Falling for Fitz Read Online Free PDF Page A

day?”
asked Fitz, his voice dry with derision.
    She turned from Josh to look into
Fitz’s dark aqua eyes. “We haven’t set a date yet.”
    “ You’re not wearing a ring
either.”
    “ He hasn’t given me one
yet.”
    “ Has he asked you to marry
him yet ?” asked
Fitz with a snort.
    “ Yes, he has.” Her eyes
flashed. “And I said yes.”
    Fitz’s eyes narrowed and he huffed,
crossing his arms over his chest and looking away. “Should’ve given
you a ring.”
    “ This judgment from your
vast experience with proposing?”
    She was trying to be sarcastic and
light, but his eyes cut to hers, quick and furious, and she
realized what she’d said a second too late.
    “ I’ve only been engaged
once in my life, Daisy.”
    Her cheeks flushed hot, and she could
feel the color creeping up her neck, into her face, until she was
sure she was beet red.
    “ You know better than
anyone that it didn’t work out.”
    She’d been holding her breath, but her
lungs ached, so she let it out slowly, letting the hot air blow
past her dry lips raggedly. Her plan certainly wasn’t going very
well.
    Fitz, from whom she’d expected very
little tonight, was coming through for her with flying colors.
While he was utterly gorgeous, he was also terse, borderline
belligerent, and patently uncomfortable sitting beside her. He’d
probably gone to the bathroom for a moment only to come back and
groan that he’d been trapped into sitting next to her for
dinner.
    And yet, for Daisy, their history felt
more alive than it had in a decade, swirling around her with the
conflicting feelings of sun-kissed summer lust, unforeseen disaster
and furious recrimination. Her attraction to him, it seemed, was
unchanged and just as charged, despite what had happened nine years
ago and despite the nine years that had lapsed without any contact.
Every time he shifted in his seat, she panted. When their skin
touched, long dormant muscles deep inside her body pulsed with
recognition and need. She wanted him just as much now as she had
that night by the pool; just as much as she had every time she
allowed herself to think about him since, which was pathetically
often. She took another sip of wine, unable to eat anything with a
million butterflies in her stomach.
    And all he felt for her, as far as she
could tell, not counting the way his eyes had quickly checked out
her “cookies,” was some leftover, misguided sense of obligation.
Maybe if she could steer the conversation to safer waters she could
somehow reassure him that he didn’t owe her anything.
    “ Let’s leave the past in
the past, shall we?” she finally said softly, swallowing the wine
over the lump in her throat.
    “ Fine,” he said, sitting
back from the table as his untouched salad was cleared
away.
    She might make him uncomfortable, but
they shared family in common—or would soon, thought Daisy, catching
a loving look between Emily and Barrett. They needed to get past
this awkwardness so that when they occasionally ran into one
another at events, like Emily and Barrett’s inevitable wedding or
when she was visiting her aunt and uncle at Haverford Park, their
past wouldn’t haunt them both. She was willing to offer as much
polite conversation as it took to get them there.
    She fixed a bright smile on her face
and turned to face him. “So, what about you? What have you been up
to?”
    “ I work at English & Sons ,” he
said tersely.
    “ You were pre-law the last
time I saw you.”
    “ I got my J.D.,” he said,
indicating that he’d finished his legal studies. “I’m the Chief
Compliance Officer for the company now.”
    “ So fancy,” she said,
trying to keep her tone light, despite the fact that he was
refusing to look at her.
    “ Just making sure we don’t
go to jail.”
    “ Would that be likely? What
kinds of illicit deals are you guys doing, anyway?”
    He released a quick, surprised chuckle
and turned to her, looking so much like the Fitz she’d fallen in
love