I dragged a hand down my beard.

Vanessa never talked about him. Not once. I told her I’d watched her videos. Maybe she thought I knew already and it bothered her to bring him up so she just…didn’t?

I felt like a popped balloon. I just stood there, staring into her kitchen, listening to Becky gasp and moan about what an idiot I was for letting this happen.

“I have to go,” I mumbled, hanging up on her.

I put Grace in her swing and sat down heavily on the couch to google Drake—I got as far as typing in the first four letters of his name before Google suggested Drake Lawless and Vanessa Price. The other suggestions weren’t much of a comfort. There was Drake and Vanessa pregnant. Drake and Vanessa secret wedding. Drake and Vanessa get back together…

I poked around and found the video of how they met. It was his. He was BASE jumping off a waterfall in Venezuela and Vanessa was there doing her own video blog. She sprained her ankle and he carried her down the fucking mountain, just like Becky said.

Apparently Vanessa wasn’t initially interested, because the next three videos of his were him doing grand gestures to get her attention. He followed her to Brazil and rappelled onto her hotel balcony from the roof to ask her on a date. Then he flew her to a botanical garden in Cornwall to see the corpse flower bloom—and he actually piloted the plane. I was halfway through their romantic motorcycle ride through Peru when I decided I’d seen enough.

I knew Vanessa had another life, that her current situation wasn’t what she normally did with her days. But I don’t think I truly realized how exciting her other world was, how exotic her tastes were—both in travel and men. The guy lived in a yurt, for God’s sake. And Becky was right. I didn’t even fly.

Now what we did together looked boring and sad in comparison. Hanging out with me was probably something she did just to pass the time until she got back to what she’d rather be doing.

And I thought she said she’d never touched a six-pack before. What the fuck???

I tossed my phone on the couch and sat there feeling completely blindsided. And jealous. Ridiculously, wildly jealous.

Why hadn’t she talked to me about this? We talked about everything—except her channel. Maybe this was another topic she preferred didn’t bleed into the rest of her life. After all, it was over between them.

At least it had been before today.

Now I half wondered if she said she didn’t date because she was holding out for someone else. Holding out for him. Maybe he couldn’t stand being away from her and he was quitting stunts. Maybe this was him coming to tell her. Sweep her off her feet.

And now I was sitting here, babysitting for a woman I was in love with while she went out on a date with her ex.

And that’s truly what it was. I was in love with her.

The reality of this hit me like a gavel coming down. An instant call to attention. A hard stop.

I was in love with her.

But of course I was in love with her. Who wasn’t?

She could have any man she wanted. Any man at all.

Women like Vanessa were muses for artists and musicians. They became famous paintings and love ballads. They danced in the rain and ran away with princes who would give up their thrones to have them. They were the sirens that sailors wrote about with voices that could lure a man to his death.

She was a beautiful migratory bird with her wings clipped. And the second she could, she’d fly again. Out of St. Paul, away from me…

And probably back to him.

CHAPTER 20

THE LUCRATIVE INVESTMENT THAT THE EXPERTS DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT!

VANESSA

A crowd of fans had gathered outside of Vermilion. Someone must have leaked our location.

By myself, I was a draw. By himself, Drake was a massive draw. Together, we were a galaxy-level, defying-the-laws-of-physics, magnetic force. People were probably feeling the pull and getting into buses to drive in from out of state and they didn’t even know why.

Laird was getting his camera ready and Malcolm was putting new batteries in my mic.

Drake was drinking some banana flip thing with a sprig of pine in it across from me. “You’re doing a great job with Grace,” he said, taking out the garnish and setting it on a plate. “But you should really use cloth diapers. Reduce your carbon footprint.”

“I don’t have a washing machine, remember?” I said. “I use Adrian’s and I seriously doubt he wants me washing dirty diapers in it.”

Malcolm snorted. “That guy would let you eat crackers in his bed.”

I laughed dryly. “Oh yeah? I kissed him last night and he pushed me off him. So riddle me that.”

“He pushed you off him?” Malcolm asked, clipping the tiny mic to the front of my dress.

“Yeah. Like you know how you act when you look down and you see a spider on you? And you’re like, ‘Oh my God! A spider!’ and you hop off the sofa and do a little freak-out dance and then run from the room? It was like that.”

“Come on, it was not,” Drake said with his amused smile.

“Okay, it wasn’t quite that dramatic. But the sentiment was the same.” I scoffed. “Why does everyone keep telling me this guy is into me? Like, literally everyone I know in the last twenty-four hours had sworn that he can’t keep his eyes off me. Honestly, if it wasn’t for that, and liquor, and the super sweet ‘you are the breeze’ thing he said to me on my sofa last night, I might not have made a total ass of myself. I blame all of you for this.”

Drake smiled. “You’re blaming us? I hadn’t even met him until today. We weren’t even there.”

I put a hand on my chest. “Well, it’s not my fault. I wasn’t there either. It was Drunk Vanessa, who is a totally different person and shouldn’t be held accountable for her actions.”

Drake laughed.

I sighed. “Do I catch him checking me out sometimes? Sure. And does he like to spend time with me? Totally. But thinking my ass looks nice in my jeans and enjoying my company are very different from wanting to date me and my fifty percent chance of dying by thirty. It’s official,” I mumbled. “I’m probably never having sex again. My last sexual encounter will probably be with TSA.”

Malcolm laughed.

“He seems good with the baby,” Drake offered.