When It's Love by Bella Andre, Lucy Kevin Page A

have sounded like a practiced line, but for all her wariness, she couldn't shake the sense that Nicholas truly meant it.
    “I’m sorry to bother you so early.” Rachel felt more than a little nervous now that they were face-to-face again. “I know you're probably just about to leave to meet with the crew.”
    “Given the way you saved the last two shoots, I don’t think anyone is going to complain about you showing up to chat with me for a few minutes this morning. Especially when seeing you always puts a smile on my face.”
    But Rachel wasn’t so sure that his smile would remain. Not after she made herself tell him what she knew she needed to say. Or maybe he would just smile and then move on to the next thing by telling himself that “it would all work out” the same way he seemed to handle everything else in his life.
    She took a deep breath before saying, “The last few days have been great. I’ve enjoyed them a lot, and so has Charlotte.”
    “The two of you deserve to enjoy every day, Rachel. What you have is so special.”
    She shook her head. “Please, Nicholas. This isn’t easy for me, and when you say such sweet things, it only makes it harder. You see, Charlotte’s getting confused. She’s been asking about you, wondering where you are all the time.”
    “I know exactly how she feels. I want to see more of her—and you—too,” Nicholas said. “Why is that a problem?”
    “Because she’s gotten it into her head that you and I are involved.”
    “I'd like to be,” he said softly. “And when you're not trying so hard to fight it, I'm pretty sure you would, too.”
    Feeling as though he could see right through her, she blurted, “Everything we've done together the past few days has been fun, but we both know that any connection you and I have is just one big accident. I was simply doing some favors for my sister, and they spiraled out of control.”
    “Sometimes,” Nicholas said as he moved closer, “being out of control can be a good thing.”
    Once upon a time, that was exactly what she'd thought. But she'd learned better by now, which was why she told him, “Only if there’s a safety net there to catch you when things go wrong.”
    “I will always be there to catch you if you'll let me.”
    Rachel flashed back to the moment when she’d been hanging from the cliff and how he'd kept her perfectly safe by holding her steady from up above. And then, afterward, how close—how very close—they’d come to kissing at the playground.
    Knowing she couldn't afford to let him touch her, because she wouldn’t be able to maintain her resolve if he did, she made herself take a step back from him rather than closer, the way she so desperately wanted to. One touch would easily be enough to have her begging for more.
    She swallowed hard before making herself finish saying what she'd come to say. “I’m not suggesting that we should completely avoid one another while you're still here on the island. I just need us to keep things simpler and easier for Charlotte to understand. Because it isn’t fair to confuse her by letting her think that we’re more than we are. I need to be able to be honest with her about what’s happening.”
    “If you really want to be honest,” he said in a voice that was far more serious than any she'd heard yet from him, “then you need to admit how much I already mean to you. And you also need to understand how much you already mean to me.”
    “Just because we've had fun together on the island doesn't mean we're right for one another. You take risks for a living, while I make a living out of avoiding risks!”
    Nicholas finally closed the rest of the distance between them and took her hands in his. “Has it ever occurred to you that the reason your daughter thinks there’s something between us is because kids see what’s really there?”
    Rachel shook her head. “No, you’re wrong. There can't be anything between us.”
    “Yes, there can,” Nicholas