Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 89183 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89183 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
No. It couldn’t be him. What were the chances that she’d see a guy she went to high school with at Heathrow Airport?
Still, the sight of him took her back.
Josie had always been a bookworm, reading a book even as she went from class to class and definitely during lunch breaks. Back in high school, she’d had big glasses too. Brianna Sterling had made Josie a target right from freshman year. Bumbling Bookworm was what Brianna and her friends had called her. Then it just got shortened to Worm.
Josie had acted like it hadn’t bothered her, but of course it had. And through it all, Malcolm hadn’t seemed to know that Josie existed.
Why would he? She was two years behind him in school, and she certainly wasn’t going to any of the parties or dances that he was invited to. The only reason she’d gone to prom was because another senior that she was friendly with—and who also loved to read—had asked her to be his date. Although Josie guessed he had a bit of a crush on her, and she didn’t want to lead him on, she’d agreed to go. Just so she could see what a school dance was like before she graduated.
In some ways, it had been better than she thought. The hotel ballroom the prom committee had booked was better than a decorated gym would have been. It was also fun dressing up and going to a fancy dinner with her date, even if they were both pretty awkward and didn’t really know what to say to each other. At least, until they started talking about their favorite books.
In other ways, however, prom was way worse than anything she had imagined. Because when she looked at the couples dancing close, some of them kissing before they were pulled apart by the chaperones, it was hard to ignore the longing inside for someone who made her heart race. For someone she could laugh with and also spend time reading with, side by side on a comfy couch. It also hadn’t been great when her date made a move to kiss her. She hadn’t reacted quickly enough, so his wet lips and tongue found their way not only inside her mouth, but all over her cheeks too. She remembered pulling away and making a quick excuse about having to go to the bathroom.
Rather than going to the bathroom, however, she went outside the hotel to a private area down by a pretty little garden with a flower-covered pergola where she guessed they hosted weddings.
By that point in the evening, she didn’t want to go back inside. The music was too loud. Her high heels were hurting her feet. The ballroom was starting to smell like sweaty teenagers. And she really, really didn’t want to risk her date kissing her again.
That was when Malcolm Sullivan suddenly appeared. And that was also when everything changed. A few moments with her British crush gave her both her highest high and her lowest low.
All this time later, nearly fifteen years since Malcolm had kissed her—and she could still remember every detail of the kiss as though it had happened yesterday.
In any case, there was no way this man in the airport could be him. Seriously, what were the odds that one of the first people she’d see after landing in London would be Malcolm Sullivan? Or that so many years later, she’d recognize the boy she’d kissed so long ago?
Clearly, her tired, overstimulated imagination was playing tricks on her. She had never forgotten the way he’d drawn her into his arms, looked deeply into her eyes, then kissed her. For a few perfect moments, she’d felt safe and perfect and alive and beautiful in his arms.
Until it had all come crashing down when she learned the kiss was a prank. He’d mocked her for thinking the kiss was heartfelt by telling her he’d done it on a dare. That cruel joke had nearly destroyed her fifteen-year-old heart.
She’d told herself a million times over the years that she’d surely built up their kiss in her memory as being way better than it had been. Heck, she’d been fifteen years old. What fifteen-year-old being kissed by a British dreamboat wouldn’t have thought that he was everything? Except he definitely hadn’t been a dreamboat in the end. Not by a long shot.
But as the man shoved his phone into his pocket, and she could see his face better, it grew harder and harder to convince herself that he wasn’t Malcolm Sullivan. The height was correct, and though he’d filled out more, his body had the same athletic grace. His face was even more attractive, with a few laugh lines around the eyes.
She rubbed a hand over her own eyes. Jet lag. She probably should have slept more on the plane, but she’d been reading such a good book by a British author named Tasmina Perry that she hadn’t slept much at all.