song for me. I need help with the romantic stuff. I don’t want Libby to be with anyone else, but she left to…”
“Hang with the benchmark guy?”
Raz’s jaw dropped. “How do you know about that?”
“I saw the other donkey racer guy staring at Libby, then the two of you walked away to talk. And it looked pretty intense.”
Raz narrowed his gaze. “That doesn’t explain how you know about the benchmark.”
“Libby told her friends about it, and—”
Raz didn’t need him to go on. “And Mitch and Rowen told you? It’s like a sewing circle.”
“I’m surprised you’re down with it. I could see the way you were looking at Libby the night she became your nanny.”
Was he that easy to read?
“What are you going to do about Libby?” Landon pressed.
Libby.
“I don’t know,” he answered as a fresh surge of anxiety coursed through him. “This is my doing. I suggested this bloke as the benchmark guy. And just now, when you saw us talking, I couldn’t tell her that I needed her, but I do. I don’t want to be without her. Mate, this isn’t me. I haven’t been the hearts and roses type since…”