Somehow she’d pull herself together enough to get through it. The coffee shop was well lit and small enough for conversations to be overheard, so he couldn’t get too heated, and she’d be guaranteed to keep her clothes on.

“Hold on.” Heath whipped out his cell.

She wanted to scream. Or cry.

This time the Python stayed inside. “Coop, she’ll meet you, but only in public—Big Shoulders Coffee tomorrow afternoon—and only if you agree not to contact her again after that.” Heath listened, tapped his foot. “Uh-huh . . . Uh-huh . . . All right.” He hung up and looked over at her. “It has to be today. And not at Big Shoulders. He has a meeting at city hall, so he’ll see you in Daley Plaza right afterward. Two o’clock. It doesn’t get much more public than that. I think you should take the deal.”

How could winning matter so much? He already had her heart. Now he wanted to stomp it to death.

“Agree?” Heath said.

Her shoulders slumped. “Agree.”

“I’ll never complain about livestock again,” he muttered as he crossed to the door and let himself out.

She shot across the rug, flung the door back open, and yelled into the parking lot. “I hope you choke on your blood vegetables!”

He turned and gave her a thumbs-up, whatever that meant.

23

Piper marched toward the Daley Center as if she were heading to her execution. Anger would have been a more useful emotion than the panic that held her in its grip. She needed to get through this with at least a shred of dignity intact. No matter how much she loved him, how much she’d yearn to fall into his arms, she’d have to hang tough.

An alien-like Picasso sculpture dominated the large plaza in front of the thirty-one-story Daley Center building. Picasso himself had donated the sculpture to the city, and once an artist of his stature handed over such a thing, nobody had the nerve to return it. As Piper approached, the sculpture’s two metal eyes glowered at her, and she glowered right back. Glowering was better than running away.

The wind cracked the American flag, and women’s long hair blew backward. Her zippered sweater wasn’t warm enough for such a cold, damp day. She should have worn her puffy coat, but that would have required thought.

Coop was already there. He stood in the shadow of the Picasso with his head down, unrecognized by the people scurrying past. For a moment, she forgot to breathe.

He saw her, but he didn’t approach. Instead, he waited for her to come to him. He wore a dark, formal suit, white shirt, and repp-striped necktie. She stopped a few steps away, far enough to keep from curling into his chest. “You win,” she said stonily. “Say whatever it is you want to say, and then leave me alone.”

He gazed at her as if he were memorizing her face. She waited for something profound to come out of his mouth, but it didn’t. “What have you been up to?” he said.

“Avoiding you. It’s been a full-time job.”

He nodded, as if he were agreeing with her. He was watching her so intensely, she had to look away. “Get it over with, Coop. Why did you send your shark of an agent after me?”

“I needed to talk to you, and you were making that impossible.”

She couldn’t soften in front of him. “I’m here. Say whatever it is you want to say.”

“You might not like it.”

“Then maybe you’d better keep it to yourself.”

“I can’t do that. It’s . . .” He hunched his shoulders against the wind. “It’s tough, that’s all.”

She thought she understood. “You want to end this on your terms, not on mine, so go ahead. Break up with me. You’ll feel better if it comes from you, and I can handle it.”

“I don’t want to break up with you.”

“Then what do you want?” she cried. “I won’t move in with you!”

“I get that.” A pair of pigeons scuttled between them. “I know you’re not strong enough to say how you feel about me, so I’m going to tell you how I feel about you.”

He was accusing her of being weak. Nobody did that, and she went on the offensive, throwing his words back at him. “You already did. You’re maybe a little bit in love with me, remember?”

“I only said it that way to keep from scaring you off.”

He’d thrown her off balance.

“You’re skittish about us,” he said. “You have been from the beginning, and if I’d told you the truth, you would have run. You still might, because I only think I know how you feel about me. I can read your mind about nearly everything, but not about this.”

She took a bittersweet morsel of comfort from knowing she’d protected herself, at least a little. “I’m not following this conversation, but when have I been able to follow anything you and your agent doppelgänger do?”

“I love you, Piper. I didn’t fall a little bit in love with you. I fell head over heels.”

The wind screeched in her ears, and her stomach pitched.

He didn’t move. Didn’t touch her. A chunk of her hair whipped against her cheek.

“I must have known for a long time,” he said quietly, “but I didn’t understand what I was feeling until that bastard had his gun on you, and I felt my chest crack open.”

She shoved her hands in the pockets of her sweater, not believing, fighting the lure of hope. “An adrenaline rush can make you feel lots of strange things.”

“I know all about adrenaline rushes, and they go away. My feelings aren’t going to do that.”

The bitterness of reality crept up on her. “It hasn’t even been two weeks. Give it time.”

“Can you really be so cynical?”

She didn’t feel cynical. She felt as fragile as spun sugar. She’d pushed his champion’s back to the wall, and he was fighting his way out in the only way he knew, by brute force.

“Take a risk, Piper,” he said. “I’m not Duke Dove. Tell me how you feel—the truth. Either you love me or you don’t. Dig deep. I need to know.”

She didn’t have to dig deep. But saying it aloud was impossible. Yet, if she didn’t, wasn’t she taking the coward’s way out?

She was hard-core. Hanging tough was how she lived. She shoved her fists deeper in her pockets. “Yes, I love you. Sure, I do. How could I not?” She threw the words in his face. “I love you enough not to let this go any further. We’re too different to have a future, so what’s the point?”