“All he knew was that she was beautiful...and that, somehow, despite everything he’d done to try to stop it from happening, she’d managed to steal his heart one sassy smile at a time.”

“Because if he wasn’t really, really careful, Lori Sullivan was just going to keep stealing his heartone sentence, one meal, one smile at time”

“And it was why he loved her. One of the reasons, anyway. Because he also loved her brattycomebacks. He loved the way she put her entire self behind whatever she was doing, even if she had noidea what she was doing and was getting it all wrong. He loved the way she danced as if she wasconnected to the clouds and the sun and the rainbows.And he loved that she’d stormed into his life and turned everything upside down before he ever hada chance to stop her.”

“God, the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life was giving up what he wanted so that the woman heloved could get what she needed.”

“She’d painted her nails with rainbow stripes and it occurred to him that Vicki was just as beautiful and mysterious as a rainbow.One he’d been chasing for years without ever coming close to reaching the pot of gold at the end.”

“And still, even when he’d told her how he felt about her, and that he wanted their fake relationship to be real, she’d held herself back out of fear that their friends-to-lovers story was too good to be anything but fiction.”

“You never told me how the story ends, Gabe." She held her breath, waiting for his response.His expression held all the love and desire she knew he felt for her."It doesn't.”