“Don’t make me cry, my makeup will run.” I waved at my eyes, hell-bent on keeping them bone dry. “It’s so strange, I went into this bound and determined not to let it get too serious, but I don’t think that’s what I want anymore. I judged him. I assumed because of what he does for a living, he wasn’t capable of being a good guy, a family guy. He’s proven me wrong time after time. I like him, Mom. I like him a lot.”

“I like the way that sounds.” A husky voice behind me set every nerve in my body on fire. As I spun around, my breath caught in my throat.

Wow.

Brody looked like he’d just stepped out of an Armani magazine ad. He was leaning against the wall with one arm behind his back and the other holding onto the lapel of his jacket. The lines of the black tuxedo he wore were tailored perfectly to his body, accentuating every detail from his broad shoulders to his trim waistline. His normally untamed, short curls were slicked back just enough, his face silky smooth. Brody was this crazy, macho professional athlete, but tonight, he could easily have passed as a model.

“Wow. You look great, way better than great. So far past great, you can’t even see great anymore.” I was nervous and rambling. I couldn’t even think of a word to justify how amazing he looked.

“You … my girl, are breathtaking.” He took a step toward me, revealing that in the hand behind his back were a dozen perfect red roses. When he got to me, he lifted my hand to his mouth, gently brushing his lips across the top. “When we walk into that room, you’re going to put every other woman to shame. How lucky am I that you’ll be on my arm?”

My mom sniffed again as Piper came barging into the kitchen. “Mom, come look at this car. It’s the longest one I’ve ever seen!”

“What?” I looked from her to Brody, confused. “What is she talking about?”

Brody shrugged nonchalantly and cocked his head to the side. “The limo.”

“You rented a limo?”

“I wanted to give all my attention to you tonight, didn’t want to worry about driving. Come on.” He took my hand in his and pulled me toward the front door.

“Would you mind putting these in water for me?” I handed the roses to Mom on the way out of the kitchen, laughing at the tiny Twisted Petal logo on the plastic wrapper. Knowing Alexa, she went through dozens of roses to handpick the perfect ones for me.

The girls were standing in the front room, their faces fogging up the glass as they stared at the limousine.

“You guys wanna go for a quick ride?”

“Yay!” They squealed and jumped up and down like they would’ve if he’d bought them each a pony.

He opened the front door and stepped back, waiting for the three of us to go out. Once the girls hit the porch, they were out, sprinting across the yard like an Olympian ran for the finish line.

“Relax,” I said in my mom tone as I walked up behind them. “We’re going to sit nice in here and not break or ruin anything. Got it?”

They didn’t hear a word I said but nodded anyway as I pulled the limo door open and they climbed inside. Once they were in, I bent down to climb in myself and stopped when I saw the red rose petals sprinkled all over the floor of the limo. I sat down on the bench opposite Lucy and Piper and looked at Brody apologetically when he joined me, knowing this wasn’t the way he wanted the night to start out.

He shrugged it off and delivered his smile that could make all my troubles disappear. “I wanted you to feel like a princess tonight.” He nodded across at the girls who were excitedly pushing and spinning every knob and button they could find. “Now I have three princesses.” He leaned over to drop a kiss on my forehead, but I was done hiding things from the girls. I wrapped my hand around the back of his neck and redirected his mouth onto mine, meeting in a sweet, wonderful kiss.

No tongue—I wasn’t anywhere near ready to teach the girls about all that yet.

Brody asked the chauffeur to drive up and down the main road off our driveway for the next ten minutes. The girls either didn’t notice or didn’t care that we were driving in a big circle, they were too fascinated with the TV in the car, then the radio in the car, then the fridge in the car where they discovered bottled water they just had to have.

We dropped the girls off with Mom and we were on our way. Brody slid the cover off the built-in cooler in the limo and pulled out a bottle of Cristal. “Glad they didn’t find the good stuff.” He said, winking at me as he pulled out two champagne flutes and poured us each a glass.

I took the glass from him as he leaned over and kissed me softly.

“Here’s to a night we’ll never forget.”

Truer words were never spoken.

Our limo crawled to a stop at the curb of the Prescott Pavilion, and I was shocked at the chaotic scene of fancy cars, security guards and photographers.

“This is a charity dinner?” I asked, staring incredulously out the window. I don’t know what I had expected to see, but this definitely wasn’t it.

“Yep, this is it.” He squeezed my hand. “You ready?”

An attendant dressed in a crisp white shirt with a black tie and black pants rushed over and opened the door for us. Before I took the young man’s hand and got out, I glanced back at Brody to see if he was as nervous as I was. He calmly buttoned his jacket and winked at me.

“Let’s go.”

I stepped out and moved off to the side so Brody could follow.

“That was a nice view,” he whispered into my ear once he was out.

He offered up his arm and I hooked mine through immediately, smiling up at him. We walked up a few steps and heads started to turn; people started to whisper.

“Brody, people are staring.” I breathed, leaning in close.

“I know. It’s okay. We’ll walk the red carpet and go right inside. Just a few more minutes.”

“Red carpet?” My voice cracked in a panic. “You didn’t tell me about that.”

“Breathe.” He reached up squeezed my hand reassuringly. “I didn’t want you to freak.”

“Well, that worked out well, didn’t it?”

He stopped walking and pulled me over to the side. “Do you not want to do this? I can walk alone and meet you inside if you’d rather? I want you to walk with me, but I’m not going to force you.”

Dread whirled around in my stomach, knocking down everything in its path as it spun and grew like a twister in the summer heat. A month ago, the biggest decision of my life was what shade of pink to paint Lucy and Piper’s fingernails, now I had to decide whether or not to walk the red carpet at the charity dinner for my new boyfriend’s hockey team. It wasn’t the walking that made me nervous, that part was easy—one foot in front of the other. It was the people staring, whispering, and pointing that made me want to crawl out of my own skin.

I looked into Brody’s soothing green eyes as he bit his lip, patiently waiting for my answer. I was proud to be his girlfriend and I wanted him to know that. Soon enough, people would figure out who I was anyway. I might as well rip the Band-Aid off fast, right?

“Let’s do this,” I said, raising up on my tippy-toes and planting a kiss right on his beautiful mouth.

He palmed the back of my head and held me there, elongating our kiss before he rested his forehead on mine.