Breathe Again Read Online Free Page B

to
acknowledge him, standing next to me. I was secretly hoping that he wouldn’t
notice me, or didn’t remember me, at least. The incident was only two days ago, but I was still an insignificant girl in a crowd of
other women that threw themselves at him. And I was most definitely not about
to throw myself at him, even if he was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.
    “Hi, Mellie,” he said, casting a shadow over my table.
    I kept my eyes on my book for a few more seconds before
looking up. He was wearing dark jeans and a T-shirt, one that showed off the
muscles in his arms and shoulders. Thank God he had on a pair of dark,
reflective aviators; I swear I would have melted into a puddle at his feet if
he’d looked at me with those blue eyes. I struggled to sit still, my stomach
unsettled with those damn things called butterflies.
    “Hello, Jackson,” I said, picking up my wineglass to take a
sip so I had an excuse to look away. He just stayed silent, waiting for me to
finish and look back up at him.
    I saw him eyeing the empty seat across from me, and for a
second I wondered if he was going to actually ask me if it was taken.
    Instead, he skipped the question altogether and just sat
down.
    I raised my eyebrow at him. “So,” I said, clearing my throat.
“This is weird.”
    He smirked, which sent my heart into overdrive. I could
almost hear it sputter to a stop, and I hated myself for it.
    “What is?” he asked, that fucking crooked smile still on his
face. He tilted his head to one side, as if he were trying to goad me into
losing it, right then and there.
    It pissed me off, and I glared at him. There was no way that
I was going to let him turn me, Melanie Devlin, queen of practicality and
level-headedness, into a hormonal teenager.
    “Why are you here, Jackson?” I asked, trying to keep my voice
level, despite the irritation I so desperately wanted to express.
    “Why not?” he shot back, raising his eyebrow at me. And then
he took his sunglasses off. Goddammit, he took his sunglasses off.
    I poured myself another glass of wine and drained half the
glass quickly. “I’ve been in California for exactly seven months, and I have
yet to see any celebrities. At all. And now, here you are. Again.”
    The smirk on his face softened, but he still stared at me
with those eyes. Those incredible, deep-blue eyes.
    “I wanted to come see you. Apologize for what happened on
Saturday. See if I could make it up to you.”
    “You already apologized to me on Saturday. There was no need
to come find me.”
    “I know, but I still feel bad. I can’t get the look on your
face out of my head. I feel like an ass.”
    I frowned and played with the rim of my wineglass. “How did
you know where to find me, anyway?” I asked, keeping my voice down when I saw a
group of girls come down the street. I watched as Jackson looked down and to
his right, keeping his face hidden from them. Thankfully, they were too busy
talking amongst themselves to notice the star in their presence.
    “I asked Meredith what bakery you worked at. It wasn’t that
difficult; I figured you would have to be here sometime. Unless they fired you,
which I’m really hoping they didn’t.”
    I shook my head. “No, my cousin owns the café. I told her
what happened and she just laughed and told me not to worry about it.
Apparently, it was much more amusing to her than it was to me,” I said
bitterly.
    Jackson choked out a laugh, and I glared at him. “Sorry,” he
said, his eyes gleaming. “I don’t mean to laugh at you. Really, I don’t. I just
can’t get the image of you covered in frosting out of my mind. It was cute.”
    I couldn’t stop the blush that crept up my neck. Did he really
just call me cute? I finished my wine and quickly refilled it. At this rate, I
was going to need to get another bottle.
    “Aren’t you going to offer me any?” he said, gesturing to the
bottle.
    This man. This infuriating, sexy man. “Seriously?” I asked.
“You